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  • 1.  Best Practices For Handling Mixed Contact Preferences in a Household

    Posted 02-03-2025 02:33 PM
    Edited by Mandy Z 04-23-2025 03:18 PM

    Hi everyone,

    I'm seeking advice on how to handle a situation in which one spouse in a household wants to be contacted and is an active donor but the other spouse has requested to be marked "do not contact."

    Historically, the couple was marked as "divorced" with a note explaining the situation to ensure that no mistakes were made. We're trying to correct these back to "married" but want to make sure we're using best practices to ensure that both spouses preferences are being respected. Right now I'm thinking the secondary spouse be marked "do not contact" but still linked to their spouse and marked married. We override the salutations to only include the primary spouse. Is there anything else I'm not thinking of? Should i mark the secondary spouse as anonymous as a fail-safe? Has anyone else encountered this situation before? We are currently using Millennium.

    Thanks in advance!



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    Mandy Z
    Northern Illinois University Foundation
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  • 2.  RE: Best Practices For Handling Mixed Contact Preferences in a Household

    Posted 02-03-2025 02:47 PM
    Every individual deserves independent records and contact codes. So, I 100% support your thinking.

    The key, however, is ensuring that your development staff recognizes those codes when looking at the record - and that all reports you generate (or queries staff can run) know how to handle those codes, too!

    I would never mark a record 'divorced' or 'anonymous' unless they were. Instead, staff training is needed with "consequences" for not honoring a donor's stated communication requirements.

    John

    John H. Taylor, Principal
    John H. Taylor Consulting, LLC
    2604 Sevier Street
    Durham, NC     27705

    919.816.5903 (cell/text)

    Serving the Advancement Community Since 1987






  • 3.  RE: Best Practices For Handling Mixed Contact Preferences in a Household

    Posted 02-04-2025 08:37 AM

    John, I agree with your point that everyone deserves their own record. Do you have any suggestions/resources for using systems that do not have the capability to automatically household donors for reporting or mailing purposes (DonorPerfect)?



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    Bridget Everman
    The Music School of Delaware
    beverman@musicschoolofdelaware.org
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Best Practices For Handling Mixed Contact Preferences in a Household

    Posted 02-04-2025 08:53 AM
    This is a reporting issue - not a CRM problem.

    In DonorPerfect you can link two records together to reflect a marital status. You can also create different names for different communications. And each record can have unique communication codes.

    You need to write queries, reports, and receipt protocols to look at all these data points to build the proper report/label.

    I hope DonorPerfect can help point you on how best to do this.

    John

    John H. Taylor
    919.816.5903 (Cell/Text)

    Big Ideas - Small Keyboard



    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Best Practices For Handling Mixed Contact Preferences in a Household

    Posted 02-04-2025 09:08 AM

    Hi Mandy,

    You might be able to get some more specific recommendations if you share the CRM or database system you're using. Each system has slightly different ways to code couples in order to facilitate correct handling of their contact and giving preferences. For example, in CRM Advance I would uncheck Joint Mailing Preferred and Joint Gift Credit for a couple like this. I'd also add a high level Alert to the constituent records to try to avoid anyone "fixing" this later. Your system may have different capabilities, though.

    Lianna



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    Lianna Bodzin
    Colorado School of Mines
    lbodzin@mines.edu
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