How to handle tributes without Tribute Module

Joanne Danganan

Hi there. My organization cannot currently afford the Tribute Module, so as a workaround, we soft credit the tributee and send them an acknowledgment letter. However, in the Mail module, I can't find an automated way to insert that tributee's address and salutation. Instead, I place the tributee (in this case, the soft credit recipient's) addressee followed by "[Recipient's Address]" and "[Recipient's Salutation]" to flag that the user MUST edit this information straight on the letter that is pulled. With year-end right around the corner, this is way too much editing for our data specialist. Does anyone have a better solution for organizations that don't have the Tribute Module?

Sunshine Reinken Watson

I track tributes with gift attributes and also use gift attributes to merge fields on the acknowledgement letters. We have seperate gift attributes for the address lines, etc.

Nicole S

I am in the process of recreating a set-up I used at a previous organization where I used attributes.  I add the honoree to RE and set the attribute up to link to a specific record (similar to how the tribute module works).

Jen Claudy

We had the Tribute Module, then dropped it, and now have it again as part of our NXT bundle.  But we aren't currently using it.  I prefer Gift Attributes, and we also create a Relationship Link whenever appropriate.  Still working thru cleaning out Constituent Records that were only created to handle one single tribute gift.  I can see how the Tribute Module might help if you get a huge number of tribute gifts on a regular basis, or if you are regularly listed in obituaries to receive donations (linking to specific people, who are likely already in your database), but for us, this works just fine.  I typically manually edit the notification letters, rather than try to make it automate.


If you have enough volume, you should look into NXT before you embark on a complicated process to handle this situation.  If NXT is feasible, you'll then get the Tribute Module as well...and if it works for you, great, if it doesn't, you won't have spent any money on it specifically.

Karen Stuhlfeier

I've used the Tribute module at all of the organizations that I've worked for and really like it. It does a great job handling the acknowledgement letter to both the donor and the tribute acknowledgee. Having it also makes putting together the tribute list for our annual report easy. It does pay to takee the time to learn how it works and to take the training if possible.  

Jen Claudy

See also this thread.

Christine Cooke 2

I use the Gift Attributes.  Set up a separate Attribute for the Tributee Name, Addressee, Salutation, Address, City, State and Zip and then those fields can be merged into a letter.  In the mail module I have the Donor letter as page one, and the honoree as page two of the document with the corresponding merge fields in each letter.  That way when they thank you prints to for the donor, the corresponding tribute acknowledgement prints right after.