One of our donors passed away and left some money for us in his will. I received half of the payment - should I attach it to his record even though he and his wife are dead and technically inactive? Or should I create a new constituent record associated with the lawyer's office? I'm also not sure if I should create a pledge or just wait for the 2nd payment since we're unsure of the total amount.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!Sarah
Sarah,
I'm sure each organization would handle this in a slightly different manner. I can tell you we generally do.
When a constituent and his/her spouse are deceased and they have made a bequest, we generally process the bequest on their original account but change the constituent type from "Individual" to "Estate". We update the contact information from that of the individual to that of the lawyer and call the account "Estate of XX". We then create aliases for the constituents so you can search by their name(s).
If I was unsure of the amount that is yet to come, I would probably not pledge it. I would just enter the gift that has been received and wait for the second installment to come before I entered it.
Dale