Written Pledge
The Office of Gift
Accounting enters pledges into the GAIL database for written, documented
pledges transmitted from the donor. The amount of the pledge recorded
represents only the amount the donor personally plans to contribute. It
does not include any anticipated matching gifts from the donor’s employer or
any payments which will be made through a donor advised fund. A donor
cannot obligate a company to continue to match his/her gifts. Therefore,
any matching gift revenue that is received will be designated to the same
fund(s) the donor has identified and will ‘count’ toward the donor’s support of
that particular project or program but will not be applied as a pledge payment.
At the time the pledge is entered into the GAIL database, an installment
schedule, based on the number of anticipated payments and the beginning and end
date of the pledge, is established. Installment information is used to
generate pledge aging reports for the Office of Gift & Alumni Information
Management use in monitoring the progress of pledges and for writing-off
pledges as described in the next section.
Phone PledgePhone pledges are electronically transferred from the phone-a-thon vendor
to the Office of Gift Accounting and are recorded in the GAIL database.
These pledges are held active for approximately eight months. If not
fulfilled within that timeframe, phone pledges are automatically identified as historical.
On-line PledgeOn-line pledges are recorded in Ascend based on the information provided on
the UGA Foundation main giving page by the donor. The donor must make
their first payment on the pledge in conjunction with establishing their pledge.
The donor may choose to make payments monthly, quarterly, semiannually or
annually. Payments may be made via automated credit/debit card charges or
bank draft (EFT). The duration of the pledge may not extend beyond the
expiration date on the card used or three years, whichever comes first.
The same rules apply to a pledge made on-line versus a written pledge with the
exception of the donor signature and $1,000 minimum.
Acknowledging Pledges The Office of Donor Relations and Stewardship will be notified of all new
pledges of $10,000 or more and will send a written acknowledgement to the
donor.
Pledge Reminders All donors with an active pledge(s) will receive a Pledge Reminder
generated by the Office of Gift & Alumni Information Management in the
month(s) indicated in their original commitment documentation. The pledge
reminder will include the following information relative to his/her commitment:
- Original Pledge Date
- Pledge designation
- Original Pledge Amount
- Current Pledge Balance
- Current Installment
- Overage or Shortage from previous payments
- Total Currently Due
- Current Constituent Based Director and contact information
The amount currently due is based on the
original payment/reminder schedule that the donor requested when the pledge was
established plus any overage or shortage from previous payments. If
payment is not received within three months of the first reminder, a second
request reminder will be sent as follow-up.
The Office of Gift Accounting will generate pledge reminders each month
and perform a quick review in order to identify any anomalies that need to be
brought to the attention of Development staff. They will send an
electronic file of each of the applicable reminders to the appropriate
constituent based director (list maintained by Central Development
Office). Upon receipt of this file, the Development Officer will have 5
business days to review the correspondence which reflect their contact
information for the donor. They may:
- Elect to have the Office of Gift Accounting send the pledge reminder as-is; then no action is needed OR
- Elect to not send the pledge reminder at this time; then they must notify Office of Gift Accounting at gifts@uga.edu OR
- Elect to send all pledge reminders out from the unit; then they must notify Office of Gift Accounting at gifts@uga.edu and they will send a color PDF version of the document(s).
When the 5 day wait period has elapsed, Office of Gift Accounting will send out all pledge reminders for which no feedback has been received.
Once a pledge has been fulfilled, the outstanding pledge is shown as paid in full. Any additional contributions to that fund are recorded as outright gifts.
Payment reminders for Annual giving phone campaign pledges are generated by the phone-a-thon vendor; not the Office of Gift Accounting. These are automatically managed on a 30-60-90 day cycle.
Last Updated on September 18, 2019