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  • 1.  Comprehensive Donor Counting

    Posted 07-13-2026 04:11 PM

    Hi All,

    We recently implemented a new CRM and have begun automatically soft crediting spouses of legal donors (unless requested otherwise) for all contributions. This means that our reporting shows a marked increase in soft credit donor counts this year and we are having discussions around how to calculate our comprehensive donor count (which will also appear to have increased dramatically if we include soft credits) for internal audiences. 

    Given that VSE guidance now requires separate reporting of number of hard credit alum donors vs. additional soft credits, I'm wondering how other institutions are handling their comprehensive donor count internally? Do you count the soft credited spouse as a separate donor, i.e. counting the household as 2? If we were to do this, we would of course issue a note to internal audiences explaining the change. And/or how have others messaged this change to internal consumers of reporting, including Boards of Trustees? 

    Many thanks for any insights you may share!

    Warmly,

    Moira



    ------------------------------
    Moira Pulitzer-Kennedy
    Mount Holyoke College
    mpulitzerk@mtholyoke.edu
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Comprehensive Donor Counting

    Posted 07-15-2026 04:35 PM
    Good afternoon, Moira.

    Congrats on your new CRM implementation! I'm not sure if there is one definition for internal comprehensive donor count that is used across the board by institutions. It depends on what questions you are trying to answer. VSE has its' own reasons for how it counts donors that is largely guided by a desire to maintain the integrity of their data and ensure that their users know they are comparing apples to apples for benchmarking.

    I think that, in general, if you are wanting a total number of donors to report externally, most probably would include spouses. However, in your context, you mention internally. If so, I would start with what questions you are trying to answer. If you are counting donors to assess alumni participation, definitely you would want to include both spouses since a number of your households are going to have two alums. If you are counting donors to assess things like donor retention, acquisition, re-activation, or similar, it might make sense to count only households.

    Many newer CRMs now include a type of credit called "recognition credit" that is geared towards solving this issue. In that context, recognition credit is given to both the hard credit and soft credit donors on a transaction. In those cases, soft credit is then limited to scenarios where you receive a gift from an organization that you want to link to an individual. If your new CRM has the capability to generate and store recognition credit, I would encourage you to leverage it.

    Best to you and your new CRM,

    John Smilde

    Director of Development Operations | Cato Institute

    1000 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001

    jsmilde@cato.org

    202.216.1451






  • 3.  RE: Comprehensive Donor Counting

    Posted 07-17-2026 04:49 PM

    Hi John,

    Many thanks for your response! This is very helpful and much appreciated.

    Best,

    Moira



    ------------------------------
    Moira Pulitzer-Kennedy
    Mount Holyoke College
    mpulitzerk@mtholyoke.edu
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


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