I work at an organization whose majority of donations are in honor or memory of someone else. Without RE's Tribute Module, recording gifts attached with an honor/memoriam is difficult as the recipient also requires a letter notifying them of the gift.

To record these gifts, we soft credit the honor recipient and create a 2-page receipt/acknowledgment combo letter: the first page is a tax receipt/acknowledgment that goes to the donor; the second page is a letter notifying the honor recipient of the donor's gift with no gift information.

Is soft crediting the proper way to record this in the absence of the Tribute Module? In tax language, I know this is certainly incorrect. I am trying to find a better solution to make reporting simpler but I'm stumped... 

Hi, Joanne.

It really depends on the number of tribute gifts you receive. If you receive a large number, it could become really difficult to track them as Solicitors and it would make it confusing if you have real solicitors and wish to track their performances.

The process of tracking tributes gifts as Soft Credits and properly coding the Tribute record is a good solution when you do not have the Tribute module. If reporting is where you are having difficulty, you may want to think about adding a gift attribute to these gifts and use it to filter and select the soft credit. I'm not sure what other issues you are experiencing, but a custom Crystal Report may help with reporting on your Tribute Gifts as well as listing your Tributes.

Let us know if you have additional questions.

Thanks,
Lyn Rowland
Professional Services Manager
Omatic Software