About this Article

✨ Tip: Review this Article Carefully

Certain elements of the report require careful review and customization to align with your institution’s unique data and processes. Even if you're already familiar with building and editing reports in Slate, you are strongly encouraged to review and understand the content of the entire article.

To help you quickly locate these critical review areas and ensure that your VSE data is accurate and institution-specific, the information highlighted as follows:

🚨 Critical Review Area

Accessing the VSE Survey Report

• If your database was provisioned prior to July 25, 2025:
  You must suitcase the report from into your institution’s Test or Production environment.

  💼 Suitcase ID

  7d5d4e0c-9c07-4a83-8eec-63c3c57e112e:slate-advancement-showcase

• If your database was provisioned on or after July 25, 2025:
  The report is available in the Reports section of your database.

About the Report

ℹ️ This report is based on the CASE Insights ^SM on Voluntary Support of Education Guidance Document, updated June 2024.

Please note that this report serves as a template and requires institutional review. It is the responsibility of each Slate user to:

• Confirm that definitions and reporting criteria align with the most current CASE guidance.

• Review and update all sections of the report to reflect your institution’s data structures and business processes.

Because the report must be customized to fit your institution’s unique setup, Technolutions cannot guarantee accuracy of the output and is not responsible for final reporting values.

Understanding the “Gift Date Last Fiscal Year” Filter  

To ensure compatibility across all Slate databases, the “Gift Date Last Fiscal Year” filter uses a Custom SQL formula. This formula references your institution’s Fiscal Year, as it has been set in Configuration Keys (specifically, the Year Start Override value). This filter appears multiple times throughout the report. While it is technically possible to change the Format Type to “Fiscal Year,” doing so is unnecessary and can be time-consuming. For consistency and efficiency, we recommend leaving this filter as is.

Report Components and Customization Steps

The report sections are presented as Parts. To edit the report:

1. Locate and open the VSE Full Report in your database.

2. Select Edit Report. The report editor appears.
   

3. Edit each of the Parts by double-clicking them.

2a. Number of Hard Credits Donors

Top Level

• Base: Donors

• Filters: There are no donor-based filters necessary in this section. Filters are applied on each data row according to giving.

Columns

A. Number of Hard-Credit Donors – no filters needed, label only. Base of “Donor” inherently narrows this section to donors and the row aggregate enforces the “count”.

Rows - Static Content

📒 Note

Static content is provided to serve as section headers, notes, and instructions. Modify or remove this content as needed. We encourage you to use this space to include notes relevant to your institution's specific processes.

Rows - Data

New Pledges Part

1. Double-click the New Pledges part. An Edit Part popup appears.

2. Scroll to the Filters section and double-click the Pledged Last Fiscal Year subquery filter. An Edit Part popup appears that enables editing the filters used for the subquery.

For purposes of this report, New Pledges are defined as “new pledges made during the reporting year, whether paid or partly paid this year, payable in future years, or both.”

🚨Critical Review Area

Review these filters carefully. Specifically, consider how your institution utilizes Gift Status for pledges. Be sure to exclude pledges that have been written off within the same year that they’ve been pledged.

Outright Gifts (Not Associated with a Pledge) Part

1. Double-click the Outright Gifts part. An Edit Part popup appears.

2. Scroll to the Filters section and double-click the Outright Gifts Made Last Year subquery filter. An Edit Part popup appears that enables editing the filters used for the subquery.

For purposes of this report, Outright Gifts (Not Associated with a Pledge) are defined as “gifts from living individuals not pledged this year or in a previous year, realized bequests not documented this year or in a previous year, and the face value of irrevocable deferred gifts newly established or added to in the reporting year.”

🚨Critical Review Area

This section of the report may require significant manual adjustment if your institution:

• Applies overpayments to pledges rather than recording them as separate gifts.

• Creates Planned Gift Intentions for unexpected, realized bequests.

Return to the Edit Part popup opened in Step 1 above and double-click the Irrevocable Intentions subquery. An Edit Part popup appears that enables editing the filters used for the subquery.

🚨Critical Review Area

Make sure that these filters accurately reflect how your institution counts irrevocable intentions.

New Revocable Bequest Intentions Part

Double-click the New Revocable Bequest Intentions part. An Edit Part popup appears.

Scroll to the Filters section and double-click the New Revocable PG Intentions subquery filter. An Edit Part popup appears to enable editing the filters for the subquery.

For purposes of this report, New Revocable Bequest Intentions are defined as “formally committed, value-assignable intentions made by donors aged 65 or older during the reporting year, excluding new irrevocable deferred gifts or intentions realized within the same year”.

🚨Critical Review Area

Make sure that these filters accurately reflect how your institution counts revocable intentions.

If your institution does not update the status for realized (fulfilled) planned gifts, be sure to add a filter to exclude them here.

2b. Value of Commitments or Payments

🚨Critical Review Area

This section is reporting on the same information as the previous section (1a. Number of Hard Credit Donors) but it is counting dollars instead of donors. Any changes you made to the previous section must also be made to this section. Note that there are filters at the top level of this section.

3a. Funds Received for Current Operations

Top Level

• Base: Gift

• Filters: Filters added at top level to reduce redundancy in row filters

Columns

Columns are filtered by VSE Record Type, for example:  

🚨Critical Review Area

Columns in section 3a. and 3b(A). are narrowed using VSE Person Record Type / VSE Company & Foundation Record Type custom fields. This assumes that each record was assigned a VSE type either at the start of the fiscal year or when the record was first created, whichever is more recent.

However, your institution may use a different method for assigning VSE types. To ensure your reporting is accurate, please do the following:

• Carefully review the VSE Survey definitions for “Sources of Gifts”

• Choose one of these approaches to categorize your data:

  • Categorize all Person and Company & Foundation records at the start of the fiscal year or when the record is created, whichever is most recent.

  OR

  • Categorize all Gifts with a VSE Record Type based on the categorization of the donor at the time the gift was made.

• Update the column filters in these sections to reflect your institution’s specific method of categorizing records by VSE type.

Rows - Data

🚨Critical Review Area

Rows in section 3a. and 3b(A). are narrowed using a VSE Fund Type custom field. This assumes that each fund record has been accurately assigned a VSE Type based on the VSE Survey definitions of Purposes of Gifts.

To ensure your reporting is accurate, please do the following:

• Carefully review the VSE Survey definitions for “Purposes of Gifts”

• Categorize all Funds with a VSE Fund Type field – or a comparable custom field created by your institution.

  • If you are using a custom field that is different than the Slate standard field, update the row filters in these sections to reflect your institution’s custom field.

Each row in this section is individually filtered by a corresponding VSE Fund Type for ease of use and clarity. However, there are multiple ways to achieve similar results, depending on your preferences and reporting needs:

• You can use the Group By function as an alternative to individual row filters.

• In the Totals rows, you can opt to use a formula to sum related rows rather than applying a filter.

These adjustments are optional and can be changed to suit your institution’s specific needs or workflow preferences.

3b. Funds Received for Capital Purposes (A)

🚨Critical Review Area

This section is structured identically to Section 3a: Funds Received for Current Operations. Follow the same steps you completed in the previous section to update this section.

3b. Funds Received for Capital Purposes (B)

Top Level

• Base: Gift

• Filters: Filters added at top level to reduce redundancy in row filters

🚨Critical Review Area

This section must be further refined to include only the following types of deferred gifts, as defined by the VSE Survey Guidelines:

• Charitable Gift Annuities

• Charitable Remainder Trusts

• Pooled Income Funds

• Remainder Interest in Property

Please review all filters carefully to make sure they accurately reflect your institution’s data structure and align with the official survey requirements.

Columns

🚨Critical Review Area

These columns are filtered using the VSE Record Type field, just as in Sections 3a and 3b(A). If your institution uses a different method to classify records, be sure to adjust the column filters to align with your institutional standards or custom fields.

❓ Why aren’t there columns for IRS Tax Deduction Amount (columns B, D and F)?

The face value of a deferred gift can be easily reported using the Gift Amount field, but calculating the IRS tax deduction amount involves complex variables and is not typically stored in the CRM. For this reason, these columns are not included in the Slate report.

If desired, institutions can create a custom field to track estimated tax deductions and include them in internal reporting. However, most users simply use the deferred gift tax deduction calculator available on the CASE website and enter those values directly into the VSE Survey, without recording them in their CRM.

3b. Funds Received for Capital Purposes (C)

Top Level

• Base: Gift

• Filters: Filters added at top level to reduce redundancy in row filters

🚨Critical Review Area

Any filter updates made in Section 3b(B) must also be applied here in Section 3b(C). Note that while Section 3b(B) reports the dollar value of newly established deferred gifts, and Section 3b(C) reports the number of those gifts, both sections rely on the same filter criteria.

4a. Additional Details (A)

This report part requires updates to all columns.

A. Legally Contactable Alumni

📒 Note

The filters applied in this section may slow down report loading times due to their complexity.

To improve performance, consider an alternative approach: at the start of your fiscal year, add a dedicated field to your alumni solicitable base that aligns with the Section 4a(A) VSE Survey guidelines. You can then use this pre-filtered field to streamline filtering in this section.

🚨 Critical Review Area

If you choose to retain the standard filters provided here, be sure to review and update the “Not Opted Out” subquery filter. It is essential to align this with your institution’s specific “opt-out” or “do not contact” criteria to ensure accurate reporting. You should also consider whether the most recent graduating class should be excluded from these numbers.

B. Number Solicited

🚨 Critical Review Area

This filter serves as a placeholder and should be carefully reviewed and updated to reflect your institution’s specific approach to identifying solicited individuals.

C. Number Hard-Credit Alumni Donors

🚨 Critical Review Area

Make sure these filters accurately reflect how your institution counts hard credit gifts from alumni.

4a. Additional Details (B)

🚨 Critical Review Area

The filters in these sections are applied at the row level. If you make any changes to the filters in the first part (which calculates the number of donors), you must replicate those same changes in the second part (which calculates the amount).

Both sections are reporting on Total Bequests Received, and consistent filtering is essential to ensure accurate and aligned results.

4a. Additional Details (C)

This section is the only part of the report that is query-based. After opening the report part, click “Edit Query” to review its structure.

Each of the five sections within this part functions as an independent subquery. You can think of these subqueries as independent queries that have been combined to display data in a format that aligns with this section of the VSE Survey.

✨ Tip

When initially updating this report, you may find it helpful to run separate “Top Donor” queries to validate your results. Adjust each subquery individually until you are confident in their accuracy. Once verified, and unless your data structure changes in the future, this report part should remain accurate for use in future survey cycles.

🚨 Critical Review Area

These independent subqueries rely on dependent subquery exports, filters, and sorts. Review all components carefully to make sure the data is accurate and aligns with the VSE Survey requirements.

Remaining sections of the VSE Survey are optional, and not included in this template.