At our organization, we have several businesses with a giving history, that have been sold in the last couple years. Although these local businesses have changed hands and haven't given recently, some of these former sponsors seem likely to give again.

 My problem is that our development staff wants to merge the previous giving with the originally soft-credited business owners, and basically wipe the slate clean for these former sponsors and have them start all over again.

I'm not a fan of this idea, even though I understand why it seems to make sense. My take is that the business, since it's legally the same entity, should keep it's giving history, and that we definitely shouldn't just delete the existing listing and make a new one in it's place. I think we just keep the original gifts soft-credited to the previous owner, and build on the company's previous giving.

 Am I on the right-track? Does anyone have any practical advice on managing small(ish) sponsors that change hands?

 Thanks for your help!

Stephen Somerville, Development Assistant at the Harold E. LeMay Museum. stephen.somerville@lemaymuseum.org

Corporations merge and change hands all of the time. Our rule of thumb is if the address is the same but they have merged and the company has a new name (on their checks, mind you, not just what they want to be recognized as - tons of banks and investment firms that donate to us place us in exactly this predicament) is that we change the name on the account to the new name - put the old name in the Alias area so if you search on the old company it pulls in. We also put a note on the account.  Contacts get updated as per usual (some stay in mergers, some don't) Soft credits stay where they were when the gift was made.