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Life insurance pledges

  • 1.  Life insurance pledges

    Posted 6 days ago

    Back in 2015, a donor signed a pledge agreement for $250,000. $150,000 of that is supposed to come from a life insurance policy - this was entered as 2 pledges for $75,000 each, each going to a different fund. Our question is should this life insurance portion have even been booked as pledges in RE? My understanding is our Finance team did not record it in their records. 



  • 2.  RE: Life insurance pledges

    Posted 6 days ago
    Annie, what to book in RE is entirely up to each organization. There are no legal rules about what you record in a donor database, so the question is only whether your setup supports the org's work and reporting needs, internal and external. It is especially common, when using RE, for pledges to be recorded which do not conform to what Finance considers a pledge. The reason is that it's pretty common for fundraisers to want to view a non-bookable promise, and to have it show up in reporting for various purposes, even though Finance doesn't book it. RE's options for achieving this are a little bit cludgy, and one common method is took book the pledge and then either book it to a Fund that does not sync over to finance, or to a sub-fund, or to use a gift attribute, or some other method to ensure that it doesn't go to Finance or that they are notified not to book the pledge.


    Thank you,
    Isaac Shalev
    Data Strategy Expert
    Sage70, Inc.
    (917) 859-0151
    isaac@sage70.com

    Schedule a 30-minute consultation now:




    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Life insurance pledges

    Posted 6 days ago
    I need more information on the pledge.  What did the donor mean by pledging the life insurance?  Were they planning on dying? :-).  Or were they pledging to give you a PAID UP policy with a cash surrender value of that amount?

    If they were pledging only to take out a policy, then there is no bonafide pledge.  It would be treated more as a bequest expectancy.  But, even then, CASE would not recognize the amount, nor would there be a payment due date or pledge schedule.

    It is highly unusual to book a life insurance pledge unless the donor intended to give you a fully or partially paid whole life policy with that value built up.  Can you get us more details?

    John

    John H. Taylor
    Principal
    John H. Taylor Consulting, LLC
    2604 Sevier St.
    Durham, NC   27705
    919.816.5903 (cell/text)

    Serving the Advancement Community Since 1987




    Original Message