Some key donors got divorced! How do I deal with that in the NPSP?

If you use the Nonprofit Starter Pack’s Householding module, you know that it automatically credits all members of a household for any other household member’s donation.  Which is great for donor cultivation, since nobody wants to ignore the spouse of a major donor.

But what happens when those donors split up?  How do you deal with it in Salesforce?  Easy!

Setting the Stage: What is Currently In Salesforce

In the past, Frank and Nicole Earnesto have been supporters of our Annual Fund as well as having an annual membership.  Both Frank’s and Nicole’s individual contact records – as well as the Earnesto household – reflect total giving of $5,070.

Nicole is our primary donor, but Frank is always soft credited as a household member.

 

Step 1: Split the Households

Go to the contact record of one of the household members.  In the Household box, simply delete the existing entry and save.  The NPSP will automatically create a brand new household for the person, effectively splitting the couple into two separate household records.

We’re going to split Nicole into her own household:

1. Edit Nicole’s contact record.  First change Nicole’s name, if that’s appropriate.  In our example we’re changing her last name to Singleton.
2. When you delete her Household record, and click “Save,” Salesforce will create a new, separate Singleton Household with just Nicole as a member.

 

What you will see:

1. Nicole’s donations will stay with her.
2. Because Frank was Soft-Credited, the donations Nicole made while he and Nicole were married continue to be credited to him.
3. During your nightly Household Rollup Updates, the household credit for the donations will be removed from the Earnesto Household, and applied to the Singleton Household.

 

What’s up with the Household Donations delay?

Whenever you enter a donation, credit is immediately applied to a Household record.  But you also have a nightly process that runs to clean up any donations that may need to be rolled up.  Anything that’s out of whack with which donations are rolled up to which households are corrected every night, so if you see something odd on household donation fields, you can wait 24 hours to fix it.

Or you can force a manual roll-up.  Click the + button to see all tabs, then click Opportunity Rollups.  

Click “Continue” on the Opportunity Rollups screen, and wait a few minutes.  When the process is complete, the donations will be distributed to the correct households.