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Designated contributions

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:05 pm
by Turning Point
We use a separate fund (02) for our Missionary support. We have about 15 missionaries that we support monthly and sometimes people will ask that their contribution go to a specific missionary. I have PC set up so that I can designate which missionary that money should go to.

My question is (and I may be way off base here), is that money now considered temporarily restricted? If so, how come my consolidated balance sheet never shows it?

My unrestricted net assets is always going up but I never see anything on the restricted side even though I designate funds for specific things.

Thanks for your help.

Re: Designated contributions

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:15 pm
by NeilZ
Turning Point wrote:We use a separate fund (02) for our Missionary support. We have about 15 missionaries that we support monthly and sometimes people will ask that their contribution go to a specific missionary. I have PC set up so that I can designate which missionary that money should go to.

My question is (and I may be way off base here), is that money now considered temporarily restricted? If so, how come my consolidated balance sheet never shows it?

My unrestricted net assets is always going up but I never see anything on the restricted side even though I designate funds for specific things.

Thanks for your help.
Unless you actually created a Donor Restriction for each missionary, all the funds will go into the Fund 02 unrestricted net assets. That said, having the separate fund actually creates the restriction as the system keeps the funds 'separate' from any other funds on your system. So when you write a check from the checking account from that fund, you are basically releasing restricted funds.

One thing you need to remember, the IRS says that in order for donations to be deductible, funds to support missionaries must come from a consolidated fund of money. If the contribution can only be given to a specific person, that donation is NOT tax deductible.