"Upgrading" a Spouse to a Constituent

Joy Kean · April 24

Hello ~ Curious to learn what others select for the options under marking a constituent as deceased. Specifically, do you always select “Change Spouse to a Constituent" it they aren't already? Never? Or have a rule somewhere in between? We are leaning towards more inclusive than not until we hear otherwise from the spouse but another thought we had was to only bump them up to a constituent if the couple was a Friend of our organization not Alumni.

JoAnn Strommen · April 24

@Joy Kean Somewhere in between but wouldn't even say there's a rule. LOL

If the person who passed is in a portfolio, I check with dev staff to see if they want a record to continue relationship. Or if person has an endowment or member of Heritage Society.

All our alums have their own record so no issue when it's an alum couple.

For alums who have little to no engagement with us or recent giving we do not add spouse as constit. Same with Friends.

Dariel Dixon · April 24

@Joy Kean My org has rules about this. We will only upgrade a spouse to a constituent if they:

Have made a gift with a specific time frame
Have some other stewardship needs.

I'm not a big fan of doing it. If the main constituent passes, our connection to that household usually passes along with it. The good thing is that we can always upgrade them at a later point if things change.

Joy Kean · April 25

@JoAnn Strommen thank you!

Joy Kean · April 25

@Dariel Dixon thank you!

"Upgrading" a Spouse to a Constituent

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