We have seen a spike of donations coming in through 3rd parties, like online apps or workplace giving and even direct deposits, where it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to identify who the donors are. We have an admin who is very diligent in attempting to track down this information, but the ROI of her time and efforts eats up most of the donation itself. How are other orgs managing these kind of donations? Do you track them in Salesforce? How much effort/time do you put in to try and identify the donor? We have a really small staff and the time this currently takes is impacting other responsibilities more directly connected to our mission.
@FundraisingI feel your pain. Several issues to unravel here, many without pat answers ("how long is string" type thing).
1) There is development. It may very well not be worth tracing down the first time something comes from an anonymous or unexpected source. We do record all donations (not operational payments) in Salesforce so that we can report and analyze. But we would record it as Anonymous @Facebook (when info is not provided) or Big Bank Financial (when donor is not identified). We create a contact (first name Anonymous, last name @Facebook) when we think we will eventually track it down. We attach it tio a compnay as an acocunt donation when we don't imagine that we will. But when development learns of a past donation not on the personal acocount of a donor, we choose to move it there. It's in the system so we aren't double counting such that reports from SF become meaningless.
What I describe above is OK because we're small and the two or three people who decide governance have agreed it's OK. That means our CPA doing annual audit, our bookkeepper, and me. But your governance could extend to more people, such as board members or legal counsel.
2) There is audit. They will want to know how finance and Salesforce numbers or records tie together. Assuming you allow them to know about Salesforce as a company record. If you put everything into accounting software, there might not be a need for it. But if you do, it starts to matter.
3) There there is compliance. You have to file reports at the federal level and sometimes state. A long form 990 requires identifying donros who give above certain amounts. They very much frown on anonymous donors. They tend to tatke the view that they might all be from one person, so you need to get the info. Therefore, we make sure that we divide it up such that each anonymous donation remains below a threshole for compliance. We do on occasion hae a truly anonymous very large donation. It can be reported but it's going to be a red flag to just about anybody. We do all that reporting out of Saelsforce so our records matter. If you do the compliance reporting from acocunting software, it probably doesn't.
NPSP provides plenty of tools to links and manage all sorts of situations. As you know, many varied situations arise. There isn't a single answer for how to use hard, soft, organizational, and household acocunts for all situations. But I've not run into a situation that couldn't be handled consistently so long as you define the rules of the road. It's very important that reports and automations run correctly with whatever you do, of course. As admin, you sometimes have to override other people's decisions that seem logical but break things. I have had to change a few times as we grew larger. I had more time to track things down once upon a time. People were more forthcoming when you called for more informaiton once a time. (And there were actually poeple to call once upon a time... lol?)
Many people ask, "Why not just use online integration only?" I think they lack real experience in a small non-profit. The customer gives as they wish. You can't really control it. II suppose you could refuse the money, but who would be small and do that (except out of ethicsl reasons)? Other nonprofits (usually with good intentions) collect money on your behalf—even without your permission—and then send it to you. It gets weird fast. I ha e three legacy giving systems still receive recurring donations to this day. I don't have the heart, courage or time to try to change it. New donors and one-time donors only see our address and current our online giving form. But you can find us on PayPal, Venmo, PayPal Giving, Charity Navigator, Facebook (and all its subsidiaries),in every DAF, and far more. I have no control over most of them. They take the info straight from the IRS without permission. Some of them take a very heft percentage, too. Or delay payment by quarters. Others are truly benevolent. I think there may still be one or two ways to give without any type of fee, but they are very far between. Even the people who send me checks monthly recently on behalf of paytees called up to say they were going to start taking a percentage and asked me to sign an agreement. I said, they were not. They backed off. But I assume it's just a matter of time.
Hope it helps!
--Terry
