Handling deceased records

Alison

As the legacy group develops I’d be interested in hearing more about it.    At the Met we have an Attribute = Special Suppression that everyone knows to use in there Extracts to suppress folks beyond the Mail/Phone and other soliciting instructions.  It’s a yes/no and regenerates each time.  The trick I would see adding this or anything like it is getting folks to include in when generating List thru list manager which suppresses inactive records automatically

Another possibility that might be even better is create a new Constituent Type = Legacy Group       

Hello everyone

We're currently reviewing how we handle the records of constituents who have died as we have recently launched a legacy group which will require the use of these records for reporting and the updating of legacy gift data. Currently we inactivate the records of people who have died but this makes it difficult to manage the data for our legacy campaign as we have to reactivate, enter data and then inactivate again.

Our marketing team wants these records inactivated so that they do not appear in reports thereby skewing figures and so that they're easily identifiable to the ticket office.

If anyone would be happy to share their procedures for deceased records, I'd love to hear your comments.

Thanks, Alison

Alison Marley, Development Manager (IG), The Sage Gateshead (UK)

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Yes we have Estates too at the Met and was assuming it was standard an in use in all the sites  – maybe I misunderstood what is meant by Legacy Group.   I think this might have been the difference in terminology between the Queens English and a former colony current English.   As the weather is getting cooler in both I’m guessing you will be putting on your jumpers as we here will get our sweaters.

What Erin describes below is how the Met handles its Estates too 

Alison,

We have an Constituent type of "Estate" which works really well. If you are considering this option, we have it set up similar to the usual "corporate" setup. N1 is "Estate of Jane Smith" and N2 is Mrs. Jane B. Smith (in the usual fields). In Optional Address we enter the name of the person with whom we are corresponding (usually a lawyer or trustee). And, we enter an Alias so that we can look up the account by the trustee's name if we need to. If the Estate is for two people, then we "adapt" as we need to, but still use this format...

While not all of the accounts themselves represent Estates (Charitable Remainder Trusts are also included among other planned gift types) this gives us an EASY way to NOT market to these folks or pull them into lists/reports/extractions by accident. We've found that a person won't select an account type of Estate without having a pretty good reason to.

Good luck - our planned giving program is rockin' right now. I hope yours takes off!

If the there is still a living individual – the deceased is moved to Name 2 (if necessary) and the surviving partner is recorded in name 1.  The Plan Giving data in the history tab records info on the bequest/legacy.   The legal address can be record in under address – we haven’t created a specific address type but this certainly can be done.    

If no surviving member then the record is converted/changed to an Estate which keeps all the info on these donors in one place.  If the Estate evolves into a Foundation then a new record for the Foundation is created and associated to the individual record before inactivating it.  When you convert the record to Estate and there are 2 parties – you will want to create Aliases for these folks so they can be found in the search ---- we enter in name 1 the estate name as

Last Name, Estate of First Name                               or            Smith, Estate of Estelle (Mrs. Walter)

Name 2 then becomes your legal contact for the estate.   So the everything is searchable in this way.

Thanks, both. That's an interesting solution - I hadn't thought of it but it makes a lot of sense.

How do you use the const type so that you don't lose the information in the record? Do you change their type to Estate after they have died rather than create a whole new record for their estate and associate it to their Individual one? 

And what do you do if you have a couple where only one of them has died and that person leaves a gift to you from their estate but you still need an 'Individual' record for the still-alive person?

Goodness, it's all mighy confusing!

Thanks, Alison.

Some folks wiser than I can tell you what reports already suppress Estates but basically Marketing can decide to not market Constituent Type = Estate and include this as standard suppression.   That’s the simple answer.    

That said many Estates will have executors and family members who will continue to take advantage of subscription tickets and membership.   In time the membership and subscriptions end and become dormant on their own .   

So the Marketing and Development departments (Legacy Group) need to be aware of these records just as they are of Individual, Corporate, Foundation and Government (or whatever else you have at your site).   I would think that your Legacy Group and other Development folks will not solicit memberships going forward.    The Marketing or Customer Care folks may want to watch for records that become estates and have active subscriptions to inquire into to whom the sub might roll.  It is all how you organize your departments  

Thanks, Leslie - that's really helpful. Can I ask how you deal with the supression of these records? Our Marketing team is concerned about making sure such records aren't included in mailing extractions and reports, which is why we currently inactivate all records so they're automatically excluded.

Perhaps you include them in a standard suppression list? If so, do you find this works and is adhered to by the whole organisation? We have a large department that will be coming on board with Tessitura soon and there is some concern about them using suppression lists correctly. Do you have any advice about this?

Thanks again, Alison