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Record a Tribute Gift

Goal: Capture an in-honor-of or in-memory-of gift cleanly, get the right receipt to the donor, and notify the family or honoree appropriately.

What a tribute gift is​

A tribute gift is a donation made in honor of a person (a milestone, a celebration) or in memory of a person who has passed. It still goes to the affiliate as a regular donation; what changes is:

  • The donor wants the family/honoree informed
  • Recognition language often differs from a routine gift acknowledgment
  • It may be reported separately at year-end ("In Memory of Jane Smith — total raised: $X")

How tributes are captured in Ayuna today​

The donation form supports a tribute toggle with:

  • Tribute type — In Honor Of / In Memory Of
  • Honoree name
  • Optional notify-by-email address for the family

When a donor marks a gift as a tribute, this information is composed into the donation's notes field as free text — for example, In honor of Jane Smith (notify: family@example.com).

:::warning Current limitations Tribute information is stored in the donation notes field, not as structured fields. This means:

  • You can't (yet) filter or report cleanly on tribute gifts as a structured query
  • Notification emails are captured but no automated tribute notification is sent — the family/honoree contact is captured for manual staff follow-up only
  • E-cards, physical mailings, and personal messages from the donor are not yet supported

A future migration will move tribute info to dedicated columns and add automated notifications. Until then, treat tributes as a manual stewardship workflow with the donation note as the record. :::

Recording the gift​

Use the regular Record a One-Time Gift flow. On the donation form, toggle "This donation is a tribute" and complete:

  • Tribute type (In Honor / In Memory)
  • Honoree name
  • Optional notification email

The donor receipt is generated normally and goes to the donor (not the honoree). The donor's tax deduction is unaffected by tribute status.

Notifying the family or honoree​

Since automated notifications aren't yet in place, work this manually:

  1. Set up a daily or weekly process for someone to scan new tribute gifts
  2. Use a Communications template (Donations Made in Memory of {Honoree Name}) and send by hand
  3. Include the donor's name and gift amount only if your affiliate's policy is to share that — many affiliates intentionally omit the amount
  4. Track which families have been notified in the donation note

For high-volume tribute campaigns (a memorial fund after a board member's passing, a milestone honor), consider a regular weekly digest to the family rather than per-gift outreach.

Annual reporting​

To produce a gifts in memory of {name} total at year-end, search the donations list for the honoree's name in notes and sum manually. This is one of the workflows that will improve when structured tribute fields land.

Anonymity​

Tribute gifts can also be anonymous from the donor's side — toggle anonymous on the donation, capture the tribute, and when notifying the family the donor's name is omitted. Be careful: some donors expect their name to be shared with the family even if it's not public; clarify when the gift is taken.