Recording and managing tribute gifts

In this article:

What are tribute gifts and how do they work?

A tribute is a gift made in honor or in memory of someone or something. If the honoree is living, the tribute is honorary. Such a gift may be be motivated by an important moment, like an anniversary, birthday, or graduation. If the person or animal for whom the tribute is being made is deceased, it is a memorial tribute.

Like any gift, a tribute gift will be given by a particular constituent (the donor). You can also record:

  • The name of the honoree or deceased (the one in whose name the gift is being given)
  • A dedication note describing why the tribute is being made
  • Next of kin, family members, or anyone else you want to notify that the tribute was given

The Little Green Light Tributes feature offers a way for you to:

  • Record your gifts received in honor or memory of a person or a pet (with or without creating a constituent record for the tributee)
  • Easily identify tribute and memorial gifts in queries and reports
  • Acknowledge the donor who made the gift
  • Efficiently notify the honoree, family members, or next of kin about the gift/s, if desired. These individuals do not need to be constituents in your LGL account in order for you to be able to notify them using the notification feature

You can assign a tribute to a gift in much the same way you attach an acknowledgment template to a gift. The tribute information is entered while you are creating or updating a gift.

Here is an example of what a tribute looks like once it has been added to a gift:

Adding tributes during gift entry

These instructions show you how to create a simple tribute with or without notifications to the next of kin or others by adding tribute information during gift entry. Note that anytime you add a tributee to a tribute and the tributee is an LGL constituent, a related gift of the appropriate type will be added to that constituent’s record.

NOTE: If you want to create a tribute for which you expect to receive multiple gifts and generate notifications automatically, use a named tribute (read the “Creating a named tribute” section later in this article).

Add an honorary gift without notifications

To add an honorary gift without notifications for which you don’t want to track the honoree as a constituent, add the honorary information as you are entering the gift. Here’s an example of what the gift entry page will look like:

NOTE: You can type text into the Dedication field, if desired.

To add an honorary gift for someone who is a constituent, follow the instructions above but instead of typing the constituent name click the Set constituent button and search for the constituent. When the constituent pops up in the search, click the Select button next to their name.

NOTE: You can type text into the Dedication field, if desired.

Add a memorial gift without notifications

To add a memorial gift without notifications, add the memorial information as you are entering the gift. Here’s an example of what the gift entry page will look like:

NOTE: You can type text into the Dedication field, if desired.

To add a memorial gift for someone who is a constituent, follow the instructions above but instead of typing the constituent name click the Set constituent button and search for the constituent. When the constituent pops up in the search, click the Select button next to their name.

Add an honorary gift with notifications

To add an honorary gift for a donation for which you don’t want to track the honoree as a constituent, enter your gift and add the honorary information as part of the gift. Select the Set Constituent button and search for the constituent. 

Select the +Add a person to notify button. In the “Person to notify" section, select a constituent or manually enter the recipient (see the “Sending notifications” section below for more details). 

Here’s an example of what the gift entry page will look like:

To add an honorary gift for someone who is a constituent, follow the instructions above and remember to use the Set constituent button to add the constituent.

Read about adding notifications.

Add a memorial gift with notifications

To add a memorial gift with notifications where the tributee is someone you are tracking in your database, add the memorial information as you are entering the gift. Select the Set Constituent button and search for the constituent. Use the +Add a person to notify button and select a constituent or manually enter the recipient. 

Here’s an example of what the gift entry page will look like:

Remember to add the constituent to the tribute by using the Set constituent button. 

Read about adding notifications.

Creating a named tribute

To record a gift given in honor or in memory of a person where you expect to receive numerous gifts and want to create notification letters or emails to next of kin or others who want to be notified, the best option is to create a named tribute that contains a default notification template.

Here are the steps to create a named tribute:

  1. Go to Fundraising > Tributes, and click the Add tribute button:

2. Select the type of tribute (you can choose either "In Honor of" or "In Memory of"), and add the name of the tributee (or set that person as a constituent if they exist in your database):

3. Select the default template the tribute will use (see “Sending notifications” below for instructions on creating a notification template) and use the +Add a person to notify button to add any family members or others who should be notified. You can click the Set constituent button and search on their name if they already exist as a constituent. Then click Save.

Now you can attach this tribute to any gift you receive in memory of Abraham Lincoln, and a notification letter will be automatically generated in the Notifications tab on the Fundraising > Tributes page.

Acknowledging tribute gifts

You can acknowledge the donor of a tribute gift in the same way you would acknowledge a donor who gives any gift you would thank them for. 

NOTE: Special merge fields are available for tribute gifts, such as [[gifts.ack.tribute.name]], [[gifts.ack.tribute.dedication]], and [[gifts.ack.tribute.phrase]]. Read this knowledge base article for more information on how LGL Merge Fields work. Tribute-specific LGL Merge Fields are provided in a downloadable PDF from the Fundraising > Tributes > Notification Templates page, as shown here:

Sending notifications

Tribute notifications are for anyone who should be notified that the gift was made, such as spouse/partner or family members. These notifications are not intended as acknowledgments for the donor who made the gift.

For any tribute you create, you have the option to use notifications and notification templates within it. Notifications allow you to send a letter or email notification to the tributee’s next of kin or others, letting them know you received the gift. Notification templates give you more control over the formatting for the notifications you send.

Caveats to keep in mind when sending notifications

  • If you choose not to use notification templates with your tribute, you will need to re-create the letter or email content each time you add a new tribute in order to be able to send out notifications.
  • If you are mapping an LGL form to generate a tribute and you want to send notifications as well, you will need to create the notification template in LGL before it will become available for mapping in your form.

Tribute notification templates

In the same way mailing or acknowledgment templates are used, tribute notification templates can be used to print letters (Word or PDF/LGL) or send emails.

You can create a new tribute notification template by navigating to Fundraising > Tributes > Notification Templates and selecting either the Add MS Word Template or Add LGL Template button, depending on which type you want to create:

Each tribute can have a type (Memorial or Honorary) that dictates which kind of tribute it is being used for: Memorial tributes are used to notify recipients of memorial tribute gifts, while honorary tributes are used to notify recipients of honorary tribute gifts.

Notification templates can use any of the following LGL Merge Fields to bring data from your constituent records into your notification:

  • [[recipient.addressee]]: The addressee name for the recipient
  • [[recipient.salutation]]: The salutation for the recipient
  • [[recipient.address_block]]: The address block (addressee + address) for the recipient (mainly used for envelopes)
  • [[tribute.name]]: The name of the person or animal being honored/memorialized
  • [[tribute.donor_count_phrase]]: A phrase describing how many donors are represented by the notification (“1 donor” or “5 donors”, for instance)
  • [[donor_addresses]]: A table with the name, address, and email of each donor
  • [[tribute.donor_names]]: Pulls in the donor names without including their addresses.

Tribute notifications

A tribute notification is like an acknowledgment mailing; it is the actual item that you can print or email.

Generating a tribute notification

You can generate a tribute notification in two ways:

  1. Assign a notification template during gift entry (or when editing a gift). This causes a new notification using that template to be auto-queued. Just like with acknowledgments, gifts/recipients with the same tribute/template will queue up together in a batch that you can print or email as a group:

  2. For named tributes, it’s possible to generate a notification to all recipients (for all gifts) on demand, at any time, from the tribute itself.

Once a notification template has been assigned, the draft notifications can be found by navigating to Fundraising > Tributes > Notifications. As in the case of mailings, tribute notifications can be updated from "Draft" to "Sent" (for printed notifications) or queued for email delivery and ultimately sent (for email notifications). 

Searching and filtering

Once you have created your tribute, you’ll also be able to search for and filter by it within the Fundraising tab, as shown below.

Searching by tribute (Advanced Search)

You can also search for tribute gifts by name when you use the "In honor/memory of" criteria within your search, as shown here:

You can also search gifts by tributee name, as shown here:

Or you can filter by tribute from the Filter Results section of the page, as you can see in this screenshot:

Reporting

To report on any tribute/s in your account, search in the Fundraising tab on “Tributes”. Then select the tribute/s you want to report on, as shown here.

The search results will display gifts that have been recorded as tributes. From here, you can click the Export results button to create your custom tribute report, in the same way that you would generate a gift report from the Fundraising tab.

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