deceased husband survived by wife

Michelle Knizley · June 4

When a husband passes away, is there anyway to "flip" the names and make the wife the primary constituent without creating a new constituent number?

Crystal Bruce · June 4

@Michelle Knizley this post has been moved to the Raiser's Edge NXT community. Thanks!

Joe Moretti · June 4

If all you are doing is flipping the name, you can just do that without creating a new ID. You may not want to do that if the husband is say a board member, was put in the database for a particular reason that has nothing to do with the wife or if you know there will be donations coming in for a memorial. Otherwise just flip the names.

Dariel Dixon · June 4

While this is something that can be done, I would pause that direction as it may have a litany of unintended results. Constituencies may not be aligned, as @Joe Moretti mentioned. There's also the potential for giving to be impacted, let's say from a major donor to more of an annual prospect. I would really consider all aspects before just changing a name.

There is no button for this, as it is just a manual change, but it would change the spouse record and possibly addressee/salutation information. But tread cautiously @Michelle Knizley.

Don Burrhus · June 5

Is there a reason why the wife shouldn't have a distinct Constituent record?

Dylan Medina · June 5

Due to the record limitations, I will typically leave the spouse as a relationship record until they make another donation, then I will make their profile into a constituent record and mark them as Head of Household. I prefer not to swap names in order to not create any potential future confusion.

At one point, if someone passed away we always made the spouse into a constituent record but looking back I can see that a majority of the time they didn't make any additional donations or interactions and created a lot of constituent records that could have stayed relationship records.

JoAnn Strommen · June 5

@Don Burrhus IMO, it just depends on your org's policies or procedures.

As a university, there are times when we create a record for the spouse. Spouse has been involved and engaged with the alum, gift officers wish to continue relationship, spouse requested to stay on communication lists.
There are other times when we just mark alum as deceased and do not promote spouse to a constituent. Alum has not been active, not a donor, been on list for no communication. Our feeling is that if alum was not engaged, chances are that spouse is not likely to become engaged. Option is always there if they do, to create a record. Otherwise, for us they are unnecessary records increasing our record count.

Melissa Stewart · June 5

We do just manually change the names. That's because as a faith-based organization the majority of our married donors want one combined record, not two separate records. So, our default is one record per couple and when one passes away, we simply manually change the names on the constituent record and spouse record.

Bill Connors · June 5

I'm a fan of flip-flopping in the one joint record where it makes sense in order to keep one record and keep the shared history on the surviving spouse. In fact, if a separate record must be created because the deceased is an alum, a board member, etc. — has something in the constituent record that must stay associated with that person — it is worth considering, depending on the specific details, making the DECEASED the new constituent, not the surviving spouse, as your prospect going forward is the surviving spouse and I would want them to have the complete history in their record, not the deceased person.

deceased husband survived by wife

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