Best Practices on Tracking Minor Information

Azhlee Costa

Issue: Currently, we do not keep constituent records for children under the age of 18 (unless they have donated or someone has made a tribute gift in their honor). However, we do host events where children attend. If we continue to follow this business practice, our registrations counts will be rendered inaccurate. Our initial thought was to create a solicit code - that way, this group can be suppressed as needed - but, unfortunately, we will not always know a child’s age or date of birth. Therefore, maintaining the group could become confusing and potentially result in privacy issues. 

Example: Mr. and Mrs. Smith have 2 children. Our organization is hosting a fundraising event for Pediatrics and invites the Smith Family. On the Smiths' RSVP, they note that they and their 2 children will all be attending the event. We already have records for Mr. and Mrs. Smith, so we register them in our system. They did not make a donation in honor of their children; thus, we do not create records for them and cannot register them.

Question: What are your best practices regarding tracking data for minor children? We are looking for examples on how other organizations handle this.