FundSvcs Community

Hi All - We do regular bundled asks in cases where we know the annual fund gift will be at least 4 figures each year.

We are a private school, so multi-year commitments to our capital and annual funds (and sometimes depending upon the donor's interests gala dollars) work well for us.

As a school, we have an ongoing interactive relationship with our parent donors (we see them regularly on campus at carpool, they attend school events, they volunteer for projects, serve on committees, etc.) so we don't have the issue with reduced communication another agency might have. And when we ask for a bundled commitment it's a substantial ask. Yesterday for example, I received a bundled pledge of $500,000 to our capital campaign to be paid over five years, along with an annual fund pledge of $10,000 each year for the next five years.

In our database, our auditor has us record this as one $500,000 pledge made in the current fiscal year with a five year payment schedule for capital, and five individual annual fund pledges recorded forward in fiscal years to be paid off each year ($10K in 2023, $10K in 2024, etc.) -Carol

Carol Nash (she/her)

Advancement Services Manager

The Awty International School

7455 Awty School Lane  |  Houston, Texas 77055

Direct: 713-328-5861  |  www.awty.org

Houston's Premier International School

REFUSE. REDUCE. REUSE. RECYCLE.

Hi Robin,

As others have already pointed out, most institutions would enter the annual fund gift/pledge as a separate entry from the capital gift. While I don't know the exact reason for your asking this question, it sounds like maybe your campaign is built and marketed around themes, each of which may include combinations of annual giving, capital, endowment, etc... and so your being asked to track fundraising by themes as well.

For sake of example, your campaign might have themes like: Reducing Student Costs, Creating Research Opportunities, Technology Modernization, and Building Improvements and gift officers may want to talk to donors regarding the themes they are most interested in which may combine capital, annual, endowment, etc...

If this is the case, it's best to add a campaign theme code at the designation/allocation level that allows you to track and report this way while still allowing you to also track fundraising by the traditional areas of giving. All the modern CRMs should allow you to do this pretty easily. If annual fund is integrated into multiple themes, you may need to create multiple annual fund designations to go along with each campaign theme and use more of an "annual giving" vs. "annual fund" approach. When I have done this in the past, it was basically a couple day project getting all the legacy designations mapped with the correct campaign code and then new designations were coded as they arose.

As John T. already noted, this does not always sell as well as hoped, for a variety of reasons, so you want to be prepared to also handle them separately and still have things roll up properly.

Best to you,

John Smilde

Director of Gifts and Records Administration

Advancement and Alumni Relations

George Mason University

4400 University Drive, MSN 1A3

Fairfax, VA 22030

703.993.8680

jsmilde@gmu.edu

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