Deceased Spouses in RE and RENXT

Bob Wiebe

I am reviewing our practices of unlinking deceased spouses, i.e. unchecking the spouse box. 
I have reviewed some old discussions.  From a database point of view, unchecking the spouse box seems to be a convenient way to avoid soft crediting a deceased spouse. But from the viewpoint of the RENXT users I serve, it is helpful to see the name of the constituent accompanied at the top of the screen by the name of the deceased spouse and the word “deceased “ in parentheses beside that name.  
Is anybody leaving the spouse box checked to facilitate this view? Is there anything lost by this practice? I note that soft credits can be turned off elsewhere, and that the address can be unlinked. What other considerations am I not thinking about?

 

Christine Cooke 2

I am not in NXT to test for you.  But -- the way I have always handled deceased spouses is:

1. Click the Deceased checkbox on the Spouse and add the Deceased Date if you know the full date or month/year or just year.

2. Click the Invalid Address on Bio 1 for the decedent.

3. Uncheck the Send Mail box on the Preferred Address for decedent and enter and To Date

4. Change the Publication Name to reflect that the spouse is deceased (some use (dec.) or + or *) after their name

5. Uncheck the Soft Credit box

6. Change the Addressee/Salutations for the living spouse -- all of them, to reflect just that person

7. Be sure, if you don't have it set to auto populate, to change marital status to Widowed/Widow/Widower


No, I do not uncheck the Spouse box unless the living spouse remarries and we have the name.  But the deceased spouse is always linked through relationships even if their is a remarriage.


Why?  Because that is part of that person's story, and the decedent's story also --  and otherwise you have a whole population of dead people and if you unlink everything it is very difficult without digging to figure out why and how they were in your database to begin with.


When All of these items are done, the decent does not come up on mail lists but can show up on reports -- because if they gave, you will want to count their dollars for past years even though they are currently no longer living. If you don't you are skewing your totals.


That is my POV.

Elizabeth Johnson

I'm echoing Christine Cooke bCREPro‍'s succinct response!

Spencer Smith

Thank you for this response. I had a similar question about the Spouse checkbox and have maintained that it remain intact as well assuming the individual does not remarry. Our challenge is on the Addressees/Salutations. We are in the process of updating the Primary Salutation to just the first name(s). If the HOH has a spouse who is deceased, both appear when we use the configuration John & Mary in Acknowledgment letters instead of the Primary Salutation (which is Mr. & Mrs. Smith at this point). I think the best plan is to change the Primary Salutation and move on...I appreciate seeing your response to reinforce the plan.

JoAnn Strommen

You can certainly make a case for checking/unchecking the spouse box. As many of the functions noted can be automated when saving a record as deceased like send mail box unchecked, honor/memorial created, spouse relationship changed to widow/er, soft credits ended, but that addressee/salutation is a key one.


We have had staff wanting it both ways. As dba, I've made decision that it will be unchecked. Reason is that I kept it checked on record for a major donor so both names would pull for recognition lists we were pulling for annual report. I did not want to have to make various types as editable and change. About the same time another employee in another office ran mailing lists. Guess what? It pulled both names. Thankfully, she noticed. As a mailing may be reviewed, I'm fairly certain not every email list is reviewed with that attention to detail. That was the final thing that swayed me on unchecking the box - all joint addressee/salutations (not editable) will be automatically updated or for non-constituent spouse prompted for update.


Relationship record is still there to verify or answer any questions that a user has about spousal relationships. If unfamiliar with the record, staff may have to open the relationship tab.