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Spouses: One record or separate records? What's your org's policy?

Sara Gabriel

Hello,

I'm very curious what the policy is for different organizations. I can see pros and cons to both. When a gift comes from a person who is married, the gift is really coming from the household. (In my opinion. I'm sure there are arguments against this thinking, like, for example, couples who keep separate accounts.). Obviously, if the spouse of the person who sent the gift has their own record, then a soft credit would be applied to that record.

I'm in the process of learning RE (been using it since last December) with the intent of putting together a policies and procedures manual. I just recently imported a spreadsheet from an event (which I had to break into multiple spreadsheets according to RE import rules). The spreadsheet had very little info on it - just the name of the donor, their email address, the amount of the gift, the date of the gift, and the name of the team leader who will receive a soft credit for the gift. (My org's directors, who work very closely with a fundraising consultant, don't want to use the solicitor field unless an individual has been officially designated a solicitor and assigned constituents. So, they want the team leaders of this event to be given a soft credit even though they actively pursued donations. This is different from the advice given to me by Blackbaud, but it makes sense enough for our org and the way we raise funds.)

After uploading these spreadsheets, I went back to research (using query) which of the constituents had spouses so that the spouses could receive a soft credit. (There are over 400 constituents on this spreadsheet - about half had records before importing.) What I noticed is that several of the donations made were under the constituent's name, but the email address clearly belonged to the spouse. There were some where the donation was made under both spouses' names - so, who gets the credit and who gets the soft credit? I've been waffling on whether it makes more sense to keep one record or separate records. (Ex: If one spouse is a board member and the other is not, then you'd want to keep separate records so you can apply the correct constituent codes.) If one record, then I don't have to go back through a huge spreadsheet to check for spouses and apply soft credit (if those spouse weren't made evident when the donation was made). Like I said, waffling. I was dead-set on separate records until going through the spreadsheet to see which spouses needed a soft credit or even a record of their own. (I'm not the one who started this database, BTW. She left the org. I'm her replacement and the one who will make sense of her choices and create policies since there are none and data was entered kind of haphazardly.)

What's your organization's policy? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Sara

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Comments

JoAnn Strommen

Sara,

If you search the forums you will find quite a number of posts on this topic. Some orgs give both spouses records from the start. We do if there is reason such as both involved with org on boards/committees/donation from individual account/both alum/both employed/etc.

You can set RE to automatically SC spouse records. However, SC the team leaders is going to make a mess that you may regret at some point in the future. They can be an assigned solicitor for just that team event with start and end date.

Best wishes with your policy/procedures and cleanup.

Kelly Bodie

My understanding is the best practice is to have separate records. But there are details...

Definitely make use of the spousal relationship and the relationship tab - that will enable you to choose one "head of household."

The relationship record may or may not be a constituent. Depending on how you're communicating with them, there are pros and cons. For us, and our integration with Luminate Online, we want the relationship record to be a constituent IF there is a unique email address for the spouse. LO can only email full constituents. Relationship records do not count against your license of constituent records.

I believe "head of household" solves most soft crediting questions for us.

Sara Gabriel

You can set RE to automatically SC spouse records. However, SC the team leaders is going to make a mess that you may regret at some point in the future. They can be an assigned solicitor for just that team event with start and end date.

JoAnn,

Thank you for the response. I will look into setting RE to automatically SC spouse records. I suggested using solicitor for the team leads, but my director wants to SC since it's immediately visible on the gift record. She also believes that solicitor is more like a paid position. I didn't verbally agree or disagree with that, but tried to explain that solicitor indicates action and soft credit is passive, so a team lead who rallies folks to give would fall under action. She didn't buy into that as she kept bringing up "paid" solicitation. Will you share with me some examples of what you envision the "mess" might be so that I can present a good argument for solicitor? Since I haven't been at this very long, examples would be most helpful. Thank you so much! Sara

Sara Gabriel

I believe "head of household" solves most soft crediting questions for us.

Kelly,

Thank you! I will learn more about "head of household" and apply. Sara

Karen Stuhlfeier

I think that if you understand how head of household processing works you won't have any problems with it. We always make spouses full constituents. We soft credit spouses for all gifts given by their spouse. It doesn't matter which record the gift is on. You just need to understand how the database is meant to work. If you don't make them constituents how can you properly research them?

JoAnn Strommen

I understand some might consider assigned solicitor to be paid position but that is just an interpretation of the term and depends on your org. For my first 10+ years working with RE our exec was the only 'paid' person who was recorded as a solicitor and our internal staff solicitations. We have teams of 50-80-100 volunteers a year that were assigned. Assignments allowed us to report on money raised but also generate lists for assignments the next year. We tended to call them campaigners vs. solicitors but they were 'solicitors' in RE.

Our definition - SC was used only when the person had some ownership/control of the money being given.

If you ever want to report on life time giving SC can become an issue. My husband Joe made a donation of $10 and I'm SC as his spouse. I asked neighbor Jill and she gave $5000. Now I'm SC for another $5000. If you do my lifetime giving I'm already at $5010 without the money from the others I asked. So you look at my record and how do you know which SC are actually for "my" money? So far, only $10. This could potentially affect my ratings and next gift ask amount if it's a factor you use or could use in the future. There are probably some skewed reports if you include SC - maybe someone who did SC the solicitor can share things they encountered.

There's a great report called Solicitor Analysis that can show all the gifts raised by a person. IMO the gifts on 'my' record should be 'my' gifts. I would look at the solicitor report or the details on my assignments to see money raised.

Yes, SC can be seen on the gift record but you can also add the column for solicitor name. I've always had that as a column on my gift tab. I know there are orgs that SC the person asking but IMO it's so much cleaner not to. You don't know what the org will want it report on in a few years.

Sara Gabriel

Our definition - SC was used only when the person had some ownership/control of the money being given.

If you ever want to report on life time giving SC can become an issue. My husband Joe made a donation of $10 and I'm SC as his spouse. I asked neighbor Jill and she gave $5000. Now I'm SC for another $5000. If you do my lifetime giving I'm already at $5010 without the money from the others I asked. So you look at my record and how do you know which SC are actually for "my" money? So far, only $10. This could potentially affect my ratings and next gift ask amount if it's a factor you use or could use in the future. There are probably some skewed reports if you include SC - maybe someone who did SC the solicitor can share things they encountered.

There's a great report called Solicitor Analysis that can show all the gifts raised by a person. IMO the gifts on 'my' record should be 'my' gifts. I would look at the solicitor report or the details on my assignments to see money raised.

Yes, SC can be seen on the gift record but you can also add the column for solicitor name. I've always had that as a column on my gift tab. I know there are orgs that SC the person asking but IMO it's so much cleaner not to. You don't know what the org will want it report on in a few years.

This is all excellent, thank you! A Blackbaud Rep had told me to think about the difference between solicitor and soft credit as active vs. passive. I like your org's definition better: ownership/control of the money. I'll check out the Solicitor Analysis report and look to add a column for the solicitor name on the gift tab. I have no clue how to do this, but I'll find out! Thank you so much again!

JoAnn Strommen

Sara,

To add column on any of the tabs like Gifts, Actions, Addresses just right click on the bar with the current column headings. In the drop down choose columns and it will show you the available ones.You can set the display order by rearranging.