FundSvcs Community

Greetings! 

We have been asked to fundraise on behalf of another, smaller 501c(3), and there is some confusion on whether this should be booked as a pass through or not.

1. This is for a special gala, entirely under their name.
2. Our events team will assist on the business end, including creating & sending invites, invite lists from our donor pool, etc.
3. We will be accepting donations directly, with payments made out to us.
4. Tax receipts will be provided to the donors under our name, with a statement that it is "on behalf of" the smaller org.
5. A lump sum will be passed on to the smaller org after all funds have been raised.
6. We will be adding a 5% "service fee" that we will keep to cover expenses, etc. It is still unclear whether the 5% will be added to the top or taken out ($105/$95).

Our finance team is insisting these are processed as pass throughs and not entered as contributions. However, if we are accepting the contributions under our name, checks are made out to us, cards are charged by our accounts, and we're providing receipts under our name, isn't that inherently a contribution to our organization?

Finance is arguing that because we do not have discretion over the use of the funds, that it is not a contribution. That has merit, but all other items above point towards us logging it as a contribution.

If this does end up being a pass through, with our Tessitura CRM we would enter it as an order on the ticketing side. It would reside in a separate area of the constituent record and not exist as a contribution in our system at all.

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks so much!

Greetings! 

We have been asked to fundraise on behalf of another, smaller 501c(3), and there is some confusion on whether this should be booked as a pass through or not.

1. This is for a special gala, entirely under their name.
2. Our events team will assist on the business end, including creating & sending invites, invite lists from our donor pool, etc.
3. We will be accepting donations directly, with payments made out to us.
4. Tax receipts will be provided to the donors under our name, with a statement that it is "on behalf of" the smaller org.
5. A lump sum will be passed on to the smaller org after all funds have been raised.
6. We will be adding a 5% "service fee" that we will keep to cover expenses, etc. It is still unclear whether the 5% will be added to the top or taken out ($105/$95).

Our finance team is insisting these are processed as pass throughs and not entered as contributions. However, if we are accepting the contributions under our name, checks are made out to us, cards are charged by our accounts, and we're providing receipts under our name, isn't that inherently a contribution to our organization?

Finance is arguing that because we do not have discretion over the use of the funds, that it is not a contribution. That has merit, but all other items above point towards us logging it as a contribution.

If this does end up being a pass through, with our Tessitura CRM we would enter it as an order on the ticketing side. It would reside in a separate area of the constituent record and not exist as a contribution in our system at all.

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks so much!