Primary Salutation for Gender Unknown Individuals

Emmet OConlon

Hello, all!


For Primary Salutation, our org uses Mr. Smith or Mr. and Mrs. Doe. However, there has been some discussion on how to handle individuals with an unknown gender, whether it should be Pat Smith or Pat.


Can you share which you use and any sources you used to determine this? TYVM!

Aaron Rothberg

I don't have any good resources for determining the gender of someone with the name Pat, but if I must use a formal addressee, my practice is to use the Prefix M for those individuals.


M. Pat Smith

M. Gerry Jones


 

Alberta Accounting Assistant

My organization uses the following procedure

Addressee=Pat Smith

Salutation=Ms. Smith  or in lieu of no Title Pat Smith (should match the addressee)

Additional Addressee/Salutation-- Informal= Pat

 

Emmet OConlon

TY!

Christine Cooke 2

BTW people and FYI -- several years ago it was established as in Miriam Webster Dictionary, that for those that do not prefer the formal title of Ms. Mr. or Mrs. for gender transition/fluidity reasons, or other, the title to use is Mx.

Phillip Bicknell

Since GDPR became applicable in May 2018, we've stopped assuming or guessing titles (or anything else, for that matter, especially the gender field, which we leave as Unknown).


Those supporters that come to us by post or phone, we generally get a title, so can use the UK traditional formats.


But online, despite always showing a title field, we rarely get one, so we use:

Addressee: First-name Surname

Salutation, including for emails: First name


And our supporter care team have given me zero negative feedback about this - they understand that's the best we can do with what the supporter has chosen to provide.


When we only get an initial (which is all that UK Gift Aid requires) then we use:

Addressee: Initial Surname

Salutation: Friend

Catherine Burns 2

Maybe we're a bit more relaxed here in NZ but we use the first name as the salutation even if we have a title. We only use Title + Surname if we have no first name or only have initials. First name + surname is a bit odd as a salutation because it is not something one would say. We use Friend if we only have an initial or no name at all.


Like Phillip I don't think title should ever be assumed. The most feedback we have received about titles was when a rented list had Ms for all the women and many complained that they are Mrs NOT Ms. I'm sure others did not respond because we got that one detail wrong.


Personally I think titles are antiquated and sexist and I get annoyed when title is required on an online form and there is no Other field. If title is required I at least expect to be offered the gender neutral Mx. I pick Mx to indicate that "my marital status and gender are none of your business". On form offered a text field for Other and I wrote "No Title" so they started to address me as "No Title Burns". While it made me smile clearly someone was not paying attention to data quality.

 

Phillip Bicknell

Catherine Burns:

…I get annoyed when title is required on an online form and there is no Other field. If title is required I at least expect to be offered the gender neutral Mx. …

 

At a digital conference last week I learned that we're quietly harming our completion rate for online donations by having the title field showing, even though it's optional. Possibly by 18%! Same goes for all other unnecessary fields - the absolute minimum is fast becoming the online norm. I reckon it's because the mandatory asterisk marking is almost invisible to many supporters.