What is a soft credit in fundraising?
A soft credit is internal recognition that a gift was influenced by or routed through someone other than the legal donor — used in donor records, not on tax receipts.
A soft credit is a bookkeeping concept used by nonprofits with donor-management systems. When a donor-advised fund grants money on behalf of an individual, the legal donor is the DAF sponsor — but the nonprofit also credits the individual who recommended the grant with a "soft" credit, so the relationship history reflects the real giver. Same idea for matching gifts: the employee gets a soft credit for the company's match they triggered.
Soft credits don't change who the tax deduction belongs to — that's still the legal donor. They exist so the nonprofit's view of donor history reflects the people whose relationship and influence actually drove the giving.
CrowdCreate doesn't maintain a donor-management database, so it doesn't track soft credits — it records each Stripe payment as a single pledge with a single funder. If soft-credit tracking matters to your fundraising, that lives in a separate donor-CRM tool.
CrowdCreate is a $20/month donation widget for your own website — no cut of your donations, money straight to your own Stripe.
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