Confirming a pledge after you receive cash or cheque from a donor takes only a couple of clicks in the Confirm Offline Pledge tab.
When an offline pledge is confirmed, it becomes a true donation and has all the attributes of an online donation. We call this a Confirmed - Offline Pledge in the system. For this reason, offline pledges are typically not confirmed until you've received the pledged funds from the donor.
To confirm a pledge, locate the desired pledges in the table of outstanding gifts in the Confirm Offline Pledges tab of the event. Select the box under the “Confirm” column for the received pledges, and then click the “Confirm Selected Pledges” button located at the bottom of the page.
Before confirming, you can also set a posting date in the Posting Date for confirmed pledges box. This becomes the Gift Date.
Once confirmed, the donor will receive a tax receipt (if selected), and the gift will appear on the front-end of the event site, including thermometers and scoreboard widgets. For Peer-to-Peer fundraising events, the donor will also be added to the Participant’s e-mail address book and the gift will be added to the donation history.
From a reporting perspective, the gift will appear with the gift status of "Confirmed - Offline Pledge" and be treated like real revenue, appearing in all revenue reports/downloads and exports. The donor can also be searched for in Manage Users.
Pledges confirmed by Participants
If you have activated the ability for Participants to enter Offline Pledges, they can also confirm an offline gift by using their credit card or PayPal to fulfill cash or personal cheques that they have received. Enabling this feature helps reduce time and resources that might otherwise be spent collecting cash on event day, and later data entry -- while also putting funds towards your cause even faster.
Participants may follow these steps from the Offline Pledges section of the Participant Centre to "confirm" a pledge:
- Before paying, full donor address information in the fields in the Add/Edit Donors section. Once the Donor has been added, they appear in the Offline Pledge Donors table at the bottom of the page.
- Click the check box(es) in the Select column of the Offline Pledge Donors table to select the donation(s) that you would like to pay by credit card (i.e. Donors who paid you in cash/cheque).
- Click the Pay by Credit Card or Pay by PayPal button.
- Participant enters their credit card information (this is a secure area of the site).
- Click the Process button.
If the transaction was successful, the donation will now be a confirmed donation and the fundraiser's will be removed from the fundraiser's Offline Pledges table. Their Fundraising Thermometer and Donation History will be updated to include the donation.
If tax receipting is enabled, an e-Tax Receipt will be issued in the donor's name and sent to their e–mail address. The Participant may enter their e-mail address instead of the Donors e-mail address, in which case the e-Tax Receipt will still be issued in their name, however, it will be forwarded to their e-mail.
Note: To ensure fundraiser's are entering correct or "true" donor information, adding an Offline Pledge Waiver in Event/Location Details is advised.
In Reports, the gift will be treated as an Offline - Confirmed Pledge, and marked as "Offline Pledge (Paid by Participant").