I think the confusion is that there is no "gift" today if you won't see any money until the donor dies. Those are called bequest expectancies, are entered similarly to a pledge, but without and due date. They are also revocable and counted separately from all other transactions.
Here, it sounds like the donor is making a pledge, due in full in 2029. What they have done with the bank is made sure that if they die before 2029, you will still get what is owed by 2029.
I would record this as a standard pledge. If the donor dies before 2029, I would not write the balance off but, instead, pay it off with the realized bequest.
John
John Taylor Principal, John H. Taylor Consulting, LLC 919.816.5903 Big ideas; small keyboard
Original Message:
Sent: 4/14/2026 5:44:00 PM
From: Amber Gichard
Subject: Planned Gift definition (versus Pledge)?
How are folks defining "Planned Gift" in your CRM? Our team treats these transactions differently from a true Pledge in our CRM versus our financial database and have usually tied PGs in our system to estate gifts and/or gifts being triggered by the donor passing.
We have a donor who is working on a new fund that he plans to fund in 2029, and has set up the gift with his bank so we get it regardless of if he is still living or not. To me, I think this is a pledge, but am not sure if it is actually a PG instead since we've never had a formal definition of PGs...
What are others doing? Do you have a formal definition for Planned Gifts?
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Amber Gichard
University of Alaska Foundation
argichard@alaska.edu
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