Revenue focuses on transactions. Any constituent in a revenue report is the legal donor of that money and there is only one legal donor per transaction. Revenue-based reports are used to show how much has been raised or received for a specific designation, site, SCU, or campus. Revenue can be summed.
Recognition focuses on constituents. Multiple constituents may be associated with a single transaction (one of which will also be the revenue / legal donor), and this is referred to as “soft credit”. Recognition is not “transferred,” it is duplicated across all associated constituents. Recognition should never be summed across multiple constituents because it will inflate the value of the transactions by double-counting money.
Suppose a constituent and their spouse make a gift of $100. The total revenue for this transaction is $100, and this revenue is only linked to one donor. Both constituents receive $100 in recognition credit, and we do not sum the total recognition credit to avoid double-counting.
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Legal / Revenue
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Recognition
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Constituent A
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$100
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$100
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Constituent B (A’s spouse)
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N/A - only given to legal donor
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$100
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Total
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$100
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N/A - do not sum
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Table 1. An example of a constituent and their spouse giving $100, showing revenue and recognition values associated with the transaction.