Gifts from a Married Couple

Diane Royer

I'm just curious how other universities load data into Raiser's Edge when the gift is given by a couple and both the husband and wife are constituents in the system. Do you split the gift for data storage even though that requires adding the dollar amounts back together when printing receipts or reports? Is there some way for all gifts from one spouse to be transferred to the other if one dies?

Diane Royer

I just had a thought -- Is there some way to tie one gift to two constituents without double counting the gift and without manually splitting the gift?

Heather MacKenzie

Absolutely! That's what soft credits are used for. Do not split the gift. If they are tied to each other as spouse relationships, then you can even have RE do it automatically for you.


1. Make sure they are tied to the full constituent records for each other

2. Soft credit can be done when entering the gift OR to set it up for RE to do it for you, in the Relationship, on the 2nd tab, there's a checkbox at the bottom to auto soft credit the spouse (make sure this is checked for both directions)


3. Manual entry of soft credits will have to be done for gifts already entered, the auto checkbox doesn't go back in time, only does it for gifts entered going forward


So, that being said, the issue of whether to use soft credits or not is kind of a hot topic here in the Community. I'd also suggest searching, using the keywords "soft credit," to see what others have to say on this topic before you start using it.


If you decide to go another route besides soft credits, there may be inspiration for you in these other threads too.

Heather MacKenzie

My org, when someone passes, creates a new record for the surviving spouse (upon meeting a few criteria), soft credits all existing donations, copies anything else needed (attributes, etc.) and then enters all new gifts on the new surviving spouse record.

Diane Royer

That sounds amazing. Could you tell me how you accomplished that? Are there just settings in Raiser's Edge that would need to be adjusted or was this something that you had to program outside of Raiser's Edge and then incorporate it back in?

Diane Royer

Thank you so much for the information. I really appreciate it. Is there any documentation about how the Soft Credits work?


I did see a post where someone said that they were having a hard time getting their report to accurately show the Soft Credits. I didn't see an answer to that post though. Do you have trouble getting the Soft Credits to show on your reports?


The funny thing is, the associates in our Advancement Department call it "soft credit" when they split the gift between the records. It sounds like if we have the little checkbox marked on both records, Raiser's Edge does the soft credit for us. Am I understanding correctly?

Heather MacKenzie

Diane Royer:

That sounds amazing. Could you tell me how you accomplished that? Are there just settings in Raiser's Edge that would need to be adjusted or was this something that you had to program outside of Raiser's Edge and then incorporate it back in?

It's all just entries and/or checkboxes inside of RE. Do you enter gifts directly on the record, or do you do it in batch? It's slightly different where to go in each entry, but available both ways. The key is consistency, so you'd definitely want to establish rules/procedures ahead of time, and then they need to be stuck with. Then reporting and querying stay easy and fine.


Our rules are:

Donor Advised Funds are hard credited (entered on Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, or whomever the holding spot is) and soft credited to the "donor" (they get their tax deduction by donating to the fund, not us)

Businesses always soft credit their owners

Owners' donations MAY soft credit the business, but not always - this one is super rare for us

United Way is hard credited and the donors are soft credited - again, donors are truly donating to UW, who then sends on to us

For spouses, the person who signs the cheque or is the credit card holder name is hard credited and the other spouse soft credited

Diane Royer

We enter our gifts in a batch.


How do you set up the process for if a spouse is deceased?-- " My org, when someone passes, creates a new record for the surviving spouse (upon meeting a few criteria), soft credits all existing donations, copies anything else needed (attributes, etc.) and then enters all new gifts on the new surviving spouse record. " Is that just entries and check boxes too?

Diane Royer

One more question about the process for when someone passes. Does a new record have to be created or can everything be migrated to an existing spouse record?

Heather MacKenzie

Diane Royer:

We enter our gifts in a batch.


How do you set up the process for if a spouse is deceased?-- " My org, when someone passes, creates a new record for the surviving spouse (upon meeting a few criteria), soft credits all existing donations, copies anything else needed (attributes, etc.) and then enters all new gifts on the new surviving spouse record. " Is that just entries and check boxes too?

In batch, the soft credit option is a button in the toolbar near the top of the screen.


This is how we handle deceased records. If the couple has given their most recent gift more than 5 years ago, then nothing happens beyond marking the deceased person as deceased until the surviving spouse makes a gift again. If less than 5 years ago, the surviving spouse is turned into a new constituent record, all applicable info, such as attributes, are copied onto the new record, and all the gift history is soft credited to the new record. Then, any new gifts, information, actions, so on are all ONLY entered on the new record for the surviving spouse.


The deceased person's record is left alone after that point unless a tribute gift happens. It stays that way, completely intact. We don't remove, migrate, or delete anything.


There are folks out there who change the primary person on the record to be the surviving spouse, and the relationship spouse becomes the deceased one. They have their reasons for doing so, one of which is trying to have the database grow slower. My org chose not to do that.


You should look at this as a whole. I see you're with a university, so you may want to keep the surviving spouse more active in mailings, etc., which would mean you'd choose the way we do it but make the surviving spouse a record right away, or switch the names. If both halves of the relationship are already full constituent records, then you'd hopefully already have soft credits going (if you end up doing that) and then you'd mark the one as deceased, and then update the married status, addressees, salutation and whatever else needs changing/updating/indicating on the surviving one's record.


There's a lovely little shortcut in RE for soft crediting for gifts already on records and both spouses are full records. With either of the spouses open, choose "soft credit for spouse's gifts" in the Constituent menu in the very top toolbar. If they've been married for the whole time they've been donating, you're fine to just use this, but consider those who got married after they started donating and whether it would be quicker to manually update a few of the multiple gifts on each record. I had 2 donors who both had years of donation history get married and then keep donating together. The only gifts that were soft credited were the ones after they got married. So it was MUCH easier to go back once we realized it hadn't been set up and manually update the 2 or 3 gifts that needed it than remove them from the other 50 gifts in the record that would have had incorrect soft credits if I'd used the menu option.