Donations

The Donations Module keeps track of money, gifts in kind, and stock that is given towards pledges, offerings, and other designated purposes at your Church.

 

Donations provides you with various screens to perform the following tasks:

• Add Givers and Assign Giver Numbers.
• Manage Accounts towards which the Givers make their donations.
• Enter Pledges and Add a New Campaign.
• Enter Donations.
• Run Reports, Labels, and Statements for the Givers and Giving Accounts.

 

If you use the Accounting  Module of  Church Windows, the Donations  Module will also make available to you a feature to Transfer Donations to Accounting where they can be incorporated into the Chart of Accounts for your Church. Though Donations Givers can be added from within the Donations  Module, it also pulls names from The People File in the Membership Module and places them in a list of Givers for you to define who receives Donation Statements and if they will be Giving as a Family or Giving Separately.

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Initial Setup for Donations

Before you begin to Enter Donations, set up pledges and campaigns, and run reports, go through the following checklist of features. By making sure the following items have been set up, you will be equipped with the necessary components to successfully run the Donations  Module.

1. Settings:
   When you first activate the Licensing key for the Donations  Module you will be able to open the Donations   Module by clicking Donations from The Initial Portal of Church Windows. The software will bring you to a screen where you must then define the fundamental Donations Settings applicable to how you will use the Donations   Module. Enter your settings and click the OK button to proceed. These settings can also be adjusted at a later time according to your needs.
   
   
2. Givers:
   Each individual kept track of in the software is listed in the Donations Module as a Giver, regardless of how much money they give. Click the Manage Givers button found both on the Donations  Portal, and by clicking Givers in the Button Bar at the top of the screen The screen will show you a list of Givers that have already been added to The People File in the Membership   Module. If you need to Add Givers, click the Add button either on the Individual Givers tab to add an individual, or on the Families & Groups tab to Add a Group Giver.
   
   
3. Giver Numbers (optional):
   If your Church assigns Envelope of Giver numbers to its contributing parishioners, you can use the Manage Giver Numbers and/orAuto Assign Numbers features to build a list where you assign a number to each selected Giver. These features are found under the Givers menu.
   
   
4. Giving Accounts:
   Set up the accounts that you will be using to show the purposes towards which your parishioners can make their donations. Click the Add Account button under the Accounts & Pledges menu to Add an Account. You can also use the Manage Accounts feature found under the Accounts & Pledges to review the list of Giving accounts already added and add as many as you need.
   
   
5. Link to Accounting:
   If you will be transferring donations to the Accounting Module after posting them, click the Default Account Links button under the Special Functions menu. Use the Default Account Links tab to connect the Giving Accounts in Donations to the desired accounts in Accounting.
   
   
6. Pledges & Campaigns:
   Commitments that your Givers make to give money towards your Church are kept track of in the software as Pledges. When your Church sets out to reach a fundraising goal and invites Givers to commit to give money towards it, you can Add a New Campaign. You can Enter Pledges as part of a Campaign or separately for each Giver. Pledges and donations can also be set to automatically be divided into accounts when you Enter Donations, this is called a Giving Distribution.
   

   Pledges

   When you have been given the information that someone is making a pledge, you will need to know:

   • The person's name
   • The account name towards which they are making a pledge
   • The pledge amount
   • The frequency
   • The duration

   Then in the Enter Pledges screen, enter the name of the Giver to reveal the Giving Account, Frequency, Amount per Frequency, Start Date, End Date for each pledge. Based on the Start Date and End Date you enter, the software will multiply the Amount per the Frequency to give you the Total Pledged and the number of payments needed to match the Total Given with the Total Pledged.
   
   

   Campaigns

   When your Church sets a goal to raise a certain amount of money, it then invites people to make a commitment to donate money towards the goal. The software features a screen to Add a New Campaign where you create the campaign and add Givers to it. The campaign can be set up for Givers to make annual or multi-year pledges by manually setting the date to reflect the decided pledge period of time.