In REACH, you can mark a donation as a soft credit and link to the actual donation in a Supporter’s record. This allows you to give a Supporter credit for a donation originating from another person or company. It’s a great way to loosely tie a supporter to a donation and use for record keeping and reporting.

Soft credits can not be applied to sponsorship costs. For sponsorships, this requires a sponsorship supporter relationship to be set up.

Some examples of soft credits include giving a gift on behalf of another individual, a matching gift from an employer (thus linking the employee gift to an employer gift), or a donation given from a Supporter through an investment company.

To create a Soft Credit:

• Start a New Donation from the Supporter who is providing the funds
• Enter in donation details (amount, payment, type) for the donation
• At the bottom of the form, click Add Soft Credit and enter in the company/individual name, and the amount for which they should receive the soft credit. If it is a new Supporter, click Add Supporter to create a record.
• If more than one was needed for a donation, simply click the Add Soft Credit button again
• Click Save when complete.
  • Note: The donor will receive the receipt and donation record, and a soft credit record will be listed in Donation History for the soft credit supporter.

You can run a Soft Credit Report to analyze the Soft Credits in your database. To do so, go to Reports > Soft Credit Details, and adjust the parameters for your report to obtain the information you desire.

Additional Notes:

• Soft credits are not included on donation statements, contribution statements or tax documentation. Only the actual donation will display in these reports for the originating supporter.
• When a Supporter is tied to the donation as a soft credit, the default percentage of credit is 100%. Admins can adjust this percentage. The total percentage tied to the donation should not exceed 100%.

Soft Credit vs Soft Supporter – There is also a Soft Supporter field available when setting up a sponsorship. This is not the same as Soft Credit in REACH. A soft supporter is a supporter who has access to a sponsorship in terms of notifications, access to messaging the sponsorship, etc. but is not contributing to the sponsorship and receives no donation credit.