Estate lawyers as individual or organization relationship...and elevate to constituent?

Stephanie Gobin · July 2018

We handle a lot of estate gifts. In completing the recently deceased constituent's record (often they are not a constituent before we receive their will), is it recommended to set up their estate lawyer as an individual relationship or organization relationship?

Additionally, would you elevate the lawyer to constituent status, giving them their own record? We will be communicating back and forth with this lawyer (i.e. sending letters/forms, etc). But only for a short time frame.

If you leave the lawyer at the relationship level (non-constituent status) and set them up as an organization, if you enter "Harry J. Potter, Barrister, Solicitor & Notary Public" in as the organization name and then put "Harry J. Potter" as the contact name, that would look odd on address labels & letters. So if entering as organization, how do you handle business name and/or contact name? Alternatively, if you enter as individual, where would you put "Barrister, Solicitor & Notary Public"? In first line of address block?

Thanks for any help out there,

Stephanie

Christine Cooke 2 · July 2018

Stephanie Gobin:

We handle a lot of estate gifts. In completing the recently deceased constituent's record (often they are not a constituent before we receive their will), is it recommended to set up their estate lawyer as an individual relationship or organization relationship?

Additionally, would you elevate the lawyer to constituent status, giving them their own record? We will be communicating back and forth with this lawyer (i.e. sending letters/forms, etc). But only for a short time frame.

If you leave the lawyer at the relationship level (non-constituent status) and set them up as an organization, if you enter "Harry J. Potter, Barrister, Solicitor & Notary Public" in as the organization name and then put "Harry J. Potter" as the contact name, that would look odd on address labels & letters. So if entering as organization, how do you handle business name and/or contact name? Alternatively, if you enter as individual, where would you put "Barrister, Solicitor & Notary Public"? In first line of address block?

Thanks for any help out there,

Stephanie

Well -- usually you have the deceased individual in your database to begin with. When you are notified you are a recipient, then you make and Estate of... record (as an Org. record) and link it back to the individual. The attorney or executor or both (depending on the situation) is then added to the estate record as a Relationship. They do not have to have their own constituent record. But in the relationship you should mark them and Relation/Reciprocal of Estate/Attorney Executor respectively. And the Is a Contact box should be checked and they should be the Main Contact for the estate. This way, when you merge it into letters or labels, you have the option of choosing to include them as a Contact for the estate because you can choose to pull contact(s) by type into the merge of letter or label/envelope.

Stephanie Gobin · July 2018

Thanks Christine! Very helpful methods!

I see there is a few previous Estate of records in our database but they have been entered as individuals. Are you aware of an easy way to change an individual record into an organization record or do I have to start a new organization record?

With gratitude,

Steph

Barbara Schlichter · July 2018

Stephanie Gobin:
Thanks Christine! Very helpful methods!

I see there is a few previous Estate of records in our database but they have been entered as individuals. Are you aware of an easy way to change an individual record into an organization record or do I have to start a new organization record?

With gratitude,

Steph

Yes, it's very simple. Open the record you want to convert and at the top click on Constituent and about half way down, pick convert to Organization. Voila!

Christine Cooke 2 · July 2018

Stephanie Gobin:
Thanks Christine! Very helpful methods!

I see there is a few previous Estate of records in our database but they have been entered as individuals. Are you aware of an easy way to change an individual record into an organization record or do I have to start a new organization record?

With gratitude,

Steph

Yes -- when you have the record open, under the Constituent dropdown menu there is a item called Convert to Organization (if you open an org record that you want to make an individual that same choice changes to Convert to Individual)

Debra Holcomb · July 2018

Unless your organization requires it, there is no need to create an estate record separate from the individual. You can add an new constituency code of Estate and attach the Estate con code to future gifts. I have an unusual role where I manage both the data services team and the planned giving program for my organization. As the planned giving officer, it's so much more helpful to have all the whole relationship -- actions, appeals and gift history -- on one single record. On the deceased's record, I create non-constituent relationship for the executor, attorney and/or trustee so I can stay in touch . I add an attribute to the relationship tab so I can easily group the contacts for future mailings. I tend to track all of the professionals as an individual relationship and place the name of the company in address line one. This is so that when I export data it doesn't get too complicated with having to output additional fields for Org contacts and then manually move the address data for my mailing lists.

Julie Hart · July 2018

My organization handles estate gifts as Debra mentioned also, just adding a constituent code to the individual record. We also add the lawyer/estate rep to that individual's record as a relationship only, and keep any information/data/documents related to the estate and the gifts all in the deceased individual's record.

Stephanie Gobin:

We handle a lot of estate gifts. In completing the recently deceased constituent's record (often they are not a constituent before we receive their will), is it recommended to set up their estate lawyer as an individual relationship or organization relationship?

Additionally, would you elevate the lawyer to constituent status, giving them their own record? We will be communicating back and forth with this lawyer (i.e. sending letters/forms, etc). But only for a short time frame.

If you leave the lawyer at the relationship level (non-constituent status) and set them up as an organization, if you enter "Harry J. Potter, Barrister, Solicitor & Notary Public" in as the organization name and then put "Harry J. Potter" as the contact name, that would look odd on address labels & letters. So if entering as organization, how do you handle business name and/or contact name? Alternatively, if you enter as individual, where would you put "Barrister, Solicitor & Notary Public"? In first line of address block?

Thanks for any help out there,

Stephanie

Stephanie Gobin · July 2018

Julie and Debra, thank you for sharing your practices for estate gifts. I really like idea that you would get the full picture of a donor when you look up their name - both their gift history from their lifetime and their estate. I had considered using constituent codes to mark them as estate donors but wanted to consider all ways of doing it. Glad to hear that this a practice/procedure out there and I will likely go with this method.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Stephanie

Jen Claudy · July 2018

My preference has usually been to keep the Individual Record, just as Julie and Debra have mentioned, unless it's a situation where we expect several payments over a fairly lengthy period of time and we need to keep them separate from the Individual Record for some reason or other (i.e. if there is a surviving spouse or we had one where the estate either set up a foundation or operated sort of like one with regular disbursements over a period of several years). Then either create a new Organization Record, link & soft-credit, or convert the Individual Record to an Organization Record.

Estate lawyers as individual or organization relationship...and elevate to constituent?

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