Previous to my arrival here, data entry would make the record of ANY deceased individual into an "Estate Of" record. The thinking was that it was obvious that the person was deceased if they did it that way. I'm changing that, but a co-worker and I cannot seem to agree on one point. I feel that if we receive a gift from the estate of a deceased person, we can make that record "Estate of", indicating that he is still 'active' in a way - we're still receiving support from him. For folks like this, we typically do have a deceased date, and so it would be obvious that prior to that date we were receiving money from him in person, and after he died, we continued receiving all the gifts with dates after the deceased date. My thinking is, the constituent was a living entity. When he died and we received money from him, he becomes a different kind of entity to us. We are now associated not with a person, but with an estate. I would like to know how others deal with this scenario. Thanks!

we consider the donations of a deceased person while they were alive to be differnt from the giving of their estate. Mostly for when we do analysis of our data comparing one year to the next in one year we want them an individual with gifts and in the next we want them to show as an estate. It helps differentiate between these gifts. you may be able to do this with gift consituency but I feel more secure having them be on different records. Melissa S. Graves Databse Administrator Planned Prenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed]

We generally use the deceased's record for any gifts and for setting up the estate. There is enough coding that the donor won't get selected for a mailing and with relationships you can even have contacts for the estate.

We use the the consituents same record and mark them as deceased and then make the record as "ESTATE OF" If you want to see the gifts that were given will they were alive that can be resolved by using the decease consituent death date. Trenise N. Brunson Systems Assistant Saint Joseph's Mercy Foundation 5673 Peachtree Dunwoody Road NE Suite 650 Atlanta, GA 30342 Phone: 404-851-5718 Fax: 404-851-4986

We use the same record for planned gifts. It helps when you want to know what kind of background / involvement leads to a planned gift. Plus, since some PG are discussed extensively years before death, it would not be convenient to have two different prospect files. We have appeal codes for PG gifts and proposal types so they are very easy to isolate in reports.

The only weakness of that system is handling the Trust officer which is mailed to. In an organisation, you can make it a contact.

This is my first foray into the new forum! I was going to post this question and am pleased to find this discussion in progress. We have a constituent couple for which there are 4 records in the database - one for them recording their living gifts, one for their estate giving and a tribute for each, husband & wife! That is way over the top! Merging the tribute records is a given but I was perplexed what to do with the estate record. I believe that I will make one record with them flagged as deceased and the estate contact as a relationship. Then we have all the gift info in one record and they won't ever receive a mailing. Thanks for the help - before I even asked.