Recording Donations

Quick Answer: Donations Manager

Record offline gifts or process live online payment payments, assign unassigned donations to donors, and keep journal entries in sync. DAF gifts require a sponsor; duplicate guards warn before you double-post.

Related terms: Contribution, Monetary Donation, Donor Advised Fund (DAF).

Donations Manager

Donations Manager lives in Donor Hub alongside Donor CRM. Every completed gift can create accounting entries, update donor totals, and trigger receipts. Use Record Donation for checks, cash, ACH, wire, and other offline gifts; use Process Payment when you need to charge a card or start a recurring payment schedule at the desk.

What You Can Do

• Record one-time or recurring gifts with purpose, fund, tax-deductible flag, and optional notes
• Mark DAF gifts and select a sponsor—Alignmint blocks save when DAF is checked but no sponsor is chosen
• Search donors and prospects from the receiving fund when entering or assigning a gift
• Filter the list by status, type, assignment (assigned vs unassigned), and date period
• Edit gifts from the table or donor profile; void with a required reason when accounting permission allows

Common Tasks

Record a check gift

1. Open Donor Hub → Donations and click Add Donation.
2. Choose Record Donation, search for the donor, and enter amount, date, method, and purpose.
3. Save; Alignmint posts the journal entry and sends a receipt when the donor has email and receipt is enabled.

Assign an unassigned online gift

1. Filter the donations list to Unassigned for the receiving fund.
2. Open Assign Donor, pick an existing donor or convert a prospect, then confirm.
3. Donor totals update without rewriting the original payment journal entry.

Good to Know

Unassigned gifts appear in the fund that received the payment, even when no donor is linked yet. Enterprise fund directors with read-write access can assign gifts without full donor-management permission; others need donor-management rights to create donors during assign.

card refunds create separate refund rows and new journal lines—they do not silently void the original payment entry. Voiding a check or cash gift may reverse linked journal entries; deposit-linked gifts follow stricter batch rules.

Donations Manager is available on all plans with Donor Hub access. Process Payment requires connected payment processing (or approved direct payout setup) on the receiving organization.

Related guides

• Donor CRM
• Recurring gifts
• Check deposits