FundSvcs Community

We have been asked to determine the best way to deal with this situation – a new one for us. Our basic question – Is this a donation? We are giving background about this situation.

The Career Center has "a speaker coming in who would like to donate their honorarium back to the university.  They don't want to be paid the funds at all and I asked if they'd like to donate them back instead.  Is there a way for them to donate without having to be paid and then donating back?  I'm asking because they didn't want to deal with the payment process at all so my solution of donating back my end up being more time-consuming for them if we have to pay them to begin with."

1.    The speaker refuses the honorarium (University of Washington and Saint Louis University) in writing prior to the event. Can this be considered a donation? If so, how can we accept these funds (refused honorarium)?

a.    Note, our Foundation accepts all charitable donations.

b.   Scenarios suggested:

                                         i.    If a donation,

1.    the Career Center cuts a check (to whom?) which is endorsed to the Foundation;

2.    Is there another way to transfer the money?

                                       ii.    If not a donation, should the Career Center have some documentation that the funds were not paid to the speaker? Asking because this question was raised.

a.     If needed, we will consult with University Finance. 

Thanks for your help!

To tag onto Amy's comment, as one of those vendor partners, at StratusLIVE we absolutely look for feedback like this to guide our product direction, both through direct conversations with our partners and through the steady flow of conversation on forums like this. Most of us here have previously worked in non-profit shops of various shapes and sizes, so we genuinely know the pain of trying to use systems that are too 'rigid' for scenarios like this that pop up during the year. We're always looking for ways to maintain the right balance of structure and flexibility when designing our CRM.

On the specific topic of standalone soft credits, you'll be happy to know that we do support this in our platform (we've actually always had it designed this way). In a case like this a standalone soft credit could be applied to the speaker's contact record either manually or as part of an automated workflow, which in turn could be used for recognition, etc. Some of our clients will apply a similar logic to track soft credit values in lieu of volunteer hours, just as another example.

Glad to see we're not the only ones who find value in having this feature :)

Best,
Brendan