FundSvcs Community

If you are a higher education institution, where do donation payments get mailed/sent and who handles the deposit going to the bank?  I've been seeing that some have the money go directly to the fundraising department who then deposits and reports to the Finance department what was deposited and designations.  At others, all the money is received into a central business/finance office and the fundraising department is notified what donations they have received and then the fundraising department processes and reports back to Finance the designations.

Is there an industry best practice?  Are there arguments either way?

Thanks for your input!

Lisa Geiersbach

Northwood University

Hi Lisa,

I think cash handling in mid to large size shops will necessarily be different in their approach because of issues of scale.  In my smaller shop, we emphasize separation of duties, reconciliation, and ensuring we know who our donors are. 

I have one gift processor-- to give you a sense of our size. Paper gifts come to advancement services where they are immediately batched and scanned, then given to the business office for same-day deposit.

When I first arrived here, departments were taking gifts directly to the business office. It caused some (fund) stewardship issues, kept us from being able to accurately record the giving history of our donors and provide proper receipting/stewardship. We now have departments bring their  gifts/sponsorships/fundraising event revenues -- or suspected gifts-- directly to us, so we can make a determination. Of course we work closely with the business office to get items to the correct first step.
I hope that helps.
Susan Quinn