Applying a deceased constituent gift record to surviving spouse

Katherine Stein

Hi! Trying to clean up our data little, does anyone have a good method for transferring the giving history of a deceased constituent onto the record of the surviving spouse? Thank you!

JoAnn Strommen

@Katherine Stein If you have the spouse box checked on the relationships you can soft-credit all the gifts over in db view. Don't know that function is there in web view.

Alex Wong

@Katherine Stein
do you have constituent spouse or non-constituent spouse?

Katherine Stein

@Alex Wong often it's a non-constituent spouse who becomes a constituent after the primary spouse passes.

Alex Wong

@Katherine Stein
if non-constituent spouse. we simple “swap” the names. Main constituent name is the surviving spouse, while the non-constituent spouse is the deceased spouse. The Deceased checkbox and date goes on the non-constituent spouse. All gifts is retained in the “couple's record”. Then the main constituent record's marital status becomes Widowed.

As a process, we also go to the relationship tab and uncheck the “Spouse” checkbox. The Relationship type and recipicol is Spouse. This is a “safety net”. Such that when someone export the spouse first and last name column, it will not show up to avoid any potential communication that involve saying the deceased person's name.

JoAnn Strommen

@Katherine Stein If you have the newly created record for the surviving spouse and temporarily have the “Spouse” box checked on the relationships, you can choose as I described in earlier post to soft-credit all the gifts. Then uncheck to auto update any add/sal that pull spouse's name.

We do not swap names. The employment and attributes describe the original constituent, not the spouse. The spouse is not an alumni and we want to maintain accurate records for alumni, living and deceased.

Dariel Dixon

@Katherine Stein I think this is a bit of an organizational decision. Like @JoAnn Strommen and @Alex Wong stated, there's multiple ways of determining this. At my organization, we would not move the gifts but give soft credit to the surviving spouse. There's often organizational reasons why one method is used over another.

Rachel Kauer

@Katherine Stein
Hi Katherine,

Best practice generally sees keeping information intact, as is, on the original profile. So in most cases, the most appropriate thing would be to soft credit the surviving spouse.

However, as I'm sure you've encountered depending on the data your Director later wants to pull and how, soft crediting can create other challenges with reporting to consider. Sometimes having information about a household split in two places can create similar complications, especially when one place is marked inactive or deceased.

For various reasons relating to the above challenges we've adopted a slightly different method at my org for certain types of individuals, such as Alumni and trustees. We actually do a partial merge of records, merging only certain tabs onto the surviving spouse, primarily - gifts, notes and actions. We leave Bio 1, 2 and relationships alone.

We used to do a name swap for all situations - but oh the potential for human error…it reeked havoc with our addressee/salutations and created a mistake that almost results in a department wide meltdown over someone's name not being right. When I went back and looked at all the records that had been changed this way prior to my start day I was floored by the errors.

Because you can't just name swap for certain kinds of records, you may have to change education information, employer, possible constituency code, because otherwise suddenly a former (deceased) trustee's wife might be showing up as a grad of '67 and an alumni at an all boys school on reports that are meant to pick up historical alumni information - all because of a name swap. On the other hand for a set of parents, a name swap might be appropriate. You have to think of the impact outside of just gift data. So I would strongly recommend staying away from the name swap method to cover all scenarios.

Going back to the partial merge method - I don't think it's ever a good idea to permanently remove anything from a record, which a partial merge does. However, and I realize this completely contradictory, the partial merge method has actually worked well for us in term of making reporting on lifetime giving, and our fundraisers having everything all in one place.

I have included below our current policy on how we handle deceased records as an example:

1: Deceased Spouse

The primary contact’s is alive, but their listed spouse is deceased. In this case the record stays open and only the spouse is marked as deceased.

2: Primary Deceased, No Spouse, or No TP Relationship with Spouse

The primary contact is deceased, and the surviving spouse is unlikely to give or does not have their own relationship with us. In this case the record is marked deceased and “closed.”

3. Deceased Parents

The primary contact is deceased and IS a parent, and their surviving spouse is likely to give or has their own relationship with us. In this case the record stays open, and then the record is “swapped” with the surviving spouse becoming the main person on the record and the deceased person being moved to the spouse record.

4: Primary is a Deceased Friend of TP and Surviving Spouse Has a TP Relationship

The primary contact is deceased, and NOT a parent, alumni, trustee or headmaster, and their surviving spouse is likely to give or has their own relationship with us. In this case the record stays open, the spouse is popped out and then certain tabs are merged from the deceased record to the surviving spouse so that active, living household member the main record’s giving and other history.

5: Primary is an Deceased Alum, Trustee or Headmaster and Surviving Spouse Has a TP Relationship

The primary contact is deceased and IS an alumni, trustee or headmaster, and their surviving spouse is likely to give or has their own relationship with us. In this case the record stays open, the spouse is popped out and then certain tabs are merged from the deceased record to the surviving spouse so that active, living household member the main record’s giving and other history.

Kristine Marvin

@Alex Wong
This is also what our Organization does. We swap the records and make the surviving Spouse the Head of Household with the record that has all of their giving history.