Hello all,
I have a conundrum with a donation. One of our donor churches sent their normal monthly gift, and somehow it ended up in the inbox of the Church that operates on our university campus. the Church on our campus rents the space from us and there are members who are staff at the university and students who attend there, but organizationally and financially we are completely separate entities; our denomination is the same but otherwise we're separate and distinct.
The Church deposited the check to
their account -- but it was written out to us (the name on the check wasn't even their Church name). I'm not sure how the bank accepted the deposit since it wasn't written out to them (though the address is the same) but now I have a "reimbursement" check from the Church to us in the amount of the donor church's check, with a copy of the check, and an explanation of what happened. Technically, the check was always supposed to go directly to us and then we would issue tax credit for it. Now, I'm not really sure how to record it. I'm inclined to just record the "reimbursement" check as a check f
rom the donor church with extra notes as to what happened. However, I don't want to incorrectly account for the donation. This donor is a church (nonprofit) itself and wouldn't claim anything in their taxes, but we still want to give tax credit where credit is due, legally speaking, and also have the gift history of
what was actually given to the university to be accurate, for the purpose of stewarding the donor relationship. It's a bit messy.
I welcome any advice from the trusted community!
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Melissa Rufener
Coordinator of Advancement Services
Life Pacific University
mrufener@lifepacific.eduhttp://www.lifepacific.edu------------------------------