Handling Death in a Family
You must first enter information into the Died date field which can be found under the Edit tab on the deceased individual's profile.
This is what WILL happen when you enter a date in that field:
- The member will be marked as deceased and a yellow tag will be placed at the top of their profile that says, “This person is deceased”.
- They will no longer receive Mass Contacts that are sent to groups in which they are Active members.
- They will no longer show up when taking Attendance for any groups in which they are Active members.
- They will be removed from the Printed Directory.
- They will not be available for Printed Labels.
This is what will NOT happen when you enter a date in that field:
- They will still be available in the Attendance Roll.
- They will still show in an Export to CSV file.
- They will still appear in Check-In.
- They will still be listed in the Online Directory.
With these considerations, we can review items to address when a member passes away.
Follow Up Items
Groups
Consider deactivating or removing them completely from any applicable Groups in which they are members (will directly impact the online Directory and Check-In). The easiest way to do this is to go to the member's profile, click the Edit tab, and then scroll down to the Groups area.
- Click the toggle to Inactivate from applicable groups.
- Use the X to remove them from a Group.
For some groups, you may not want to deactivate them. For example, not all groups are for people who meet in a "group". There may be groups that contain givers from a certain year; deactivating a person in that group because of their death would not be recommended.
Record Management
Another option is to simply delete the deceased individual. Before you do this, you will want to make sure to save or export information that is important to reference at a later time.
If you still want to keep the record for some time, then you can easily move all the contributions to the surviving spouse.
First, go to the Family tab where the family members should be linked and then use the pencil icon to edit the family.
Now, use the radio button to switch who the main link to the family is going to be.
Apply the changes made by using the SAVE button.
Family Label Name
While in the Family tab, make sure to review the Family Label Name field. If this was customized at some point, remove or update that field to reflect the current information. This is important because it will play into contribution statements and other times when labels are created.
Apply the changes made by using the SAVE button.
Giving
Make sure the Group Giving With Family is still in place after completing this process. Once complete, simply follow our guide to Consolidate Family Giving and all the donations will be moved to the remaining spouse.
If the individual is deleted from the ChMS database, instead of keeping them and marking them as deceased, their giving will automatically transfer over to the surviving spouse. Also, by deleting the individual, the surviving spouse will become the primary family member. If there is no surviving spouse, all giving records will be moved to Anonymous under Reports → Giving → By Anonymous.
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