Hi Lora,
We would set up separate entities for different addresses with the exception of home office addresses. In Affinaquest we would use Relationships and relate a parent and subsidiary with Account roles of "Organization" and "Subsidiary" the idea being that "Organization" is inherently the parent in the relationship when the other is "Subsidiary." Then in hierarchies that have more than two levels, one Account might have a role as "Organization" to "Subsidiary" with one account but be just the opposite in their relationship with another Account.
Regarding the 3rd party companies that facilitate matching gifts but technically operate as donor advised funds; we are recording them as donor advised funds. Even if you don't use "Matching Gift" as a method, you can still link it to a matched donation so you could go that route and drive reporting based on records that have a matched gift reference ID if are looking for ways to group these together.
Regarding the comparison to employee payroll deductions that come through those same companies. Since we are managing both scenarios as donor advised funds, and thus not using the matching gift method, we would handle them in the same batch. We would HC the DAF and soft credit the donor/advisor on the gift transaction and then for the "match" we would hard credit the DAF and soft credit the donor/advisor and the matching company. I'm sure there are multiple ways to handle these situations, with none being perfect, but that is how we are doing it.
Hope that helps,
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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Original Message:
Sent: 10/18/2023 2:29:00 PM
From: Lora Miller
Subject: Hierarchy of corporate records in conversion to Affinaquest
Our institution is in the process of changing systems, we are in Ellucian Advance and will be going to Affinaquest. We are currently evaluating how to establish a corporate hierarchy as we move into Affinaquest. Our current business process is to establish a new organization/foundation/etc. entity in Advance when we receive a donation for an organization with an address different than the one listed for the organization already in the system. Is this best practice?
For those institutions that have created a corporate/business hierarchy, how have you gone about that process?
- How did you decide which record to use as the "parent" organization / top of the hierarchy (corporate headquarters, branch working with your development staff)?
- How do you handle capturing company giving associated with 3rd Party Vendors (i.e., Benevity, YourCause, Cybergrants, etc.)?
- Do you handle matching funds differently than the employee payroll donations, when received through a 3rd Party Vendor?
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Lora Miller
James Madison University
mille7la@jmu.edu
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