Anonymous Donor

Beth Bales

We have a donor that has given very generously and publically in the past. He just passed away, and we have been told that his estate gift needs to be completely anonymous. Our staff can't know, our Board can't know, even our CEO can't know! I feel like if I add this estate gift to his record and mark it anonymous, any of the fundraising staff could see it if they look at his record in NXT. Any suggestions on the best way to keep this from being seen, but still have it recorded?

Austen Brown

@Beth Bales - Through Database View security it's possible to lock down access to constituent and gift records. Here are a couple KB Articles to help you:

How lock down access to constituent records: KB 50531 -

How lock down access to gift records: KB 40257 -

Christine Robertson

@Beth Bales I think it is important to consider who actually would need to know (both now and in the future) and make sure that you account for that as you set this up (ie - in the RE security group, etc.).

Alex Wong

@Beth Bales
Generally Estate is a separate tax entity, meaning should be its own constituent record.

Given the condition of the estate gift, I think it is best that you simply code the gift under a completely anonymous constituent record (a new reocrd with no indication of the donor) and add a note as to why this is a anonymous record, but again, no name mentioned.

Dariel Dixon

@Beth Bales I think what an anonymous record really means. I believe that it is not publicly known or acknowledged. There's always going to be people who will know (i.e. the accounting department or whoever deposits the funds). There's just no getting around the minimum number of people who need to do the business side of transferring the funds. While you could add it to a completely anonymous record, it may cause issues in the tax document preparation if that is needed.

This is why we sign confidentiality agreements. @Austen Brown has good points about making it inaccessible via security levels in RE, but that also requires setting those levels up if you haven't done so already. @Christine Robertson's point about considering who will need to have access is important to set those security levels up.

Karen Diener

What I think is most interesting about this post that you say your Board, CEO and staff cannot know who this is, but you already seem to know. When you say “we have been told that his estate gift needs to be completely anonymous”, who is the “we”?

As described, this does sound like you should set up an anonymous record and record the estate gift there, but I do feel like that may be problematic in the long run.

Karen