IHO/IMO Best Practice for recording in RE

In Raiser's Edge, we note that the constituent is a Tribute donor on the BIO 2 tab of their record and then set up the gift batch to automatically display Honor/Memorial, or just enter the Tribute information on the individual gift during the batch process if you don't have multiple Tribute donations to batch. We enter each check under the applicable Memorial or Honor appeal in the batch and make note of the Tribute under the gift record (creating a separate Tribute record in the batching process if it doesn't already exist in RE.) Not sure if this is too much information or not enough for your situation, we handle a lot of Tribute donations at MHS so we strive to capture as many details as possible to ensure both the donor and Tribute relation are acknowledged appropriately. 


-Heather Pauli, Michigan Humane Society


 

RE has a Tributes module you can add that will help you track gifts IHO/IMO another person. This can be as much of an annoyance as a benefit at times, in my experience.


I don't currently have the Tributes module available to me, so I record IHO/IMO at the gift level using in the following ways:

• Gift Note: detailed information about the honoree, if available, such as why they were chosen, the contact information to notify them/their representative of the IHO/IMO, etc.
• Reference: In Honor of [NAME]
• Letter Code: Tribute Letter
• Attribute 1 - Honoree Name
• Attribute 2 - Honoree Type: Memorial / Non-Memorial
• Attribute 3 - Honoree Contact Name
• Attribute 4 - Honoree Contact Email (may be blank)
• Attribute 5 - Honoree Contact Address (may be blank)

The Gift Note is a freeform way to record the information that is in the attributes and reference field. The attributes are there to provide mergefields for the letter and the reference is to be an at-a-glance note in the gifts tab.


I can't remember off the top of my head if I had any other fields set to be used for tributes, but I like to be sure that I don't use fields for multiple types of information. In case we get a weird gift that completely upends my field structure, I also like to code things in more than one way. Therefore, I use reference + letter code + attributes + note type as flags for this.


If the tribute gift is in honor of a constituent, I will soft credit the constituent, whether it is an Honor or Memorial. I do not use soft credits in my giving reports, so this is solely a way to link the constituent to the gift without having a Tributes tab for the link. I also add an attribute to the constituent identifying them as the recipient of a tribute, and a constituent note listing the tribute donors/dates.


My current database is much smaller than the ones I have used in the past, and we are a smaller nonprofit without extensive external reporting requirements, so I have some freedom to be a little more creative and customised with how I manage our data than I did in a university or museum setting.


Edited to add after reviewing:

Appeals - we get tribute donations in response to appeals, so I do not typically code them with a Tribute appeal. However, unsolicited gifts can be marked with the FY Tribute appeal (which is an unsolicited appeal category, etc).

Constituency - I do not use constituencies to mark anyone as tribute donors. If I want to include/exclude them from a report or query, I can do so based on their giving, and would prefer to not exclude tribute donors who also give directly. Marking a donor constituency can allow you to use it as a gift constituency, but I prefer to track gifts as from foundations, board members, etc., rather than tribute.