Deceased records addressee/salutations best practice

Michelle Booth · April 30

Hello,

We are going through the process of cleaning up old addressee and salutation fields in our records. We have a lot of them that are no longer used. I was wondering what everyone else does for Deceased records? Do you mark them in a special way? Do you keep them as is? Only keep some of them? I would love to know what everyone else does.

Currently, we add a * on the end of the name and delete any extra fields that are not needed.

I am also wondering what people do for Widows. We have a very outdated, in my opinion process of changing their name to their husband's name (Mrs. Harold Smith) What do others do?

Thanks for any input.

Joe Moretti · April 30

@Michelle Booth The only necessary thing to do when someone is deceased is mark the box deceased. Nothing else needs to be done. With it marked deceased, the record will not pull in any kind of mailing list, etc. Just financial records. In RE Database if there is a spouse, as long as your business rules are set up properly), a spouse record will be created automatically, the marital status will be widowed (or what word you created in tables) and if there are gifts in the deceased record, the gifts will be soft-credited to the living spouse. This process does not work this way in RE NXT, so only do it in RE Database.

Dariel Dixon · April 30

@Michelle Booth I can't concur with @Joe Moretti more. I don't think a lot of work needs to be done with deceased records (most of the time, there's always exceptions). Mark deceased, check name formats and soft credit rules, and other items depending on your business practices. At my org, we notify the gift officer if the deceased was in their portfolio.

In regards to old addressee fields, if they aren't in use, I'm not sure if this is worth the time and effort for a very little return. Going in and deleting the unused table entries does help, but I feel there shouldn't be but so many options there. I'll get off the soapbox before I get started.

JoAnn Strommen · April 30

@Michelle Booth So agree with @Joe Moretti and @Dariel Dixon - deleting add/sal from deceased records seems like such a low priority, IMO.

As to changing spouse name, are you keeping their first name on the record and only changing the add/sal? I really don't see a need for that. Is there a reason you would continue to do that?

Christine Martin · May 1

@Michelle Booth

Our process is:

Bio 1 - Check deceased, enter date, check Is inactive, check Has no valid address, we also change all emails, phones, etc. to former and check as Inactive.

Address tab - all addresses are made “former”… and Preferred and Primary are unchecked. New address is added called “Deceased” with fields left blank and marked as preferred.

Address/Salutations tab - We delete all with the exception of “Name Tag” as this will be used in any publication where we list those that have passed.

Relationships tab - the deceased is made “Deceased Parent” "Deceased In-Law", “Former Employee” etc. whatever the case may be. If any of those relationships receive automatic soft credit for gifts, that box is unchecked as well. This is also where if there is a linked spouse we update their addresses and salutations (change all to their own/individual). We also uncheck the Spouse box and Head of household (if there is one). This keeps the Deceased from being listed as spouse on the still living linked record, yet preserves the relationship under the Relationships tab.

Notes tab - we enter the obituary information, including the link if we have it.

It is a process, but also puts a lot of safegaurds in place for others that are pulling list.

Hope that helps.

Michelle Booth · May 1

@Christine Martin
Thanks, this is actually very similar to what we do as far as processes.

Michelle Booth · May 1

@JoAnn Strommen
Yes, I agree and have been working to change this process.

JoAnn Strommen · May 1

@Michelle Booth and @Christine Martin I don't know your experience with RE, your orgs history or your staff size. Based on my own experience of 15 plus years, I encourage you to really look at all the work you are doing to determine if it is necessary.

To me much of it is not. I don't have the time to make all those edits to a record nor does our staff. There are business rules for marking a record as deceased that can uncheck the send mail box for any addresses. If record has no addresses marked to send mail it will not pull when you create a mailng list. I read you are also marking ‘no valid address’ (I find unnecessary and for us creates way to many pop-ups in db view) so that also prevents them from pulling in any mailing list creations. Type of address is irrelevant.

There's a check box for query and export to include/exclude deceased records. Train staff to use it correctly and you should not have to change phones/emails either.

I understand being obsessive about data as most of us in this type of role are.

Again, I encourage you to really look at all the extra work you are requiring to see if it's truly needed. If you, your org, are like mine have been there is so much more productive work that time can be spent on.

Getting off my soapbox. ?

Dariel Dixon · May 1

I 100% agree with what @JoAnn Strommen stated here. Some of these processes sound terribly redundant. I think establishing proper business rules is a must, but also removing inefficient processes is terribly important. What purpose does marking a deceased record inactive or NVM serve? A well written query should be able to remove those constituents with just one checkbox. I believe you would be well served to take another look at this process to see if it can be streamlined a bit more.

This sounds like an overreaction to past mistakes. Or playing it too careful. I think when you are looking at this process @Michelle Booth, you need to consider how you will report on these constituents and how to in/exclude those records when needed in the most efficient manner possible.

Laura Neidhold · May 1

@Michelle Booth
I have also encountered this issue with deceased records being the only ones with Add/Sals that are otherwise unused. When I took over my database, we have nearly 80 different formats. I've had to do manual updates on all records with the types we needed to delete, including those for deceased records. I've found the best way to tackle this is to set aside a set amount of time each day or week to work on tedious database projects like this, so I feel better that they are getting done.

Joe Moretti · May 1

@JoAnn Strommen RIGHT ON JOANN!

Deceased records addressee/salutations best practice

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