A pledge is a donor’s promise to give a specific total amount over time through scheduled installments. Unlike a one-time gift, the donor does not pay it all at once. Unlike a recurring gift, it does not continue indefinitely. A pledge has a defined total amount and usually includes an installment plan that pays that amount down.
A pledge and a recurring gift fit different situations because they work differently. Offer a pledge when a donor wants to commit to one specific total on a schedule that ends, such as a capital gift paid over three years. Offer a recurring gift when a donor wants to keep giving indefinitely, with no set end amount. In either case, Rhythm does not charge the donor's card or bank account the moment the pledge is created. A billing run still has to process each installment, just as it does for recurring gift charges.
How a Pledge Is Created
You do not create a pledge directly on a form. Rhythm creates the pledge automatically after Commerce finishes payment handling and fulfillment for the order behind it. This happens in two situations:
- The order is a pledge order because a donor pledged on a giving form, or staff recorded a pledge for them, and the order has been fulfilled. The giving process behind that form, or the one staff chose in the Console, must have pledges turned on first. If you try to enter a pledge through a process where pledges are off, Rhythm refuses it and tells you the process does not allow pledges.
- The order is a Pay Later gift order, which means it was placed with no payment at checkout. Rhythm does not treat that as a failed or incomplete gift. Once the order is fulfilled, Rhythm creates one open pledge for the outstanding amount, so the donor still owes the full amount and has committed to paying it later. That pledge updates automatically as payments come in against the outstanding balance, and it becomes an actual gift only after the balance is paid off. If pledges are turned off on the giving process the donor used, you may not see the usual pledge receipt for one of these pay-later pledges, even though Rhythm still creates the pledge.
A pledge uses the giving process from the order that created it. If the order did not specify one, the pledge uses your Rhythm account's default giving process. Rhythm removes recurring-gift settings from the order, such as frequency or installment type, because those settings do not apply to a pledge.
You can also enter a pledge directly without an order behind it. A pledge created this way has no invoices, payments, or other financial records in Rhythm. Nothing bills it, and nothing pays it down automatically. Use this only when you plan to track the financial side of the promise outside Rhythm and record it in your own accounting software.
Pledges processed in the Console can use pro forma invoices, which are statements of what's due rather than real accounting records, for every installment when your giving process is set up that way. An installment pledge made on the Portal works a little differently. The donor must enter a payment method to submit the pledge, and in practice the first installment is billed against it right away. When your process uses pro forma invoices, Rhythm creates them only for the installments still ahead. That is separate from a Pay Later gift, which can be submitted with no payment at all. The pro forma rule above applies to installment pledges, not to pay-later gifts that later become pledges.
Tip
When you check a pledge's timing in a report, remember that its Order Date is when the pledge itself was created. The Gift Date on the gift a payment eventually produces is when that installment was actually paid. A Gifts report filtered to gift type "pledge payment," with both date fields added, is a convenient way to see when a pledge started and when each installment landed.
What the Pledge Starts With
A new pledge starts fully open, with nothing paid and the full amount still outstanding. If the order included a saved card or bank account, Rhythm copies that payment method to the pledge so future installments can use it. The payments remaining and next payment date stay blank when Rhythm creates the pledge, and they appear only after the pledge’s payment schedule is set up for the first time.
When Rhythm processes an installment on a pledge, it charges the saved card or bank account on file and pays the resulting invoice in the same step. It does not only create an invoice for someone to collect payment on separately. This automatic charge applies to pledges created since Rhythm's installment processing was corrected to work this way. If an older pledge produced an invoice without collecting payment, that timing is a likely explanation.
Until a billing run bills a specific installment, an unpaid pledge on an installment schedule can show no balance due on its order or invoice because nothing is really due yet. Check the pledge's installment schedule, not the order, to see what has already been billed and what's still ahead.
What the Donor Receives
If the pledge’s giving process has pledge receipts turned on and includes a receipt template, Rhythm emails that receipt to the donor as soon as the pledge is recorded. The receipt goes only to the pledge contact’s email address, so a pledge made on behalf of an organization with no linked contact receives nothing.
If the pledge includes tribute details showing the gift honors someone, Rhythm separately sends a notice to the person being honored. Rhythm still records the pledge if that notice fails to send. A failed tribute notice is not retried, and no one is notified that it failed.
Members Can't Create a Pledge Directly
Warning
A Portal member cannot create a pledge record directly, even through an integration. Rhythm refuses that action. Members can make a pledge only by giving through a giving form that offers pledges.
Whether pledges appear as an option for a donor depends on configuration, not on a separate console-only or portal-only switch on the giving process itself. A Portal giving form uses your Rhythm account's default giving process unless the page it sits on is set up to point to a different one. Pledges are available on that form only when the process it actually uses — the default, or the one named by the page — has pledges turned on.
After a pledge exists, staff can review and manage it from the pledge record page, and donors can view and manage an open pledge from the Portal.