We also use the membership tab extensively, and only create a constituent record for a spouse if there is a reason (ie: specific donation, volunteer, event participant that we want to have a profile on). What we do in the cases of both spouses having records is create a joint membership. That will help with the NetCommunity side of things, but it does sound like a little bit of extra work for your particular org.

This is a very interesting topic! But keep in mind RE8 is being built on a completely DIFFERENT platform - it will be web-based. So lots of things, including relationships, will likely change. And BB has not committed to a release date that I'm aware of; and I highly doubt it will be released to everyone in Q4. They might release it for Beta testing then? Also, just because they release it doesn't mean you'll be required to upgrade until your organization is ready & has worked out all the issues. Remember how long they continued to support RE6 once RE7 was released? Tracie Cassidy Database Coordinator Seattle Children's Hospital Foundation (206) 987-6833 [Email Removed]

We found a problem with maintaining two records per couple, entering all the gifts on the Head of Household's record, and soft crediting the spouse -- because then how do you record gifts made by donor advised funds or foundations for these people? You don't want to soft credit the same gift twice -- first to the head of household (from the donor advised fund) and then to the spouse. We do maintain two records, though, partially because of the need to enter spouse-specific event attendance, volunteer roles, and actions, as others have noted. I think these needs are different for schools with very active parent couples than they might be for other types of nonprofits.

Yes I use the event module all the time. I add the spouse as a guest of and then they have their own account. Works great for us. Call me at 678-225-3310 if you need further help.

For the few records that we enter gifts in one record and soft credit the other and then have a problem with donor advised funds, you can go deep into the gift and have the gift show as a $0.00 balance which will should not effect your reports. Hope this helps

If you have a policy that only one person can be soft credited or not more than the gift amount can be soft credited then you will have an issue with a DAF or family foundation gift if you have separate records for couples. Unfortunately even if you try not to have spouse records I have always needed to do it in some important cases and in a few of those I had this DAF problem. We would SC the HOH only. On the spouse record I have a business rule that pops up if you are enter a non-HOH record and it warns you that for a complete giving record of the couple you would need to go to the HOH record. One other solution may be to add an Other gift type equal to the DAF gift won the spouse record hich you would only use when pulling recognition lists. I haven't thought through the pros/cons of this but if you needed it you could try it. Melissa S. Graves Director of Development Services The Village for Families and Children mgraves (at) villageforchildren.org www.villageforchildren.org  GET ON THE BUS! Check out what the Blackbaud User Society is talking about today at www.blackbus.org!

Kate Persons wrote: You don't want to soft credit the same gift twice Actually, I do want to soft credit the same gift twice. I see no problem with give both spouses soft credit from a gift made by a donor-advised fund. It's not going to affect my financial reports, because I only use hard credits on financial reports, and it's going to make the donor happy. Why wouldn't I want to do it? Drew J. Drew Allen Children's Hospital of Philadelphia [Email Removed] Check out the user run RE Forum at http://www.blackbus.org/.  Check out the Crystal Reports blog "Crystal Clear" at http://www.blackbus.org/blogs/viewblog.php?userid=63

You need to make the spouse a constituent in order for the information to record into the event.