When individual and household profiles experience death or divorce, there are several ways to manage those profiles and their profile links, communication preferences, designations, and any campaign lists to which they may be tied.
Mark an Individual Deceased
When an individual dies, check the deceased box on the profile. Marking a profile deceased makes the profile inactive. If the profile is a vendor, student, or grantee, the profile designations will also be inactive. The profile is still searchable and available in reports. Marking it deceased prevents it from being added to a campaign communication list, and allows users to filter deceased profiles in or out of reports.
Add a deceased date when known. This is not required to mark the profile deceased.
When marking a profile deceased, the system will automatically mark the profile Do Not Mail, Do Not Email, and Do Not Phone. When a profile is marked deceased after being added to a campaign, contact information will be removed from future campaign exports.
Death or Divorce in Household Profiles
There are many ways to update profiles when a couple experiences a death or divorce. As you develop your approach, think about how you use your data, what you report on, and check that your process supports your reporting needs.
Member of Household Dies
A common approach for households that have household members is as follows:
- Leave the household trifecta intact.
- Leave the household name unchanged.
- Update the household salutation and label to the surviving spouse's name.
- Mark the spouse's individual profile deceased.
- Process any future gifts from the surviving spouse under their individual record.
The household name can still reflect the deceased spouse's name, which can add clarity and enhance search functionality, since this won't be used in communications because the salutation and label are populated. Leaving the household name intact also preserves accurate giving history.
All giving for the three profiles is then reflected under the household. This is the best option if using the Rollup Donor Report for donor recognition and reporting. Either the surviving spouse's individual profile or household profile can be included in communications because the household salutation and label don't reflect the deceased spouse.
Be sure to review fund advisor designations and profile fund category links for accuracy.
- Remove fund advisor designation from deceased profiles by deleting at the fund advisor level. This will remove access to online portal and prevent fund statements from being created.
- Consider adding a Profile Fund Category of deceased and/or former advisors to indicate historical relationship - you may need to unlink existing profile fund category links and add a new link. This cannot be done with funds that have been closed.
Divorce
- Unlink both spouses as household members.
- Mark household inactive or deceased. Marking it deceased prevents it from being added to a campaign communication list.
- Add profile link between individuals and the household record to indicate historical relationship.
- Add profile link between the ex-spouses to indicate historical relationship.
- Update any name changes.
Both are not linked to a household at this point and can be linked to future spouses and households if they remarry.
Household giving history will remain on the household record while individual giving history will remain with each spouse.