This Glossary is intended to support understanding of terms used in CommunitySuite. In some cases, definitions for key terms are accompanied by examples. Note that examples are not comprehensive; not all examples will be relevant, applicable, or appropriate to all organizations.
- Account - In accounting, an account is a record that tracks assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenses by transactions posted to the general ledger.
- Admin Fee - An administrative fee is an expense charged to funds, donations, or grants to cover the foundation's expenses. Fee rates and calculations can vary based on the size of the fund and/or foundation.
- Affiliate (Profile Is) - A profile designation for organizational profiles to indicate that a community foundation has designated it as an affiliate. There is not an official or legal definition of an affiliate. They come in many different forms and could be a component fund, an informal partnership, or contractual relationship with an entirely separate legal entity (see Supporting Org).
- Affiliate Portal - Each affiliate can have its own online donations portal, and fund advisors can be provided access to activity for all funds that are part of the affiliate. The affiliate portal can also be repurposed to develop custom donation pages that are not for an affiliate entity but are simply a way to organize a group of funds together.
- Example: John is a fund advisor to all funds for an affiliate. If John is given access to this affiliate in his fund advisor portal, John will see all activity for the affiliate funds grouped together.
- Example: An affiliate needs its own donation page that doesn't include other funds from your organization.
- Example: A custom donation page that promotes a group of funds for a specific purpose, such as a targeted fundraising initiative.
- Agency Fund - Agency funds are endowed funds held and managed by the community foundation on behalf of a nonprofit. The fund agreement determines how these funds are managed within Community Suite. Specific rules related to agency fund reporting are outlined in FASB 136.
- If the fund is subject to variance power and funded by donations that are irrevocable, the fund balance is presented on the nonprofit's balance sheet as an asset and as a liability on the foundation's balance sheet. This is only required for donations that are received by the nonprofit. Donations from the public are not subject to the same requirement. The sub fund functionality in CommunitySuite is encouraged in this scenario. Using the agency functionality in CommunitySuite will allow the system to process the journal entry monthly or yearly to move balances from the equity section of the balance sheet to the liability section for financial reporting.
- If the fund is non-endowed and fully spendable, there is an option in donation and grant settings to allow all transactions to post directly to a liability account.
- Bank Reconciliation - Bank reconciliation is a process that is performed by the foundation to reconcile transactions within the accounting system with bank records. This is normally processed on a monthly or quarterly basis depending on the type of account.
- Budget - Budgets are used as a planning document to predict revenue and expenses for a fiscal year. This can be a tool to help the foundation assess the health of their organization.
- Campaign - CommunitySuite's functionality for building mailing lists and/or managing events. Campaign setup drives the event's online registration.
- Content Areas - Customized text, emails, and messages that can be added to your fund advisor portal, online donation portal, and other public facing text that originates in CommunitySuite.
- Customer (Profile Is) - A profile designation for profiles that have made non-charitable payments to your organization.
- Example: Payment on an invoice.
- Example: Non-charitable income for items such as ticket sales or auction items.
- Designation (Profile Is) - Additional layer on a profile that houses specific types of transactions or information. Resides in the Profile Is section of a profile. A profile can have any combination of the following designations: customer, donor, fund advisor, grantee, nonprofit, student, vendor, and affiliate/supporting org.
- Disbursement - Payment from a fund in way of a grant or voucher.
- Distribution - Calculation foundations use to allocate a portion of the fund according to their spending policy. Distribution calculations can vary from foundation to foundation.
- Donation - A contribution of money or goods given to the foundation.
- Donor (Profile Is) - A profile designation for profiles that have donated or are donation advisors. This designation lists all direct and advised donations. The donor designation on a household also lists all donations and advised donations from household members.
- Endowed - An endowed fund is a permanent fund which distributes its earnings to nonprofits based on the foundation's spending policy.
- Engagement Strategy - A long-term umbrella strategy for how you want to engage and cultivate a relationship.
- Fund - A fund is an investment vehicle that allows foundations to collect money for a specific purpose from individual donors or a group of donors.
- Fund Advisor (Profile Is) - A profile designation for profiles that should receive fund statements and/or have access to the fund advisor portal.
- Fund Advisor Portal - An online portal that fund advisors can log in to and check up-to-date fund activity including balances, income, and disbursements. Fund advisors can also view fund statements and make grant requests.
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In the sales process, you may have discussed the donor portal. In client learning resources, we are more specific about portal functions and use the terminology "fund advisor portal" to differentiate from other capacities like single donations in the donation portal.
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- Fund Statement - Fund statement is a summary of a fund's changes in financial position for a given period of time.
- General Ledger (GL) - This is a record with a list of transactions of the foundation's financial accounts for a specified amount of time.
- Grant -The record of expense on a fund that is primarily given to 501c3 organizations based on spendable balances or charitable donations for a particular purpose.
- Grant Catalog - A grant catalog is a feature in CommunitySuite that facilitates crowdfunding for nonprofits.
- Grantee (Profile Is) - A profile designation for profiles that have received a grant.
- Household - A type of profile used for a couple.
- Household Trifecta - A household profile that has individual profiles linked as household members. Notes, donations, profile types, opportunities, etc. can be placed on the profile they correctly pertain to, the individual or household. Cumulative giving of the household and household members is visible on the household donor designation.
- Individual - A type of profile used for a person.
- Internal Grant - The record of internal grant expense on a fund that issued from one fund in a foundation to another fund within the foundation based on spendable balances or charitable donations for a particular purpose.
- Investment Strategy - Investment strategies are used to manage a foundation's different levels of risk tolerance and time horizons for allocation of investment accounts by fund. CommunitySuite uses these strategies to enforce the cash management functionality.
- Invoice - A statement with a list of goods or services provided and amount due.
- Legacy Code - Item ID from previous system.
- Nonprofit (Profile Is) - A profile designation for profiles that are nonprofits. This designation can be used to build your public nonprofit directory. Nonprofit designations can also be applied to profiles for filtering purposes.
- Nonprofit Directory - An online directory of nonprofits powered by profiles in your site that have the nonprofit designation. Nonprofits can be assigned to categories and display contact information, a URL, and a mission statement. The nonprofit directory is an optional tab on the online donation portal.
- Note - A record attached to an object in CommunitySuite such as a profile, fund, donation, or grant. Notes can be used to record important historical information and create alerts on specific objects.
- Example: On a profile, document a meeting with a donor.
- Example: On a fund, add information about the fund history.
- Online Donation Portal - The page that accepts online donations. The online donation portal contains tabs for donations, events, grant catalog, and nonprofit directory.
- Opportunity - Opportunities are customizable and allow you to set goals or desired outcomes for your organization. Opportunity types and stages tell a user where they currently are at in a particular relationship lifecycle, while notes document how you've reached this stage and tasks outline next steps. Opportunities can also be used to manage workflows within a foundation.
- Org Role/Organizational Role - Relationship between an organization and an individual or household profile. The relationship has a status and an optional date range.
- Organization - A type of profile used for an organization.
- Passthrough Fund - Passthrough funds are non-endowed funds that work to support projects eventually spending the entire fund balance for the purpose intended in the fund agreement.
- Pledge - A commitment from a donor to fulfill an obligation over a period of time that impacts the general ledger. Pledges are recognized as revenue and are generally substantiated with a written commitment.
- Principal - The principal balance is recorded on an endowed fund to show the original donation and on-going donations to the fund. This balance is intended to be held in perpetuity and would be applicable to endowed funds only.
- Profile - Record for an individual, household, or organization.
- Profile Fund Category - Defined relationship from a person to a fund.
- Profile Is - See definition for Designation.
- Profile Link - A relationship and reciprocal relationship that connects two profiles.
- Profile Payment - A way to process revenue into the foundation outside of a normal donation gift.
- Profile Type -Profile types are used to help segment, filter, and prioritize your database of profiles.
- Promise - A commitment from a donor to fulfill an obligation over a period of time that does not impact the general ledger. Promises are not recognized as revenue.
- Revenue Share - CommunitySuite allows foundations that manage funds in investment pools to share investment income, gains, losses, and fees on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. Share the income, gains, losses, and/or fees from your investment or banking accounts with all of the funds that are held within a pool.
- Service Area - Custom geographical area codes to assign to grants, funds, profiles, donations, and campaigns.
- Site Styling - Modifications to HTML and CSS on the public facing portals. This can be applied to online donations, grant catalog, events, nonprofit directory, and the fund advisor portal.
- Spendable - Portion of an endowed fund's balance that is considered spendable. The spendable balance is increased by distribution calculations and decreased by grants and vouchers.
- Steward - Staff contact or relationship manager.
- Student (Profile Is) - A profile designation for profiles that have received a scholarship.
- Supporting Org (Profile Is) - A profile designation for an organization. A supporting organization is a tax exempt charitable alternative to a private foundation. It has status as a public charity with an independent mission and board of directors from the foundation. The relationship with the community foundation is to oversee the grant distribution, audits, investment oversight, and reporting.
- Task - A reminder to complete a piece of work.
- Example: Review duplicate profiles.
- Example: Contact Sarah about her fund activity.
- Template - A template is a predesigned document you can use to create documents quickly.
- Vendor (Profile Is) - A profile designation for profiles that your organization has paid. The vendor designation is on profiles that bill your organization and profiles that receive grants or scholarships.
- Voucher - The record of expense needing payment on the behalf of the foundation or one of its funds.