This article outlines the differences between pledges and promises, the function of opportunities and how they can interact with pledges and promises, and questions to ask yourself when determining which feature best suits the situation.
Pledge/Promise
Pledges and promises both allow you to document a commitment from a donor to fulfill an obligation over a period of time. You can establish payment schedules and build templates for reminder letters about upcoming payments. Pledges impact your general ledger, and promises do not.
Committed promises can be linked to an internal grant after grant creation when the promise is to the destination fund on the internal grant. If the dollar amount of the grant is more than the promise, the promise adjustments table will reflect the increase. If the promise is more than the grant, the promise will show the balance remaining. Once the donation is created, the promise is linked to the donation.
When determining which to use, ask yourself these questions:
- Do you want the balance of the commitment recognized in financial reporting before it's fulfilled?
- Would you want to impact your general ledger if the donor does not fulfill the commitment?
If the answer to either question is no, then use the promise feature for no impact on the general ledger.
Opportunity
Opportunities allow you to establish a goal, such as a financial commitment, and utilize moves management to track tasks and notes as you progress through the donor lifecycle. Once a donor makes a commitment, you can log that in the committed field on an opportunity.
Values in the solicited and committed fields on opportunities do not impact your general ledger. In this regard, opportunities and promises are similar. The key difference between them is that you cannot establish a payment schedule for an opportunity.
Opportunities can be used when you need to track the tasks and notes that led up to a commitment. Pledge/promise does not track the moves management leading up to a commitment.
Pledge/Promise & Opportunity Overlap
When you need to track moves management and you want a pledge or promise to track the commitment and generate payment letters from, use both an opportunity and a pledge or promise. Pledges and promises can both be linked to opportunities.