Gift and pledge entry
As described above, LGL supports several different types of gifts. You can add any gift type by clicking the Add gift button on the Dashboard or on the Fundraising tab, or from an individual constituent’s details page.
Gift entry
Select the constituent
When adding any kind of gift (or goal or task, for that matter), the first step is to choose the constituent. If you add a gift from the constituent’s page, the selection will be made automatically, but otherwise you can set the constituent by clicking on the Set Constituent button.
Note: The gift form is set up so you should be able to tab through the form without using your mouse. After you’ve selected the constituent, your cursor should automatically end up in the gift amount field.
Enter the gift amount
The gift amount is the only required gift field. The gift amount should be in dollars and cents (if applicable), without commas. For example:
- 100.93
- 1000.00
- 10000
- 12.59
Set the gift type
You can pick from one of three gift types here:
Assuming you are entering a normal gift, leave the Gift type selected, and tab over to the payment type. Otherwise, you can pick Pledge or In Kind. In each case, the gift form will change slightly, to show pledge or in kind gift specific fields (see the Pledge and In Kind sections below for the details of each).
Standard gifts
- Set payment type. By default, this will include Cash, Check, Credit Card, and Stock, but these values can be customized to fit your needs.
Set gift and deposit date.
The standard date format for everything in LGL is YYYY-MM-DD (for example, 2010-04-02). However, you can also type in dates in the following formats: MM/DD/YY or MMDDYY (04/02/10 or 040210). You can also click on the little Calendar  icon to pull up a date picker.
The gift date is the date the donation was made (the date on the check, etc.), and the deposit date is the date that you processed the donation. If the gift date is left blank, it will default to the current day. If the deposit date is left blank, it will automatically be set to the same value as the gift date.
Campaigns, Funds, Appeals, and Events
You can assign appropriate campaign, fund, appeal, and/or event values to each gift, for use in constituent searches (who gave to my Annual Appeal this year?) and other kinds of queries and reports.
Add related gifts
Soft credits, matching gifts, and gifts in honor/memory of a person may be added to any standard gift.
You can add multiple related gifts by clicking on the Add related gift link.
Constituent selection for related gifts is done in the same way as described above in the Select the constituent section.
In kind gifts
As described above, in kind donations can be entered by selecting the In Kind gift type. Constituent and amount settings (as well as any campaign, fund, appeal, or event assignments you’ve already made) will remain in place, but you will not have the option to assign a payment type or a deposit date.
As with standard gifts, you can enter an amount (if applicable, otherwise enter 0), and set the gift date. You can also add related gifts, if multiple constituents should be credited with the in kind donation.
Pledges
To add a pledge, simply change the gift type to Pledge. Constituent and amount settings (as well as any campaign, fund, appeal, or event assignments you’ve already made) will remain in place, but you will not have the option to assign a payment type or a deposit date.
Once the basic pledge information is set, you can add installments as desired.
Pledge installments
Pledge installments allow you to define the payment schedule for a particular pledge. They also make it easy to map gifts to the proper pledge during gift entry (as shown above). Installments can be generated according to a few different schedules: one-time payment, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. For one-time payments, you just need to set the date, and one installment for the full amount of the pledge will be created. For all other intervals, you can set the start date and the payment amount.
Then click the Generate all installments button to create entries for all the installments required to fulfill the pledge, according to the specified start date and interval:
When you save the pledge, these installments will be created.
Note: If you don’t set everything up completely the first time, you can always come back and reconfigure the payment schedule by editing the pledge you want to update.
Writing off a pledge
This is typically done when a constituent is unable to fulfill the complete pledge for one reason or another. LGL will take the write-off date into account and mark the pledge complete if the total for the payment combined with the write-off amount is greater than the total pledge amount.
Add related tasks
You can add related tasks to all types of gifts. This is useful when you want to take action in a specific way in response to a gift or pledge. You can add as many related tasks as you need to, and each will be connected to the gift’s constituent.
Add multiple gifts
If you have a stack of gifts to enter, you can save time by clicking the Save and add another button when you are ready to save each gift. This will save the gift (and any related gifts, tasks, or installments) and reload a blank gift form.
Values you had set for campaign, fund, appeal, and event information on the last gift will remain populated to cut down on the data entry time.