Soft credits to the spouse from a business?

Mary Zieten

Hello all!  I'm trying to get some feedback on the way you do things!


We have several situations where the husband will make a donation from his business.  In the business record, we soft credit the gift to the husband. This does not automatically soft credit to the spouse.  So, my question is, should we be automatically soft crediting to the spouse as well?  How do you handle it?  Best practices?


My director has said " Normally, we want to give people as much credit as possible when it comes to lifetime giving, so my gut says yes."  So, do we roll with that?  Is there any reason not to?

Aaron Rothberg

Hi Mary-


I think you could make a case either way, but generally speaking I agree with your director. Soft credit is only for recognition and in my experience institutions tend to hand out soft credit pretty liberally. I don't see any reason not to give the spouse soft credit and in some cases it might make sense to do so. For instance, if the husband ends up listed on a donor wall it might look weird to not have his spouse listed next to him (although you can get around this with joint Addr/Sals). Plus, if the husband passes away you'll retain a donor connection to the surviving spouse.

JoAnn Strommen

If the business is owned by both/family we SC both spouses or both individual owners. In these cases we usually have an "owner" relationship for both spouses/owners so we can have both marked to automatically SC.

Mary Zieten

Thank you both!    I'll pass that info on.