The Department of Advancement Services uses the CASE Management Reporting Standards as a guideline for gift entry. We take gifts processing seriously and are audited yearly by the CWRU Internal Audit staff and the University’s external auditor. Private Support is verified and reported each year to CASE using the Voluntary Support for Education survey. We “wrote the book” on Financial Reporting: Advancement Services Research and Technology Support for Fund Raising, published by CASE. Madelyn Miller authored the chapter on Financial Reporting.
Two Types of Financial Reports
Private Support and Commitment reports are used for different purposes and tell us different things about our fund raising performance. The industry uses two types of financial reports to track fund raising performance:
1) Private Support (Cash): Reports “cash” for the purpose of cash flow analysis. This is defined as “cash” in the door. The Council for Aid to Education requires us to report CWRU Private Support totals annually. We then benchmark ourselves with other educational institutions using Private Support as the basis for comparison.
- Cash equivalents are gifts in kind and securities
- Private Support is the Total of Outright Gifts and Pledge Payments
- Pledge payments on pledges made in the current fiscal year as well as pledge payments on pledges made in past fiscal years are included.
- In Advance system, the transaction type codes are GF, PP, BG, BY, MG, CM, EG, EY, PY, OY, OG, PG, AG, and AY.
2) Commitments (Attainment): Commitment reports track institutional fund raising performance by reporting on “new” pledges and outright gifts. Commitment reports are for the most part “internal” gauges of our performance.
- “New” Outright Gifts and Pledges secured during the fiscal year
- Payments are NOT included in commitment reporting
- In Advance, the transaction type codes are GF,BG, AG, CM, EG, OG, PG, PL, CP, WC, EF, PD, MG, EF.
- Commitment reports are sometimes referred to as Attainment reports.
Financial Reporting
Advancement Services produces reports for Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Year to Date activity. Some reports are generated directly from the computer; i.e. monthly donor detail reports. Other reports, charts, and graphs are produced manually on a monthly basis.
DO NOT add Private Support figures to Commitment figures and get an accurate figure.
DO NOT combine Pledges and Cash. You will be double counting pledges and pledge payments.
-Advancement Services Orientation Manual