Q: When fundraising, we sometimes recieve an oral promise of a gift, before the formal deed of donation or contract is finalized. How should we register that in Mira?
A: It depends on how certain you are that the promise will be fullfilled and weather you want the amount to count as a received gift towards a campaign goal.
Option one is to register the oral promise as a gift and set the date the promise was given as the gift date (a). You then add one (or several) payments (b) that you do not mark as paid. This gift is then a pledge (d).
The amount will count towards the “sum of all gifts” (e), but not “sum of payments” (f). The difference is the pledge balance (g).
If you do not want to treat the oral promise as a received gift, you instead create a major gift opportunity, which is a potential gift. Major gift opportunities do not count towards the sum of all gifts (h), but are show separately for the campaign (i). Just as for gifts, major gift opportunities can also be classified in needs, funds and/or approaches.
