Create separate constituents in Salsa CRM and then define relationships between constituents in order to ensure each constituent is properly credited for donations, establish software integrity, and track business and interpersonal relationships.

For example, a board member makes a donation. His wife is not a board member, but her name is on the check, and your policy is that everyone on the check gets credit for the donation. Since there is only one primary donor for each donation, when entering the donation, you identify the board member as the Donor and the spouse as the Co-Donor. You have identified all Board Members using a Group so you can view their gift activity through the Donor Detail report. Each person would be entered as a separate constituent, linked with a "Spouse" Relation. A query on "Group 'Board Members' who made donations" would return the right constituent and not return the wife's name in the query results (unless spouses were optionally added). A Donor Detail report would still consolidate together both spouses' separate giving histories, if that filter value was checked.

Another example: create a corporation as an Organization-type constituent, then enter all corporate contacts as Individual-type constituents, linked to the Organization through a business Relationship.

Check out the Build Relations training course in Salsa Scholars.

Reciprocal Relationships

Relationships can be reciprocal, which means if you enter Jane Doe as the wife of John Doe, then John Doe can automatically be added to Jane Doe's constituent record as husband. Please refer to the Reciprocal Relations Configuration article for more information on creating your own Reciprocal Relations.

NOTE:  For a Daughter or Son the reciprocal relationship would be Parent/Mother/Father (depending on gender or lack thereof), and for Mother and Father the reciprocal relationship would be Child/Son/Daughter.

View, Add, and Edit Relationships

To view, add, or edit relationships to a currently open constituent record...

1. From the Constituent Explorer panel, select the Relations node on the left. The Relation Information panel is displayed.
2. Select Add Link button below and to the right of the Relationships frame. The Add Link pop-up box will be displayed.
3. Click the Constituent button.  Alternatively, the constituent text field may also be used to search for a constituent.  For example, enter the last name and select the Constituent button.
   
4. A Constituent Search screen will be displayed. Type the Last Name of the constituent that you are adding as a relation. Add the First Name or other search parameters if known to narrow the search results.
5. Choose the Search button.
6. Constituents who match the information entered will be displayed in the lower half of your search screen. Double-click to select the appropriate constituent, or click once to select and press Enter.
7. The selected constituent's name will now appear next to the Constituent button as a hyperlink.
   
8. Select the appropriate Relationship from the drop down box. When selecting relationships think of it this way. As you add links to [constituent], select the relationship that the added link is to [constituent]: "[Relation] is the [Relationship] of [Constituent]".
9. Click OK.
10. To ensure that you have added the relationship correctly, Salsa CRM includes an Important Note on the lower portion of the panel. As you define the relationship, the information regarding the relationship will appear in bold typeface to ensure that you have added the relationship correctly.
    
11. Select the Save button when finished.

Acknowledgment Recipient

Acknowledgment Recipient allows you to assign a constituent as the person to whom acknowledgment letters will be sent.  For instance, if you receive a donation in memory of Jane Smith, you can assign another constituent, such as her husband, John Smith to receive letters informing him that a gift has been received in his wife’s memory.  The Acknowledgment Wizard makes this an easy way of ensuring everyone is thanked properly.

Spousal Relationships

Spousal relationships can be configured so that multiple relations can be considered a spousal relationship. From the Manage > Configuration > General menu, in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, you will see the Spouse Designation section. Here you can choose which relationships you would like to use in your database to recognize spousal relationships.

NOTE: The Advanced Query Wizard will recognize only the selections you enter into the right-hand panel, Selected Spouse Values. Therefore, you should leave Deceased Spouse in the Available Spouse Values on the left panel. This will avoid having deceased spouses return in query results.

Deceased Spouses

If you enter a Deceased Date on a record, and that constituent is related to another, living constituent with a Selected Spouse Value, a warning will appear when you try to Save that record, indicating, "This constituent has a spousal relationship with [Spouse's Name(s)]. Would you like to change that relationship to "Deceased Spouse"?"

If the user making the change doesn't have permission to access the other spouse or permission to modify his own relation (if the logged-in user is also the spouse of a deceased constituent) another warning appears:

This constituent has a spouse relationship with another constituent. That relationship cannot be updated automatically because you do not have the necessary user permissions. To update the relationship, request that a user with Constituent Relationship permissions update this relationship to "Deceased Spouse."

Once a Deceased Date is set on a Deceased Spouse, the Preferred Contact Method is automatically changed to Do Not Contact. The Deceased Spouse's Email Status is also changed to Opt-Out.

If you plan to eventually create a mailing via a report or query and you have consolidated spouses and a spouse returns with a deceased date, simply go back and change the relationship to the deceased spouse on the surviving spouse's record to Deceased Spouse. This would remove that deceased spouse from counting toward consolidated records and their name would not be added to the surviving spouse's name.