Sometimes, donors will choose to make a donation in memory of a loved one who has passed, or in honor of someone who would appreciate the kind and selfless gesture.

These types of gifts, called "tribute gifts," can be categorized and identified easily in your Network for Good tools. This will make it easy for you to know when you may need to include that important tribute information, as well as report on certain tribute gifts made in honor or in memory of a specific person.

In order to provide the option for a donor to create a tribute gift, you will need to make sure that you've set up Fundraising Pages correctly to include that particular feature.

In Fundraising Pages, you'll want to select the "Site Settings" tab from the options available at the top of your screen. Once the page reloads, please click on the blue "Edit" button towards the top right corner of your screen.

You should then be able to scroll down to the section titled "Basic Donation Configuration," where you should several checkbox options.

You'll want to ensure that the options for "Allow recurring donations," "Allow honoration," and "allow notification of tribute" are all checked - this will allow for donors to make tribute gifts on your pages moving forward.

You'll also have the option to edit the "tribute label" to your page, which is the language that you'll display when asking a donor if their donation is a tribute gift upon checkout.

Once you're satisfied with these options, you'll want to click the blue "Save & Exit" button at the top-right of your screen to confirm those changes.

Once you've enabled the ability for donors to make tribute gifts, your donors should now see a dropdown menu when making a donation, asking if they'd like to "honor or remember someone with your gift."

If a donor selects "honor" or "remember" from the available options, they will then be prompted to fill out additional information in regards to this gift, such as including a note to the "honoree," as well as the contact information for those who might appreciate the honor or remembrance.

When a tribute gift is made, please note that the individual making the donation will be added to Donor Management as a contact (if they aren't one already) - but the honoree will not. To add the honoree (or the family member receiving notifications of the memorial donations), you will need to add the honoree's information as a new contact record in Donor Management.

If a gift is made “offline,” such as through a check or through cash, you will need to manually record the donation in Donor Management or Fundraising Pages.

While you are recording the gift, you should have the option to select a "Tribute Type," and you should see several tribute-style options available for selection for that gift.

Once you’ve indicated what type of tribute the gift is, you will be asked how you would like to notify the recipient - via email or physical letter. You will then be asked to provide the name of the recipient who will receive that notification.

If the honoree is not an existing contact in Donor Management, you will need to add a new contact via the link provided.

To locate all tribute gifts, you have the option within Donor Management to create a filter that produces a list of all of those gifts.

You'll want to click on the option for "Giving" from the Dashboard menu. Once the page loads, you'll want to select the option to "Create Filter," then select the following conditions:

You can also add additional conditions to your filter to narrow down the results further, such as including tributes within a specific calendar year or for a specific campaign.

With any tribute gift, you'll want to make sure you send an acknowledgement either to the person being honored, or a family member for honorees who have passed away.

It's crucial that the information you have for these tribute gifts is accurate - not only to be respectful of those your organization is looking to honor, but because this acknowledgement might be the first time the recipient has come into contact with your organization. First impressions can be long-lasting!

Questions to consider:

It's also important that you keep the following in mind while writing these types of acknowledgements: