A pledge is a record you can enter for a contributor that lets that contributor establish a giving goal to a particular fund over a specific period of time. Pledges help the church in setting budgets and spending over time by knowing how much money they can expect to receive over a time period.
The pledge grid contains all pledge records. The pledge grid provides an overview of your contributor's pledges, including progress towards their pledges. Before adding pledges, review our article on "Pledge Rules" for rules to keep in mind as you add pledges to your system. The pledges grid will only show active, or currently ongoing pledges in the grid by default, but if you want to see pledges that have already been completed or any upcoming pledges, uncheck the "Hide inactive" box. You can search and filter your pledges grid to find specific pledges.
The Pledge grid also offers a variety of reports when you click the "Print" button. These reports include a listing of all your pledges, grouped in various ways, including by giver, by fund, and by frequency, as well as an option to create mailing labels. For the reports that show a listing of your pledges, Shepherd's Staff will also provide statistical information about your pledges, including Median total pledge amount, Highest total pledge amount, pledge count, contributor count, fund count, Median pledge amount, and Most common (mode) pledge amount, depending on which grouping you select.
Note: Pledges can be fulfilled by a gift-in-kind. See our article on "Gifts-in-kind" for more details.