Determining Head of Household

Carrie Clark
Carrie Clark
Third Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

Hello fellow RE users!

We're working on writing down how we determine the Head of Household. We have a basic premise and guidelines we follow internally, but nothing formally written.

Does anyone have anything like this that they'd be willing to share?

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  • Dana Burton
    Dana Burton Community All-Star
    Kudos 5 Third Anniversary Name Dropper Participant

    @Carrie Clark, welcome to BB forms!

    For our org, if a couple is married, the man is primary on the record and head of household. If he passes before her, he is marked deceased and she is made head of household.

    What are you working with to make it more difficult?

  • Carrie Clark
    Carrie Clark
    Third Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Dana Burton
    The only real challenge we have - since we're an education institution - is when people from the same class marry. We haven't given much thought as to who should be primary HOH when we link them, so we're looking to see what other information people have out there that helps them make decisions.

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 PowerUp Challenge: Product Update Briefing Feedback Task 3 2025 bbcon Attendee Badge

    @Carrie Clark Something I noted from a post some time ago about HOH or addressees.

    • One with closest relationship to org
    • Both alum? One who graduated first
    • Same year grads? either male first or alphabetically (use one consistently)
  • Christine Cooke
    Christine Cooke
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    @Carrie Clark To make life a lil bit easier - it is a good thing you are standardizing and documenting your HoH policy.

    HoH comes into play with couples. Everywhere I've been we have established that the husband is the HoH. And if he dies, then the wife is switched to HoH. There are female forward institutions, schools and other orgs and they choose to make all females HoH. It's their standard.

    In education institutions, we need to take into account Alum or Student status into consideration. If two alums are married, I still stick to the male as HoH unless one of the other exceptions we have in place apply.

    Those exceptions are, one spouse is deceased. One spouse is the step-parent so the non-step is HoH. Employees are HoH no matter marital status and gender. And if they are or were a Board Member they are HoH. With same sex couples you do the best you can to learn and/or interpret who should be HoH.

    Hope this helps

  • Carrie Clark
    Carrie Clark
    Third Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    Thanks everyone. I should make it clear that I'm not new to Blackbaud or RE - I've just never merged my Blackbaud Community accounts when I get a new job. I've been in nonprofits for 20 years.

    What I'm looking for is a document that I can review and possibly glean information from. It sounds like people have standards and best practices, but nothing formally written. Which is where I'm at.

    We're trying to move away from “man is HOH" norm, but I know that's at least some criteria we're able to use when making decisions.

    I'll continue my documentation search - thanks for all the replies!

  • Dariel Dixon
    Dariel Dixon Community All-Star
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply PowerUp Challenge #3 Gift Management

    @Carrie Clark My organization has a very simple rule for HOH…whomever we interact with and is the catalyst for giving is the HOH or primary constituent. I know why you want to have a general rule, but I also know there's so many exceptions for this one in particular. Also, how your organization creates spousal records is important.

    I've found that education based organizations struggle with this more than other types, often times due to both members being alumni.

    Organizational culture should be taken into account for something like this as well.

  • Angela Tuttle
    Angela Tuttle
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant

    @Carrie Clark we mark the HOH as the person we have the strongest connection with. If they both are equally strong the HOH is the one that we have known the longest.

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