or do you recommend adding them as relationships?

We resisted splitting our couples for many years, and have only recently decided to split some of them.  One of the reasons we decided to split was that we acquired the Event & Volutneer modules, and having couples together in one record made it difficult to work with one or the other.  We split our upper level members and any couple where one or both of the couple have distinct relationships with us - like a Docent or other Volunteer.  I think it works pretty darned well - you just have to make sure you're choosing Head of Household or not when necessary.  Did that help?

Hi Jill.

I am adding my response to you here as well as my direct email.

When a gift comes in from a new donor we add them to our database as they are listed on the check unless gift correspondence specifies differently. We do not add the spouse as a relationship unless there is another purpose for doing so. Those purposes include both are donors individually, the spouse is a committee member, advisor or fund contact, or we need to create a relationship with an organization/nonprofit.

The issue we run into as most RE user's do is on whose record you report actions, notes and other DB information. We use a primary record system and head of household. If a spouse has their own record because of giving history, the record is marked no mail, and not head of household. If a spouse has their own record and are an advisor, committee member or fund contact their record is marked as head of household. An additional addressee/salutation is added for the committee member (this is a generic term used for all advisors and committee members. We use Contact addressee/salutation for fund contacts).

When we pull for mailings, events or reports we use Head of household as the qualifier.

Hope this helps. If there are more questions email me directly.

Karen

khartt@mainecf.org

Was thinking about pros and cons since your post.  Most of our spouses are relationship records.  But we do have a growing number that have their own records.  This is due to their involvement or making a donation. 

Unlike last post, we do try to enter relationship info from checks/donations whenever possible.  We give our solicitors opportunity to request prospects.  I find that having the spouse info already in RE helps us a lot as an organization in a 'smaller' city.  I can assign out the requested prospect and with spouse and not have both inadvertently assigned to different solicitors. Depending on your org and structure that may not be a factor at all. 

RE is structured so you can work with either format and combination.  It just take some attention to detail in reports/exports, etc.

Oops,

I didn't read my post very well. We do add the spouse as a relationship, just not their own record unless other conditions are met. Sorry for the confusion.

Karen

We too have resisted adding spouses as separate constituents, but having the Event and Volunteer modules make it necessary.  Also what may motivate you to work on this is that in the future... spouses will have to be constits in order for RE to work right because of the BIG changes down the line in a few years by BB.  It will just be the way it is.  So might as well start converting or entering them now.

And yes, you just have to be sure that the spouses are linked and you have chosen a Head of Household!

We also have entered our couples as one record with the spouse shown as the relationship but find that with the Event module we are having to rethink our position on this.  I was wondering about how you chose to create these new records for the spouse and then make the adjustment on the Head of House record.  Is there a faster way to do this, other than handle each record individually?  Is there a way to do this as some sort of global action?

Carrie McNutt,

Phoenix Rescue Mission

I was reading this conversation (very interesting) and have a question.  Some of you are saying that the Events module forces you to create a 2nd. record for the spouse. I've been adding the spouse as the guest of the registrant (name on Bio 1 of the record).  Am I missing something?

Ellyce Whalen

COCC Foundation

Bend, OR

Ellyce,

You can add a spouse as a guest to an event without adding as a constituent. If you want to see that the spouse attended the event, you will need to add as a constituent.