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How Do I Acknowledge Passthrough Gifts?

Rachel Specht
  • Updated

After processing incoming Passthrough Gifts, it's important to send Acknowledgements to recognize and thank soft credit donors for their contributions. While Passthrough Gifts do not qualify for tax credits, the Virtuous CRM+ Acknowledgement Tool can streamline the preparation and sending of thoughtful acknowledgements for these important supporters. Using Acknowledgement Groups will allow you to define criteria for which Passthrough Gifts qualify for which Acknowledgement Templates. This article will provide an overview of the Acknowledgement process, along with some best practice tips.

Table of Contents

  1. Acknowledgement Process
  2. Query Tips
  3. Creating Acknowledgement Groups
  4. Ordering Your Acknowledgement Groups
  5. Queuing Acknowledgements
  6. Confirming or Rejecting Runs
  7. Acknowledgement History
  8. Exception File

Acknowledgement Process

  1. Build your Acknowledgement Templates. You need one template for every different type of Acknowledgement you want to send. Since these are for Passthrough Gifts and do not include tax credit information, your templates should focus on thanking donors and recognizing their contribution. This is a great opportunity to cultivate relationships with new donors or potential major donors. For more guidance on building acknowledgement templates, read this support article. 
  2. Build your Gift Passthrough Queries. You need one Query for every Acknowledgement template you built. These Queries must be the Gift Passthrough Type. For more guidance on building Queries, check out this support article.
  3. Create your Acknowledgement Groups. This will pair your Acknowledgement Template with the appropriate Passthrough Gift Query that specifies which Gifts qualify.
  4. Order your Acknowledgement Groups. This step ensures that your Donors receive the most relevant Acknowledgement, should they qualify for more than one Acknowledgement Group.
  5. Queue Acknowledgements. This is your chance to check that all your Queries are set up correctly as well as ordered appropriately.
  6. Run Acknowledgements. This is the actual execution step that will create the PDF downloads for Mail Acknowledgements or send out Email Acknowledgements.

Query Tips

When creating your Passthrough Gift Queries to define Acknowledgement Groups, keep these tips in mind:

  • Do not include date criteria. There is no need to include a date range in your Passthrough Gift Query as you'll be able to define a date range when running Acknowledgements.
  • Use Tags for Donor preferences. If Donors communicate a preference for Email Acknowledgements vs. paper Acknowledgements, or request specific communication preferences, Tags are the best way to track these preferences. Contact Tags can be used as parameters in Gift Queries, making it easy to include Donor preferences when defining Acknowledgement Groups.

Creating Acknowledgement Groups

Acknowledgement Groups allow you to link an Acknowledgement Template with a saved Passthrough Gift Query, effectively defining the criteria for which Gifts should receive that particular Acknowledgement Template. To create a new Acknowledgement Group, select the Actions button available in the top right corner of the page, and then select Create Acknowledgement Group.

This will open the New Acknowledgement Group Form.

  1. Group Name: Each group should have a unique name that makes it clear what type of Passthrough Gift or Acknowledgement is included. For example, you might have one Acknowledgement Group for Basic Email Acknowledgement and another for Email Acknowledgement - Major Passthrough Gift.
  2. Acknowledgement Code: Each group must have a unique code. You can use the same values as the name or use an abbreviation. The groups used as examples above could have simple codes, like BEA and EA-MPG.
  3. Gift Passthrough Query: Search for the saved Gift Passthrough Query to be used in identifying which Gifts should be included in the group. You may use criteria about the Gift itself, such as the Gift Amount, Project, or Segment, or criteria about the Donor.
  4. Acknowledgement Format: Specify whether you would like to select an Email Template or a Mail Template. This will determine the selections available in the next field.
  5. Acknowledgement Template: Select the Acknowledgement Template to be used for acknowledging Passthrough Gifts in this group. 

Use the Preview button to view a preview of your template to confirm you have made the correct selection. When you have entered all the appropriate information, select Save Acknowledgement Group to create your new Acknowledgement Group. Repeat this process for each Acknowledgement Group you wish to create.

Ordering Your Acknowledgement Groups

Once you have created all of your Acknowledgement Groups, you'll need to set the order in which Acknowledgements will run. Select the three lines next to each Acknowledgement Group and drag them up or down to reorder.

All Passthrough Gifts selected for your Acknowledgement run will be compared to the criteria for the first group in the list. If there is a match, then a Gift will be assigned to that Acknowledgement Group. All Gifts that do not match will then be run against the Query criteria for the next Acknowledgement Group, and then the next, progressing from top to bottom. If a Gift matches more than one Query, it will be assigned the Acknowledgement Template for the first Acknowledgement Group it matches.

For example, a large Passthrough Gift for a Donor who wishes to receive emails could match to multiple Acknowledgement Groups, but will be assigned to whichever group appears first in your ordered list.

Queuing Acknowledgements

Once your Acknowledgement Groups have been created and the order is set, begin the Acknowledgement process by selecting the Actions button and then Queue Acknowledgement Run.

This will open the New Acknowledgement Run form.

  1. Acknowledgement Date: Select a date to be marked as the Acknowledgement Date on all acknowledged Passthrough Gifts—this date will be marked in the Acknowledgement Date value on the Gift but will not be the date used in the Acknowledgement Date Merge Tag on the Acknowledgement (that date will always be the day that you run acknowledgements).
  2. Gift Create Date Start and End: Set a date range for the Passthrough Gifts to be included in your acknowledgement run.

Note that these dates will be used to identify gifts by Create Date, not Gift Date. This makes it easy to identify all Passthrough Gifts imported on a particular day, for example, and generate acknowledgements for all of them at once.

Once you have made your selections, select Queue Acknowledgement Run. All of the Acknowledgement Groups will show that they are locked, as your group structure cannot be edited while the acknowledgement process is running. You may choose to do other work in Virtuous CRM+ during this process, and then return once it is complete.

Confirming or Rejecting Runs

Once your acknowledgement run has processed, you will see a count of Passthrough Gifts that have been matched to each Acknowledgement Group. Select the preview icon to the right of each number to view the list of Gifts assigned to each group.

If you need to make changes to your Acknowledgement Groups, or your Queries, and then re-run acknowledgements, select the Actions button on the right and then choose Discard Acknowledgements. This means that no acknowledgements will be sent or exported. You can make any necessary changes and then queue a new acknowledgement run.

If there are no changes needed, then select the Actions button on the right and select Run Acknowledgements instead. This will immediately send email acknowledgements and begin generating exports for all PDF acknowledgements.

Acknowledgement History

Each acknowledgement run will be logged and can be viewed from the Acknowledgement History tab. There, you can view the total counts for Acknowledgements generated, and even see rejected runs and those awaiting approval (runs waiting to either be completed or discarded). Click on the preview icon to the right of each row to view more details about a particular run.

Once you preview an acknowledgement run you'll see the total number of Email Acknowledgements sent, the status of the Email sends, and the open rate for those Emails.

Exception File

When processing Acknowledgements, a Contact record without the appropriate Mailing Address or Email Address will be documented in an Exception File that can be reviewed after the Acknowledgement Run is completed.

Mail Acknowledgement Exception File

When selecting either the CSV or PDF for your Envelope when creating a Mail Acknowledgement, Acknowledgements will NOT be generated for Contacts who do not have a complete mailing address. These records will be noted in a separate exceptions file that will be available in the user’s Downloads along with the PDF file of the Acknowledgements and the CSV/PDF of the Envelopes.

Email Acknowledgement Exception File

When processing Email Acknowledgements, if an Acknowledgement cannot be delivered, the user will have an exception file available to review in their Downloads listing the bounced emails.

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