Blackbaud Internet Solutions™, Blackbaud CRM™ Events, and Charitable Donations, oh my!

A university foundation using Blackbaud CRM™ and BBIS™  wanted to expand its use of BBIS™  event functionality.  The objective: add a charitable donation to event registrations and have that portion post as donations to a specific Designation (not the designation associated with the event). 

Example Scenario:  A Botanical Garden Tour event ticket is $50 and the University wanted to add a $5 donation to the Annual Fund. When registering, the user should see $55 (with a note explaining that $5 is a charitable donation to the Annual Fund.)  ​ Using out-of-the-box functionality,  the remaining amount, above the fees and benefits, would be tax-deductible and would post to the designation associated with the event (assuming you if you've checked the “allow designations” on events and linked the designation.)   ​

In this example, the registration fee is $50, the cost is $15, and the benefit value is $20 leaving $15 as charitable (the receipt amount).  The $15 posts to the designation linked to the event. In this case, "Botanical Garden Fund".  

Out of the box, your GL post (assuming you haven't customized it) would look like this: 

Event Registration cost posting as "Event Registration -Fee", charitable portion posting as "Event Registration -Gift".  In our scenario what we want is another GL entry for $5 as a "Donation - Gift" posted to the 2020 Annual Fund, not the Botanical Garden Fund. 

Using the BBIS "Additional Donations" functionality wouldn't satisfy the requirement because the desire was to have the charitable donation built into the event fee. The University didn't want to add additional steps to the checkout process and wanted the easiest end-user experience possible.  In addition, there's no way to specify any amount should post to a different designation.

Solution:  BrightVine worked with the University to customize the event functionality to allow for a "Charitable Donation Amount " and "Charitable Donation Designation" on the registration option.

Now, when these transactions post to the GL, they are posting as Event Registration Fees and a Donation, not Event Registration Gift.   

If you'd like to learn more about this solution, please let us know.