fund raising and donations and annual receipts

[H.S.]

Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> I'm also the treasurer of a 501c3 and there is perhaps a bit more to it
> than that. Which is why we don't try to do it within GnuCash. You
> usually also......
> a) Want to notice and send thank special thank you letters for unusually
> large donations.
> b) The form of the acknowledgment letter is different if the annual
> total is over $250 (here in the US). Just the invoice not likely enough
> unless your invoices are all going to specify whether any "good" was
> received or not.
> c) You need to segregate donations form "qualified" and "non-qualified"
> donors for the purposes of figuring the percentage of  "general public
> support" (schedule A of the 990 or 990-EZ). But while just being big
> ($5000 or more) ordinarily makes unqualified, if you can declare the big
> donation "unusual" can be excluded. Probably a 501c3 rules experienced
> accountant will be needed for the every five year filing (to show at
> least 33% was "general public") and you need the data in whatever format
> he or she wants it.
> 
<SNIP>
> 
> I rather suspect that there are no a whole lot of us doing "non-profit
> accounting" with GnuCash and our needs are specialized. A separate list?
> 
> And lest I forget -- the rules for every jurisdiction/country are going
> to be different.

You have given details of many underlying factors to be considered for
"non-profit accounting". I appreciate this. There is a lot of stuff I
wasn't aware of (but then, I am not an accountant :) ).

In the case I am considering though, the requirements are pretty simple
and very straightforward. All that is required is the name and address
of the donor, the total amount he donated, the year, and the
organization's address.

I am thinking if it would be easier to just put this data down on a
spread sheet. Each row for each donor. The columns give the name, tel.,
address and then the donations throughout the year. The last column will
be sum of all the donations. And the receipt, in triplicate, can be
generated via mail merge. Haven't tried it yet, but I think this is
doable in OOo calc. I am assuming there is a fixed number of max
donation events (e.g. number of weekends), so that the row size (num. of
cols.) remains constant.

Wouldn't something this simple be comparably easily done in gnucash? In
gnucash I wouldn't need to assume a fixed number of donation events, for
example. There might be other advantages to using an application meant
for accountancy.

Regards
-- 

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