Managing Deceased Records

Lanetta Gilder · March 2020

Working from home and had a operations meeting, and discussion came up about deceased records. Currently the process is to add the deceased date, add all of the “do not’s” to solicit codes, check the in valid address, change marital status to “widow/widower”, and add a copy of the obituary in notes. The suggestion from leadership is to:

1. On the deceased record, check “editable” and change primary addressee/salutations to “DECEASED” -

2. Transfer all info on the “prospect tab” (including ratings) to living spouses record

3. Look at obituary and add relatives

4. Copy the obituary and add to “Notes”

5. If notification came over the phone, create an action add a note in the action to what the person that notified you said

Question to the group: is this what your organization does for deceased records? Is it too much information?

Many thanks & be safe!

Katherine Manniion · March 2020

You're doing too much!

Add the deceased date and check the box. Don't worry about the address or the solicit codes, and don't bother messing with the add/sal fields...the deceased info will exclude this person from mailings (assuming you're not including deceased constituents in the queries/exports).

For sure make their living spouse into a constituent (if they are not), mark them as widowed, and check that THEIR add/sal fields are appropriate. I wouldn't move prospect info...that was specific to the deceased constituent. (Unless you have a proposal out there that will still be active, I guess) Yes, add relationships from the obituary, but only if you feel this will add value to your organization. Yes, add the obit for reference if that's important backup for you (same with an action if notified by phone).

JoAnn Strommen · March 2020

I agree - too much. Katherine Mannion‍ got it covered. Use your business rules - let RE work for you. Obit can go on notes or media.

Don't know what type of org you work for but why would you add family members at this point. Only add if you will truly need info at some point.

Lanetta Gilder · March 2020

Hi Katherine and Joann!

I hope all is well. Thanks for your responses. I appreciate it. The organization I work for is a school, but I've only been there almost 3 months. Some of the ways/protocol they use at the school goes against the way the database should be used. I agree it is a bit much....actually a lot much. I'm currently trying to relay that to leadership but it hasn't been easy.

Thanks again! I appreciate the support and feedback! Take care, be safe and have a good day!

Thanks!

Lanetta

Karen Diener 2 · March 2020

I agree 100% with what has been said so far. I see this sort of "over coding" of records a lot, all while users complain that things take so long in RE.

The only part I wanted to mention - which will vary at every organization - is the relationships. When I worked with a school. this was incredibly important because so many family members had attended the same school. We would make sure that any possible familial relationship was linked, and this was really important and helpful for all fundraising staff. In other organizations I've been with, the obit is still helpful to help identify acknowledgee information if the deceased is an honor / memorial.

I personally still add the obituary as a Constituent Notepad, with a notepad type of "Obituary". That could be just because I never used Media, since most organizations I have been with used a different document imaging system. And we also sometimes needed to know how many obits had been added, and occasionally search for a word within an obit, which was not possible using Media.

Karen

Dariel Dixon 2 · March 2020

I wanted to add this part about relationships. Most obituaries don't have a lot of information, and usually don't have any address information, which is needed for acknowledgee notification letters if there is a tribute added.

Michelle Moses · March 2020

I also work for a school. grades 6-12, all girls, and agree they want you to do way too much. I won't repeat all that was said. I will stress that the obituary can be full of information for relationships, especially when they are a legacy family. Our school was not great at adding relationships for legacies in the beginning, so it is a work in progress and those obituaries are like gold. I copy and paste the obituary into notes. I also try to track who called in a death when applicable. Helps when you accidentally mark someone deceased, which can easily happen when you are dealing with females, who typically change their last name (sometimes more than once). I hope this helps!

Becky Jones · April 2020

Hi Lanetta,

We currently do everything you currently do plus we copy the preferred address of the deceased to alternate and then only on the deceased person in the address field we put the word Deceased instead of the address. I would not recommend putting Deceased in the name field. To preserve the validity of your records, their name did not change and in listing possible memorial gifts, you'd have to be careful to delete the word deceased before publishing anything. We try to keep everything as automatic as possible when exporting data for lists, etc.

Hope this helps!

Becky

Managing Deceased Records

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