CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

This is continuing a conversation I started with Lobo over on General Discussion forum, now moving it here.

My org sorely needs support for pledges... Here is my first attempt to describe what is needed.

- Lucy
Bay Area Nonviolent Communication
www.baynvc.org

*****

Support for Pledges, Requirements

* track one-time pledges
* track pledges of a monthly or yearly amount

Details, one-time pledges
* date the person made the pledge
* amount pledged
* date when the actual money is expected (default to one month after pledge date)
* if money not received by that date, automatically create an "activity" to contact that person

Details, monthly/yearly pledges
* date the person made the pledge
* amount pledged
* monthly or yearly
* until when
* track dates, amounts, of money received
* integrated with automatic recurring charging of credit cards

Details, all pledges
* total amount pledged but not yet received
* track whether a pledge was cancelled, and reason

optional features
* tying pledges to a particular "campaign" or "fund"
* support for matching gifts
* display of progress toward a goal


End-User procedures

1. Data entry by office staff

   a. office staff logs a one-time pledge of a given amount
   b. office staff logs a recurring pledge of a given amount, plus receipt of first installment
   c. office staff logs a recurring pledge of a given amount, but no money received yet

2. Online pledging by supporters

   a. supporter signs up for recurring pledge,
   pays first installment online by credit card,
   authorizes monthly charging of credit card

   b. supporter signs up for recurring pledge,
   promises to send first installment by check,
   selects "bill me" for subsequent installments

   c. supporters can sign up for various volunteer opportunities,
or answer additional questions about interest areas, while pledging online
   (need a way to add custom-built forms/fields into the process for this)

my 2 cents ...

• Rather than using a contribution type, I suspect we can/should use the contribution status. So for example, a contribution which is of type "donation" is pledged, the status becomes "Pending" (and we probably have a boolean fields called is_pledge) which indicates that this is a "pledge" contribution. (Since Pending could also be a paypal transaction that is not yet completed)
• We will also need another date to record when the pledge is expected to be fulfilled. If not fulfilled by this date, we flip the status to Overdue.
• I dont see the need to integrate a "recurring" pledge with an automatic recurring donation. This is handled by our current recurring donation process (actually paypal does it and informs us)
• Adding a periodic pledge will require some work, since we'll have to pre-create all those contributions based on the parameters. We don't have any code to handle this as yet. The previous points are simple extensions of our current code base
• To some extent, we can/should combine a pledge with a "Pay Later" option (or pay be cheque). They have quite a few things in common

lobo

Well obviously i dont understand enough of pledges Thanx for the tips below

So looks like a pledge is another top level object and could have one or more contributions associated with it which may or may not match the amounts on the pledge. The pledge object has a different set of attributes as compared to a contribution object (since its more high level and no gory details of a transaction).

We'll also need a recurring pledge object which holds one or more pledge objects which may be linked to a contribution object

Given the above, i suspect we'll handle Pay Later for a contribution (or event) with just a status field (pending) and inidicate its an offline payment rather than a pledge.


lobo

I think it is important to understand whether there is a difference between a pledge and some other kind of promises to give. I don't know that every promise to give x a month indefinitely is really a pledge or not.

In terms of accounting (at least in the US), pledges have special treatment. For example, a multiyear pledge is counted as a contribution in the year the pledge is made, even though the money does not come in.

Elin - Given your comments above, do you have any thoughts on how (or if) we should differentiate our existing "Recurring Contribution" functionality from a "Pledge" to give $X every month for N months. A "Recurring Contribution" (in our current implementation) is something that happens automatically. I guess a "Pledge" for a recurring amount might OR might not be automatic. Otherwise, not sure I see functional differences (i.e. ones that we can "explain" to folks using these features). ??

SOunds good. I'm not sure if there is a difference, but I think there could be. If I sign up to give $10 / month for 12 months exactly then that seems like a pledge of 120 to me.
But if I say put me down for $10/month until I say stop seems like something different.

No progress as yet and none planned by the core team in the near future. If folks need it, someone needs to step up and help design/develop/sponsor it.

lobo

In recent versions you could create a generic pledge schedule (let's say 1,000 => 4 payments of 250 each) - and then record modified payments as the variable contributions come in my changing the payment amounts and dates on the pre-populated list of scheduled payments. A more flexible "apply this contribution to an existing pledge" patch could be accepted depending on how it's implemented. You'd want to write up the approach - and how you'd deal w/ adjusting an existing payment schedule (pledges always have an "expected" payment schedule).