Reminders for pledges and volunteer shifts
How the Non-profit pack reminds donors before a pledge falls due and volunteers before a shift, how reminders are switched on, and posting gifts by fund.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Non-profit businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
A pledge is a promise, and promises fade. A supporter commits to a gift at a fundraising dinner or during a phone appeal, means every word of it, and then life gets in the way. Without a reminder, pledged money can simply fail to arrive, and nobody at the organisation notices until the campaign total falls short.
Volunteer shifts have the same problem in a different form. A volunteer signs up for a Saturday at the food bank weeks in advance, forgets, and the shift runs short-handed. The coordinator spends Friday evening phoning around for cover.
Both problems respond to the same simple fix: a polite, well-timed reminder. This article explains how the reminders in Achekam's Non-profit & fundraising pack work, the rules around them, and how donations reach the books by fund.
The pledge reminder
The pack keeps Donors, and Donations and pledges by fund and campaign. When a pledge has a due date, the pack can remind the donor 5 days before it is due.
Five days gives a donor time to act without the reminder feeling like a demand. It arrives early enough to arrange a transfer or make sure money is in the account, and close enough to the date that it will not be forgotten again.
Write the reminder as a thank-you that happens to mention a date, not as a collection letter. Something like: thank you again for your pledge to the bursary fund; as agreed, it falls due next week; here are our banking details and the reference to use. Then stop. A donor who feels chased is less likely to pledge again.
If the due date passes and no gift arrives, the next step belongs to a person, not the pack. A short personal call or e-mail from someone the donor knows, asking whether anything has changed, is kinder and more effective than a second automated message, and it often uncovers a simple problem such as a wrong reference or a changed bank account.
The shift reminder
The pack keeps Volunteers with their shifts, and it can remind a volunteer 2 days before a shift.
Two days is enough notice for a volunteer who cannot make it to tell you, which gives the coordinator time to find cover. Make that easy: include the date, time and place, who to report to, and exactly how to let you know if they cannot come.
A reminder also tells the volunteer that their shift matters. People are more likely to turn up for something they know is counted on. Coordinators should still look over the roster a few days ahead: a reminder cannot fill a shift that nobody signed up for. For the wider job of keeping volunteers involved, the National Council of Nonprofits' page on volunteers gathers resources and tips on recruiting, engaging and managing them.
E-mail and in-app only
Industry CRM reminders go by e-mail and in the app only. There is no SMS or WhatsApp.
That has practical consequences for many non-profits. Some donors and many volunteers prefer messaging apps to e-mail, and some volunteers in community programmes may not use e-mail much at all. Before relying on reminders:
- Check that every donor with a pledge and every volunteer on a roster has a current e-mail address.
- For supporters who do not use e-mail, keep a phone call in your own routine, so they are not left out.
- Ask volunteers at onboarding how they prefer to be reminded, and record it.
Off until switched on, sent once, under a daily cap
Each customer reminder in the pack stays off until a workspace administrator switches it on. That is a sensible default: nothing goes to your supporters until someone has decided it should.
Once on, each reminder is sent at most once, so a donor is not reminded about the same pledge repeatedly, and reminders are limited by a daily cap, so a large intake of pledges or shifts does not send a flood of e-mail in one day.
Before switching a reminder on, read its wording. It is the first message from the pack many of your supporters will see, and it should sound like your organisation.
Posting donations to the books by fund
The pack also posts donations to the books by fund. For a non-profit, that is the link between the fundraising record and the accounts: a gift recorded against the bursary fund in the pack reaches the ledger against that fund, rather than vanishing into general income.
A reminder does not mark anything as received. In the pack, a gift is marked received by a person who has seen it in the bank; no bank, debit-order or payment feed is read. So the person who checks the bank statement is the one who turns a promise into a recorded gift.
Agree with your accountant how your funds are set up before the first donations are posted, especially for restricted funds that a funder or donor has tied to a purpose.
A set-up checklist
Before the next appeal or volunteer roster:
- Ask an administrator to switch on the pledge and shift reminders you want, after reading their wording.
- Check e-mail addresses for every pledging donor and rostered volunteer.
- Decide how supporters without e-mail will be reminded, and who does it.
- Agree the fund structure with your accountant.
- Name the person who confirms gifts against the bank, so pledges become recorded donations promptly.
Reminders are one part of a wider donor and volunteer journey; see welcoming and thanking a new donor and onboarding volunteers with screening and agreement. For grant funders, who expect reports rather than reminders, see grant applications from research to funder reports.
List your open pledges today, with due dates, and check that each one belongs to a donor with a working e-mail address.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
