Donated Items
Item Donations are used for recording donations you receive from Item Donors in support of an event.
Item may also be:
- cash donations in lieu of donating items or attending the in-person event;
- sponsorships, often as advertising space in printed or online publications; and,
- "in-kind" donations, such as goods and/or services provided (catering, printing services, volunteer swag, etc.) by the Item Donors in return for recognition through the event.
Recording Item donations for these will let you track what was received from the Item Donor and allow you to include them on the Donor Receipts as well as acknowledge the Item Donor on the event website.
INFORMATION
Donations with their payments processed through the event website (via the credit card processing integration) will create a Participant Record. All payments processed through the auction website require a Participant Record to be completed.
Item Donations vs Participant Donations
When dealing with cash donations, there is an overlap between recording a Participant donation or a donation made by an Item Donor. There is no single right answer to which way a donation should be recorded, although here are some guidelines that may help.
In general, a Donation should be considered an Item Donation if:
- the donation is made and paid for prior to the event and it is an item for the auction available for bidding at or through the event;
- the donation is made and paid for prior to the event and it is in lieu of donating an item for the auction to be available for bidding on at or through the event;
- the Item Donor is not going to be a Participant bidding at the event's auction;
- you do not need to track the commitment to the donation separately from the payment,
- with an item donation, you simply record the donation when it is actually made.
- with a participant donation, you need to record both the donation and the payment.
- it is a donation of goods or services; or,
- you want to acknowledge the donation on the event website.
Donation Type
Sponsorship
A Sponsorship is considered a special kind of Item Donation. When you Add An Item Donation, you can check the Sponsorship option in the Type section as you record the donation in the Add Donation dashboard to make the donation a Sponsorship.
This will also have the Item Donor be included in the Sponsors elements (see Sponsors Catalog and Sponsors Row) automatically on the website (subject to the element configuration).
In-Kind Donations
A item donation can be flagged as a donation in kind which will prevent its value from being counted as income for the event. The "in-kind" flag is never shown publicly or revealed on the Donor Receipts, it is purely for internal purposes.
Sell Sponsorships
It is common to want to Sell Sponsorships online alongside event Reference: Tickets.
To sell a Sponsorship online, you would create a Sponsorship Item (also commonly seen as an event admission Ticket item in this case).
- See How To Add Sponsorship Items for more information on creating a Sponsorship item.
When a Particpant buys a Sponsorship online they will be tracked as a Participant and the Sponsorship item will show up on their Participant Statements.
IMPORTANT
Using the Is sponsorship option for Sponsorship items will show the Participant as an Item Donor/Sponsor and handle the income correctly for these sales.
WARNING
If you do not enable this option for the Sponsorship item and you want the Participant acknowledged as an Item Donor/Sponsor on the website, you will need to manually Unknown link 'AddInKindDonation' for the "Participant" and check both the Sponsorship and Donation in-kind Type options.
By checking the "in-kind" option for these donations you prevent the system double counting the income as the amount would already be tracked as a participant purchase.
In this section:
Last reviewed: May 2024