Hi all!
We're working on our Bequest SOP and have a few questions:
- How do you designate that the gifts are Bequests? Do you have a unique Opportunity Record Type of something else?
- When someone has pledged a bequest i.e. "I've put you in my will" but you don't know the amount, do you put it in as Pledge status or a different status? What amount do you use? In the past I've used $1 since it's unknown.
Thanks!
Amy
's suggestion is very similar to what we do. We have a Planned Gift record type and stage Confirmed. This works well. However, for better or for worse, when payments actually arrive, they are not connected to the Planned Gift opportunity. They are recorded on a regular donation record with a custom Transaction Type of Bequest or Trust Payment and no relation at all to the original planned gift record.
I've been thinking about this since I started here last year. Often these gifts are realized years or decades later (if at all), so perhaps trying to connect them to the original confirmed opportunity is a waste of time...? And there are some bequest gifts that we don't know about until the payment arrives, so there's no planned gift opp to connect them to. All that said, our method of recording does allow us to track the
number of "will intents" confirmed each year to see if we are meeting our goals in that area.
