Status of Matching Gift Capability?

[annaleevk]

Hi!  Just wondering what the status/priority is of bringing matching gift functionality to CiviCRM?  To help restart the conversation, here's a suggestion of how to manage matching gifts with the current system vs. the way I'd like to see it work.

1.  At the time that the original gift is made, key the donor's contribution to their record.
2.  Next, create a pledge for the "expected matching gift amount" on the organization record with a matching gift custom type and I would also add a note here to record the id/name of the individual donor, gift date and gift amount that you are planning to match.
3.  Create an employee-employer relationship between the individual and organization record.
4.  When the matching gift comes in, pay off the pledge on the organization's record and soft credit the payment back to the original donor's record.
5.  One of the tricky things about matching gifts is being able to credit the proper amount back to the donor when the org check finally arrives.  Usually, it's a lump sum check from the org and most of the time, does not include a list of the donors it's matching and the amounts, which, depending on matching gift ratio and cap limits may or may not be what you originally expected and setup via your pledge.
6.  In a straightforward case, where you expect $100 and receive $100, this does the trick but in a real world situation, matching the payments back to the original donor's gift is the challenge.  Also, the org check usually comes in many months after the original payment and may even span fiscal years so keeping track of these "outstanding" pledges is also a challenge.

The Way I'd Like to See it Work

1.  At the time, the original gift is made, key the donor's contribution and from that same step, lookup and link the organization record to the individual and create a special type of matching gift (soft credit) pledge record on the organization record.  By creating a link between the individual and organization record via the pledge, you will be able to show the donor attributed to the pledge from the org record and vice-versa.

A further feature here would be to be able to prompt the user to create a matching gift, if an employer-employee relationship already existed on the record.  It's a good way to prompt the Development staff to remind the donor to seek matching gifts from their company.
2.  Ideally, show the pledge on the original (individual) donor's record as well as the organization record where the transaction resides.  On the individual's record, this would be a type of soft credit pledge and would not count toward the individual's personal pledge commitments.
3.  When the payment comes in, pay off the pledge on the organization's record, which should also show up on the individual donor's record.
4.  You should have a choice, when reporting, whether or not to include or exclude, these types of "soft credit" transactions when reporting on the individual.
5.  For tax purposes, the hard credit transaction must reside on the record where the check originated.

This is basically the way matching gifts function in Raiser's Edge.  Any idea how difficult this might be to create?  It seems like via the existing soft credit feature, you can already link another contact record to a transaction.  How much further would it take to be able to create a matching gift pledge transaction on the org record from a contribution on an individual's record?

- Annalee

[Donald Lobo]

If i had to guess this is a 40-60 hour project. If we get a couple of orgs who need this feature to collaborate and add to your spec that would be awesome. Might make a good Make It Happen candidate

The batching of donations and submitting a request is also a bit similar to some work that we did for gift-aid in the UK

I suspect at a later stage we would also want to integrate with an external DB like GiftPlus Online (assuming that they have a web service)

lobo