>I need help with a question of counting and accounting. I know this topic has been discussed a while ago and I have looked in the archives but couldn� t locate it.
>We have people who only want to give once a year at a substantial level. We need to show them as members and as contributors. I have been recording a payment of $0 dues donation with the post date of their contribution�so they get counted as a current member and a contributor. >Now the board wants to change to recording the first $25 of every donation as dues and everything else into the contribution pot. I remember on this list people saying that was a bad idea, but I don�t remember why! (other than breaking my poor head with having to remember to do things rather than just plugging data into its place.) Most organizations have several types of accounts. We have a general account (unrestricted), a board restricted account, and several restricted accounts. What you can do with money depends on which account it winds up in. Dues are usually used for running the organzation, salaries, postage, etc. and would paid out of the general account. However someone who contributes may specify that it go into some restricted account. You cannot take some of this and put it in the general account (although some organizations "tax" their restricted accounts to cover the overhead of managing the account). You would certainly want to run any decision past your auditors. We get very few contributions from non-members so this is rarely an issue for us. However when we do, we usually play the $0 dues game as you do. The marginal cost of a new (unpaid) member is low enough that we just absorb it. For fundraising purposes, more members looks better so rationalizing on who you include as being a member has intangible benefits. ------------------ Reminder to each recipient: To change your list account preferences, go to http://email.sparklist.com/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=support and enter the email address you used to subscribe to the ebase support list:: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ebase - Relationship Management for Nonprofits, http://www.ebase.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------
