Focus On: Pledge Tracking

Welcome to our Focus On series. In this series of tutorials, we will show you a few overlooked features in our system. We encourage you to print this document to follow along through the lesson.

Tutorial: Pledge Tracking

Pledges are promises to contribute to a committee. BackOffice allows for Pledge Tracking so you can see who has promised to make a contribution and who has fulfilled that promise. Pledges are a new way to stimulate your contributor base and raise more money!

User permission must be set to add for pledge access in order to use this tutorial. Talk to your administrator for more information.

In this tutorial, you will learn:

Lesson 1: How to set-up pledge tracking in your system.

Lesson 2: How to add a pledge to an Individual or Organization record.

Lesson 3: How to indicate when a pledge has been fulfilled or written off.

Lesson 4: How to run the Pledge Communication Report of your pledges.

Lesson 5: How to use Custom Reports and Pledges.

Lesson 1: How to set-up pledge tracking in your system

Pledge Tracking is offered with every CompleteCampaigns.com BackOffice database. However, in order for Pledge Tracking to appear as an option, you need to turn it on in your system.

To turn on Pledge Tracking:

1. Go to System à Options.

2. In the box Other Options, check the box next to Use Pledge Tracking.

3. Click Save at the top.

Your pledge tracking is now on and ready to use.

Lesson 2: How to add a pledge to an Individual or Organization record.

Now that you have the pledge tracking ability, you’ll want to start adding pledges to records.

To add a Pledge to an Individual or Organization:

1. Click on Add Pledge.

2. In the Pledge pop up box, type the Pledge Amount, the Pledge Date and any Notes about the pledge.

3. Click Add.

4. If there are no more pledges for this record, click Close.

5. Now, in the Pledges area of the screen, you should see the information about the pledge.

Lesson 3: How to indicate when a pledge has been fulfilled or written off.

Once you have a pledge on an individual record, the system will help you keep track off what has been fulfilled and what is outstanding.

How to indicate when a pledge has been fulfilled:

1.       Add the contribution to the system. For more help with this see Adding a transaction.

2.       The system will automatically calculate the amount left on the pledge in the Outstanding Amount area. 

3.       Once the Outstanding amount is $0.00, the last contribution date will populate in the Fulfilled Date.  

4.       Click Save Changes when complete.

How to write off a pledge:

1.       In the Written-Off Amount area, type the amount of the pledge you wish to write off.

2.       Click Save Changes when complete.

3.       In the Written-Off Date area, today’s date will save. You may change it to another date if necessary.

4.       The system will automatically calculate the Outstanding Amount.

Lesson 4: How to run the Pledge Communication Report of your pledges.

The first report option is the Pledge Communication Report in Standard Reports. This report was designed to assist with tracking your history of communications with those who have pledged to your campaign. It will show a brief summary of outbound communications since the pledge was made and current follow-up reminders.

To run the report:

1. Go to Reports à Standard Reports

2. Under Type, select Financial Details.

3. Under Format, select Pledge Communication Report.

4. Click Generate.

A line from your report will look something like this:

Name -- Name of the contributor

Pledge -- Amount of the pledge

Date -- Date of the pledge

Fulfilled -- How much has been fulfilled.

Outstanding -- How much is remaining to be fulfilled.

Notes -- Any notes about the pledge.

Follow-up History -- The dates of any communications since the date of the pledge.

Follow-up Needed -- Any outstanding or future follow-ups schedule for this record.

Lesson 5: How to use Custom Reports and Pledges.

Once you are using pledges in your database, you may want to run mail merges, phone lists or other custom reports using pledges as the criteria. Below are some common queries for pledges.

All pledges with an outstanding amount.

All Pledges that are older than a particular date

Once you have generated your query, you can now export it into merge letters or a Broadcast Email.

Using pledges in your fundraising will provide an excellent venue for activating your donor base and keeping track of promises to contribute.