Campaign Setup

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Cheatsheet

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Campaigns are at the heart of the donation module. For accounting and marketing purposes, Theatre Manager allows you to divide your fundraising activities into as many "campaigns" as you wish. You may choose to have a single Annual Campaign that rolls over from year to year, or you may opt to create a new Annual Fund Campaign each year, thereby allowing you to place funds from each year into separate GL account.

While all funds for campaigns are initially processed through your general operating accounts, certain campaigns - such as the Capital Campaign - may actually reside in another bank or bank account. To handle this, Theatre Manager uses a Donation Bank Transfer (or "clearing" account) that signals your accountant to move funds from the main account to the other bank account that is being used for the Capital Campaign. And Theatre Manager handles all this accounting for you through the End Of Day.

Campaigns can be set be used only in specific places (box office vs, the web) and for specific purposes (all ticket returns go to a specific campaign, while general gifts have more options). Solicitors can be set to a specific employee or "champion" or can be left unset so that whomever solicits the donation will get the credit for having done so. This is particularly helpful in "Ticket Round-up" campaigns where Box Office staff can compete to see who raises the most funds.

Each campaign can be assigned a specific "Giving Level Matrix" which is simply a listing of dollar levels and their matching name. For example:

  • $0.00 to $99.99 Donor
  • $100.00 to $249.99 Friend
  • $250.00 to $349.99 Star
  • $350.00 to $499.99 Director
  • $500.00 to $999.99 Producer
  • $1,000.00 to $999,999.99 Playwright

You can also indicate within each level what benefits they may receive for their gift (if any) and record any impact that may have on their taxable receipt amount.

Diataxis: 
Explanation

Setting Up Stock Gifts / Donations

We have a number of sites that receive stock donations. The general practice, is to value the stock at time of gift. This is the valuation for the tax receipt the donor receives.

The theatre can keep the stock (perhaps for an endowment investment) or turn it over to a broker to sell it under the direction of the theatre.

The donation value is most often recognized at the time of the gift. The amount actually received can be more or less than that valuation.

To handle this, yopu create a payment method called 'stock gain/loss' to be written off to a special account. You create this new payment method in code tables. For more information on code tables, click here.

For example: A patron gives $1,000 in stock.
The stock is sold for $1,010.
There are two payments for the gift. One of $1,000 check from the broker, and one of $10 gain/loss. The donor gets receipted for the $1,000 only, the $10 adjustment is the gain/loss.

For future reference, in the donations notes field, you can include the information regarding amount of shares, at what price, and when you sold them in the donation notes field.

Should you create the GL account as an expense account or revenue account?

Typically, the stocks should be increasing in value (or at least you hope so!), so the Stock Gain/Loss GL account should be created as a revenue account by default.

The required GL Accounts are:

  • Stock (Asset) - only if you keep Stock in the current form as Stock to be sold at a later date
  • Stock Gain/Loss (Revenue GL Account)

The account numbers and actual type are defined by your accountant.

Any brokerage fees (hopefully you have a generous broker who does not keep the fees) are treated the same way as a Gain/Loss on the sale of the stock.

Example A:

Receive $1,000 Stock and keep it as stock

Donation $1,000

Payment Method = Stock $1,000 (goes into the GL as a debit/asset)
Tax Receipt = $1,000

Sell the Stock ($1,000) that was initially entered as Payment Method Stock for a surrender value of $1,200

Payment Method = Stock -$1,000 (to remove the initial stock asset)
Payment Method = Cash $1,200
Payment Method = Stock Gain/Loss -$200 (goes into the GL as a credit/gain)
Tax Receipt - none at this point because it was already issued during initial receipt of stock

OR Sell the Stock ($1,000) that was initially entered as Payment Method Stock for a surrender value of $900

Payment Method = Stock -$1,000 (to remove the initial stock asset)
Payment Method = Cash $900
Payment Method = Stock Gain/Loss $100 (goes into the GL as a debit/loss)
Tax Receipt - none at this point because it was already issued during initial receipt of stock

Example B:

Receive $1,000 Stock, Convert it to Cash for $1,010

Donation $1,000

Payment Method = Cash $1,010
Payment Method = Stock Gain/Loss -$10 (goes into the GL as a credit/gain)
Tax Receipt = $1,000

Example C:

Receive $1,000 Stock, Convert it to Cash for $990

Donation $1,000

Payment Method = Cash $990
Payment Method = Stock Gain/Loss $10 (goes into the GL as a debit/loss)

Tax Receipt $1,000

Diataxis: 
Explanation