All industries › Nonprofits
Mission
Payments for nonprofits, where a designation is a promise
When a donor gives to a specific programme they have restricted that money, and an organisation whose payment records cannot show the designation has taken on a reporting problem it will only discover at audit.
What a gift record has to carry
Each item below is something an auditor, a board or a donor will eventually ask you to produce.
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A designation travels with the gift
The fund a donor selected is recorded on the transaction and carried into the ledger, because a designation reconstructed later from a campaign date is a guess rather than a record.
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Restricted and unrestricted gifts are not the same money
Donor-restricted funds are kept distinguishable from general operating support at the point of receipt, since restriction is a legal characteristic of the gift rather than a reporting preference. DRAFT — pending counsel
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Recurring giving is the whole retention story
Monthly donors lapse most often through an expired card rather than a decision, so stored credentials are enrolled in automatic updates and a real failure raises a task, not silence.
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Acknowledgment is a record, not an email
What the organisation sent, to whom and on what date is stored with the gift, because a donor asking in March about a gift from December is asking for a record you either have or do not. DRAFT — pending counsel
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A pledge is not a gift until it is paid
Promises and receipts are tracked as separate things so a campaign total means something specific, and the board is told which number it is looking at.
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A refunded gift has downstream effects
Returning a gift affects the campaign total, the designation balance and any acknowledgment already issued, so it is handled as a recorded correction rather than as a quiet reversal. DRAFT — pending counsel
What to ask before changing donation processing
Questions from a development director who has been through an audit.
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Ask where the designation is stored
If it lives in a form field that does not reach the ledger, restricted fund reporting becomes an annual reconstruction project. DRAFT — pending counsel
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Ask what happens when a monthly donor card is reissued
Most monthly giving is lost to card churn rather than to donor intent. An updater is the single highest-value setting here.
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Ask what acknowledgment records are retained and for how long
You need to answer a donor question about a gift from two years ago without opening a mailbox. DRAFT — pending counsel
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Ask whether pledges and gifts are separable in reporting
A campaign total that mixes them will be quoted to a board and then corrected in public.
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Ask how a refund is reflected in campaign and fund totals
A quiet reversal that leaves the campaign total untouched is a reporting error waiting to be found.
Questions nonprofit finance teams ask
Anything stating a compliance or tax rule is marked draft until counsel signs it off.
Can donors choose which programme their gift supports?
Yes, and the designation is recorded on the transaction and carried into the ledger rather than inferred from the campaign later.
Are restricted gifts kept separate from general support?
They are kept distinguishable at the point of receipt, because restriction is a characteristic of the gift itself. (DRAFT — pending counsel)
How do we stop losing monthly donors to expired cards?
Automatic card updates on stored credentials, with a genuine failure raising a task for a person rather than stopping quietly.
Where are donor acknowledgments recorded?
With the gift: what was sent, to whom, on what date, retained so a later question is a lookup. (DRAFT — pending counsel)
Do pledges count in the campaign total?
Only if you say so out loud. Pledges and received gifts are tracked separately so the board knows which number it is being shown.
Talk to somebody who has reported to a board
Tell us about the organisation and how to reach you.
Thank you. We will book a short call and bring the restricted fund question into it.
We will implement whatever is right for you — including keeping what you have.
Two free tools, before you talk to anybody
Both are open to anyone, and both were written to be shown to a finance committee.
- Answer the boarding questions Say that you take recurring gifts and keep restricted funds apart, and it returns a starting configuration that will not merge them for convenience.
- Get a free statement audit Send a month that included an appeal. We name every line so the number that reaches the board is the number a donor gave.
Last updated: 2026-08-17