What do most Companys use as a BEST PRACTICE where the woman is the primary giver, the husband is head of the household and the gifts go on her record - but her husband has his record. If you merge the two, her husband still stays as her spouse on her record - but you lose his work information. Do most company's keep two records with a spouse link? We use the man's name from the check - and usually she is soft credited - but we need to combine to see total giving of both. I'm afraid when I merge - I will lose information. Any thoughts on this?

Our practice is to make the person who has the direct relationship with our organization the constituent. The wife would be the constituent and the husband the spouse record. The addressee on the wife's record would be the standard accepted Mr. and Mrs. Howard Jones. She would have an individual addressee - Mrs. Mary Jones. We soft credit the husband's record for the wife's gifts. All gifts from the husband or wife go on the wife's constituent record. I hope this helps. Nora Nora Isaac Manager, Information Technology The ALS Association, Greater Phila. Chapter [Email Removed]

If the wife was the donor, we hard credit her for the gift and soft credit her husband for the gift too. I don't see why you should merge the 2 records - you don't want the husband's business information or education relationships or attributes to merge over to the wife's record. To see actual giving (hard money only) you should select the "soft credit gifts to: donor" radio button in the gift report, or for the gift processing option in the query options (if you are using a query and an export to get the figures). Raja Mukherjee Database Manager & Coordinator of Prospect Research Worcester State College Worcester, MA 01602 [Email Removed]