Spouses & family members

Most giving households are couples, and most fundraisers write to both people. Family members let you record that without creating two contacts who each hold half the giving history.

Adding a family member

On the add or edit contact form, find the Family Members panel on the right and click +.

For each person you can record:

• Relationship — spouse, child, or parent
• Title, First name, Middle name, Last name, Suffix
• Birthday
• Include in mail merges
• Notes

How family members appear

A contact with a spouse displays as both names — “Michael and Rachel Chen” — in the contacts list, on the profile, and in reports. The gift and pledge history stays on the single contact record, which is what you want: it’s one household giving one amount.

One household, one contact

Resist the urge to create a second contact for a spouse. Two contacts means the giving history splits, the behind-on-giving maths breaks, and you send two copies of every newsletter.

Include in mail merges

The Include in mail merges setting decides whether this family member’s name appears in mail merge exports.

Turn it on for a spouse you address jointly. Leave it off for children, unless you genuinely address letters to the whole family.

The Greeting field wins

If a contact has a Greeting set on the edit form — “Jim and Barb”, say — mail merge uses that rather than assembling names from the family members. Greeting is the override for anyone whose preferred form of address doesn’t follow the pattern.

Birthdays

A family member’s birthday feeds the Upcoming Special Days report alongside the primary contact’s own birthday and anniversary. Handy for the “I remembered your daughter’s birthday” touch that people actually notice.

Removing a family member

Open the contact for editing, find the person in the Family Members panel, and remove the row. Save the contact.

Removing a spouse changes how the contact’s name displays everywhere immediately, including in any group they belong to.

When two people really are separate

Sometimes a couple genuinely gives separately — different employers, different donor IDs, separate acknowledgement. In that case, two contacts is right. Use tags or a group to note the connection so you don’t send two identical letters to one address.