Posting this in a few forum areas....

We currently do not have the Tribute module, but do occasionally receive a gift from a member "in memory of" a loved one. This is connected to our brick campaign - purchase a brick, which will be engraved and then added to our main entrance patio.

So the bottom line is the survivor gave the gift, but the deceased's name will be engraved on the brick.

Our Dev Director wants us to capture the deceased name (not necessarily a constituent) on the donor's record.

Two ideas that have surfaced:
1 - create a new notepad type specifically for memorial gifts
2 - create an attribute

Either way this info needs to be captured in a report which will list the donor's gift, name, etc and the memorial name.

What do you advise - option 1 or 2?

Side note - we may purchase Tribute in next year's budget cycle, do you have it and how do you like it?

Lisa- I use the Reference area of the gift record alot and that can be pulled with a query or some reports output. Example: In Reference area type in, "In Memory of Mary Smith". If you are dealing with a few, I'd keep it simple. We are a Catholic high school and I process alot of Memorial gifts. Due to our high volume of them, we have the Tribute module and I can't imagine trying to track without it. Brenda Ryther Gonzaga Preparatory School Spokane, WA [Email Removed]

Lisa- I use the Reference area of the gift record alot and that can be pulled with a query or some reports output. Example: In Reference area type in, "In Memory of Mary Smith". If you are dealing with a few, I'd keep it simple. We are a Catholic high school and I process alot of Memorial gifts. Due to our high volume of them, we have the Tribute module and I can't imagine trying to track without it. Brenda Ryther Gonzaga Preparatory School Spokane, WA [Email Removed]

We have the Tribute module; however, sometimes we will receive a honor/memorial gift for someone who isn't a constituent record. In this situation, we use a note pad. Make sure the note pad type is table driven and says honor or memorial and then put the person's name in the description. That way I can run a quick & accurate query at the end of the fiscal year to add to the honor roll of donors/annual report.

Why would you track tributes in two different places? If you get a tribute to a non-constituent, you can create the tribute on the donors record. That way, your records are more consistent. More importantly, if an upgrade affects tributes, the software will recognize that all of these gifts are tributes and treat them the same way. Drew J. Drew Allen Children's Hospital of Philadelphia [Email Removed]

We use the gift-attribute-category for things like this. The good part about using the gift attribute, is that you can include that information in your acknowledgment letter. The category would be "in memory of" or "in honor of" and then the description would the the honorees' name. Your acknowledgement letter could then say: We have received your gift <attribute category> <description>. Elaine [Email Removed] Elaine Tucker [Email Removed] Texas Lutheran University