Exploring Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud’s New Fundraising Features: Gift Commitments and Gift Transactions

Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud (NPC) takes a significant step forward from Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) by introducing powerful new features to streamline nonprofit operations. At the core of NPC’s enhanced fundraising capabilities are two key innovations: Gift Commitments and Gift Transactions. These features refine how nonprofits manage and record donations within Salesforce, offering improved clarity and functionality compared to NPSP’s Opportunity-based approach. 

Let’s explore how Gift Commitments and Gift Transactions work and how they relate to Opportunities in NPC.

What are Gift Commitments?

Gift Commitments are records that represent a donor’s pledge to contribute to your organization. They can be classified into:

1. One-time pledges: Single donations made in a single payment.
2. Multipayment Gifts: Donations made in several installments over a specified period. 
3. Open-ended Recurring Gifts: Ongoing contributions that do not have a predetermined end date.

When you create a Gift Commitment, you can specify the commitment’s schedule, amount, and how the donor would like the gift to be designated. The system also lets you record soft credits if another party influenced the donation and link the commitment to specific campaigns or opportunities to better identify how the commitment came to be.

The scheduling feature in NPC allows you to tailor recurring or custom payment plans to suit various donor preferences. Adjustments to the amount, schedule, or payment method can be made effortlessly, and NPC Fundraising will automatically process these updates.

By separating Gift Commitments from transactions and opportunities, you can manage both monetary and in-kind gifts more efficiently. This setup enhances accounting accuracy and simplifies donor recognition processes related to commitments. While Opportunities in NPC focus on the solicitation workflows that lead to donor commitments, Gift Commitments handle the specifics of the pledges themselves.

What are Gift Transactions?

Gift Transactions capture the actual receipt of funds or assets against a Gift Commitment. They provide a detailed record of each payment made by the donor. This is distinct from the Gift Commitment that tracks a donor’s pledge, or the Opportunity where the solicitation of the gift is recorded.

In NPC Fundraising, Gift Transactions are automatically generated when a Gift Commitment is scheduled (for example, a $200 monthly commitment will generate a transaction for each installment), though you also have the option to manually create transactions if needed.

The power of Salesforce reporting allows you to easily monitor and report on transaction statuses, including upcoming, missed, failed, paid, or refunded transactions. By organizing these elements separately, NPC helps facilitate better oversight and reporting.

Comparing Gift Commitments and Gift Transactions to Opportunities

In NPSP, Opportunities were used to track both Gift Commitments and Gift Transactions. This approach, while functional, could sometimes blur the lines between pledges and actual payments. The introduction of Gift Commitments and Gift Transactions in NPC separates these elements, offering a more precise and manageable approach.

• Gift Commitments focus on the pledge and its details, including scheduling and designations.
• Gift Transactions handle the actual receipt and processing of funds.

This separation allows for more straightforward management and reporting, as each type of record serves a distinct purpose. For example, you can now more easily track outstanding pledges separately from completed payments, simplifying your financial reconciliation processes.