Soft Credits

What is a Soft Credit?

A soft credit is a way to recognize a donor for a gift they didn't directly give, but had influenced or facilitated. It's for tracking purposes so you can "soft credit" the influencer to help you keep track of who is helping to bring in donations to your organization. 

For example: 

  • A supporter invites a friend to an event and the friend makes a donation, the supporter would get a soft credit for making the introduction to the organization. 
  • The donation is a multi-donor contribution, so you’ll soft credit those who contributed and hard credit the person whose name is on the check.

Donor CRM does not offer soft credit acknowledgments. Only the primary donor will be eligible to receive a Thank You Letter


How to apply a Soft Credit

  • Follow the steps to add a new gift. Or, locate an existing gift from your Gift Listing > Actions > Edit.

  • In Step 2, select box for Soft Credit.

  • Enter the name of an existing contact, and select from the dropdown

  • Optional:  Select the + action to credit additional contacts. 
    • Note: Each Soft Credit must have a unique Soft Creditee.

  • Click to choose between a % amount or % value.

  • Enter the amount of soft credit the contact(s) will receive > Save.

Soft Credit Reporting

A soft credit report can be viewed and exported by selecting Gifts > Soft Credits from the left navigation.


Apply any search filters as necessary, or select Download Excel to generate the report. A notification will display once the report is ready for download. 


The exported report will include the following columns: 

  • Parent Transaction.Id
  • Parent Transaction.External System Id.1
  • Credited Contact.First Name    
  • Credited Contact.Last Name    
  • Parent Transaction.Contact.First Name    
  • Parent Transaction.Contact.Last Name    
  • Parent Transaction.Gift Date (UTC)    
  • Credit Amount    
  • Parent Transaction.Original Amount    
  • Parent Transaction.Campaign.Name    
  • Parent Transaction.Source.Name    
  • Parent Transaction.Sub Source.Name    
  • Parent Transaction.General Ledger.Name