Create a Soft Credit
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Apply gift soft credits and gift tributes to a common fundraising situation.
- Create a gift soft credit and gift transaction using Gift Entry.
Use Fundraising Records to Track Soft Credits and Transactions
It’s time to get to work and create a gift soft credit and a gift tribute. But first, you need a gift transaction that documents a donor’s donation, or hard credit. You’ll use the Gift Entry tool in Fundraising to create a gift transaction and a gift soft credit at the same time. Then you manually create a gift tribute.
Imagine that you’re a development associate at the nonprofit Hunger No More International (HNMI), which works to end hunger and promote healthy food options globally. A key part of your role is to keep the organization’s fundraising data accurate and up to date.
Today, Candace Evans, a loyal donor to HNMI, made another generous gift. She decided to donate while meeting Soledad Torres for lunch. Soledad is an HNMI board member, as well as an HNMI donor. Nonprofit board members are often selected not only for their expertise and oversight, but also for their connections. A passionate advocate who raises money through her personal relationships, Soledad is one of the organization’s most well-connected and effective volunteer fundraisers. Today, during their meeting, she inspired Candace to make a sizable donation. Candace also wants to dedicate the gift to her husband for his birthday.
As a development associate, these are just the kinds of relationships and decisions you want to monitor. So you intend to create a soft credit for Soledad’s personal influence on Candace’s gift, and a tribute credit because the gift is made in honor of Candace’s husband.
In this module, you follow along with an example scenario to create all these records, completing a hands-on challenge at the end of each unit.
Sign Up for a Developer Edition Org with Fundraising
To complete this module, you need a special Developer Edition org that contains Fundraising and our sample data. Get the free Developer Edition and connect it to Trailhead now so you can complete the challenges in this module.
A Developer Edition (DE) is a free, fully featured Salesforce org separate from your organization’s Salesforce org. It's a place where you can experiment and try new things from a blank slate or special configuration. In this module, you sign up for a DE org that includes configured Nonprofit Cloud tools and features, plus sample data so you can start to experiment right away.
Note that this Developer Edition is designed to work with the challenges in this badge, and may not work for other badges. Always check that you’re using the Trailhead Playground or special Developer Edition org that we recommend.
- Sign up for a free Developer Edition org with Nonprofit Cloud.
- Fill out the form:
- For Email, enter an active email address.
- For Username, enter a username that looks like an email address and is unique, but it doesn't need to be a valid email account (for example, yourname@example.com).
- For Email, enter an active email address.
- After you fill out the form, click Sign me up. A confirmation message appears.
- When you receive the activation email (this might take a few minutes), open it and click Verify Account.
- Complete your registration by setting your password and challenge question. Tip: Save your username, password, and login URL in a secure place—such as a password manager—for easy access later.
- You’re logged in to your Developer Edition.
Now connect your new Developer Edition org to Trailhead.
- Make sure you're logged in to your Trailhead account.
- In the Challenge section at the bottom of this page, click the org name and then click Connect Org.
- On the login screen, enter the username and password for the Developer Edition you just set up.
- On the Allow Access? screen, click Allow.
- On the Want to connect this org for hands-on challenges? screen, click Yes! Save it. You’re redirected back to the challenge page and ready to use your new Developer Edition to earn this badge.
Create a Gift Soft Credit with Gift Entry
Candace, your loyal donor, made a $1,000 gift today after meeting with HNMI board member Soledad. As an HNMI board member, Soledad must donate or raise a certain amount of money for the organization each year, so you track her influence on Candace’s gift with a soft credit.
In your Developer Edition org, follow the steps to record Candace’s gift transaction along with Soledad’s gift soft credit at the same time. Be sure to complete all the practice steps so you have all the records you need for the hands-on practice in the next unit too.
- From the App Launcher (
), find and select Fundraising Operations to switch to a fundraising app.
- From the App Launcher (
), find and select Gift Entries.
- Click New Gift Entry.
- Specify these details.
- Gift Type: Individual
- Donor: Candace Evans
- Gift Received Date: Today
- Gift Amount:
1000 - Payment Method: Check
- Gift Type: Individual
- In the Set Soft Credit Information section, click Add Row.
- Specify these details about the soft credit.
- Recipient: Soledad Torres
- Role: Influencer
- Credit Percentage:
100
- Recipient: Soledad Torres
- Save your work.
- Notice the new gift entry record is created.
You’re back on the gift entries list view. Before you check out the gift entry and the other records it created, know that you’re not limited to creating only one gift transaction with a gift soft credit at a time. If you completed the Fundraising Operations Basics module, you know you can create several in a gift batch.
Explore a Gift Transaction and Gift Soft Credit
On the gift entries list view, select the gift transaction that begins with Candace Evans - 1000.00 and today’s date. This transaction record includes all of the important hard-credit details for Candace.
The details include the gift type, amount, status, payment method, and more. Now click the Related tab on the gift transaction, and find the Gift Soft Credits related list. Notice that the gift entry not only automatically created the gift soft credit record, but it also related the gift soft credit to the gift transaction.
To explore the record, select the gift soft credit from the Gift Soft Credits related list.
On the gift soft credit record, you can view who gets the soft credit, a link to the gift transaction, and the value of the soft credit.
In the gift entry record, you only entered the Credit Percentage value, which Fundraising uses to automatically calculate the Soft Credit Amount value. In this case, Soledad received a 100% credit percentage, which equals the full $1,000 donation value. You can use smaller amounts to give soft credit to many influencers. In any case, follow your organization's soft-credit rules.
Now that you have a gift transaction and a gift soft credit, you can meet the next requirement for Candace’s gift: creating the gift tribute record. You’ll do this in the next unit. But first, complete the hands-on challenge at the end of this unit using your Developer Edition org.