Credit Everyone Involved in a Donation
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Discuss why tracking soft credits and tributes is important for fundraising.
- Describe the objects that store soft credits and tributes in Fundraising.
- Explain how to aggregate soft credit data.
This module describes a feature in Fundraising, a platform solution that is part of Nonprofit Cloud and Education Cloud. This content doesn’t cover the fundraising solutions available in managed packages such as Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). See Donation Soft Credit Management with Nonprofit Success Pack to find out how NPSP handles soft credits.
Before You Start
Before you start this module, consider completing the following recommended content.
Give Credit Where Credit Is Due
Successful fundraising relies on strong relationships, and those relationships extend beyond your organization’s direct connections with donors.
Many relationships in a donor’s life influence their giving. Family, friends, colleagues, and employers can all naturally impact when and how a donor makes a gift. Understanding these variables helps you deepen your relationship with donors and the influential people around them. For example, a donor may be influenced by a friend or an employer to make a charitable contribution. They may also give to honor someone, as with a tribute to a friend or family member.
Fundraising includes ways to monitor these influences on a donation, with objects that map to track a donor’s hard credits, an influencer’s soft credits, and an honoree’s tributes. The diagram shows how these concepts map to a single donation that was inspired by an influencer and an honoree.
When a donor gives a gift, they often receive what fundraisers call a hard credit because they’re directly responsible for the donation. If a person or organization influences the gift, they may receive soft credit. For example, soft credit goes to members of the donor’s household or a board member who’s fundraising as a volunteer. The original donor can also get soft credit, such as when their employer makes a matching gift for the donor’s contribution.
A person recognized or honored by a gift can receive credit as a tribute. An example is a tribute gift made in honor of a friend or in memoriam of a deceased loved one.
In this module, you learn about the Fundraising objects that track soft credits and tributes related to a donation. Plus, you explore how to aggregate this data. You then use a practice Salesforce Developer Edition org to create a gift transaction that includes both a soft credit and a tribute.
Objects to Store Credits and Tributes in Fundraising
In Fundraising, several objects work together to track hard credits, soft credits, and tributes. Together, these records help you to understand why a donor makes a gift and to ensure the right people get credit for their influence.
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Gift Transaction tracks donation payments. Use this object to document the hard credit given to a donor. If you completed the Fundraising Operations Basics module, you learned all other gift-related objects relate to gift transactions.
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Gift Soft Credit tracks soft credits. Create these records individually or use Fundraising’s Gift Entry tool for data entry to create gift transactions and gift soft credits simultaneously.
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Gift Default Soft Credit sets the default soft credit value for all gift transactions created as part of a gift commitment. With this type of credit, all future transactions automatically receive a related gift soft credit.
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Gift Tribute tracks details about gifts made in honor or in memoriam of someone other than the donor. You create these records individually and relate them to a transaction.
With these four objects, you can keep track of any soft credit or tribute scenario.
Knowledge Check
Ready to review what you’ve learned? This knowledge check isn’t scored—it’s just a fun way to quiz yourself. To get started, drag the scenario in the left column next to the matching object used to track it on the right. When you finish matching all of the items, click Submit to check your work. To start over, click Reset.
Aggregate Soft Credit Data
Soft credit data shows which supporters are the most influential and important to your cause. For instance, you want to know if a donor is responsible for several matching gifts. Or, if you require your board members to donate or raise a certain amount of money each year—sometimes called a give-and-get policy—you’ll want to know how many gifts they’ve influenced. This kind of policy, which is common in the U.S., means that board members contribute their time, skills, and money to the organization, along with their connections.
Fortunately, soft credits automatically roll up on the Donor Gift Summary object. Included rollup fields show you the following data:
- A count of a donor’s soft credits
- The date and amount of their first, highest, and latest soft credits
- The total value and count of their soft and hard credits combined
These fields are visible on a donor’s account when they’re added to the Related Record Details Display component. Plus, you can use the fields to segment donors for campaigns and outreach efforts, or assign donors to individual fundraisers' portfolios to build relationships and secure donations.
Hey, Salesforce admins! Do you want to create another rollup using this data? Complete the Create Fundraising Rollups with Data Processing Engine project on Trailhead for details about creating custom rollups.
In this unit, you learned about hard credits, soft credits, tributes, and the objects you use to store them. In the next unit, you practice creating a gift transaction and gift soft credit in a common real-world situation.