A former couple shared a family membership for years. They split up. Then one of them gets a renewal notice addressed to “Mr. and Mrs.”, or a thank-you letter for a gift the other person made, or a card reminder for a membership they no longer hold. Each of those letters hurts a little, and you hear about it on the phone.
Altru has no single “divorce” button that fixes all of this. The two people are linked in several separate places, and each one keeps sending mail until you change it. The fix is to find every link and handle it on purpose, in a sensible order.
Where the two records are still tied together
When an ex-spouse keeps getting contacted, it is almost always coming from one or more of these:
- The spouse relationship. Joint addressees and salutations (“John and Mary Smith”, “Dear John and Mary”) are usually built from an active spouse relationship. As long as that relationship is current, joint name formats keep showing up.
- The household. If both people are still members of the same household, anything that mails or recognizes at the household level treats them as one unit, and they share whatever address sits on the household.
- The membership itself. A dual or family membership has a primary member plus other members or cardholders. Renewal notices, card mailings, and member communications go out based on who is on that membership.
- Shared contact information. A joint email address or the old home address may still be primary on both records. One person can be “removed” everywhere else and still get mail because the address belongs to both of them.
- Your own queries and exports. Mailing lists built from queries that pull in household members or spouses will keep including the ex until the underlying data changes, or until the query stops reaching across relationships.
Decide who keeps what before you touch the records
Settle three questions first. Changing records before you know the answers is how you end up undoing work.
- Who keeps the membership? Usually it is the primary member, but not always. Ask. Sometimes the couple has already agreed, and sometimes the person calling expects to keep a membership the other one paid for. Your policy on mid-term changes should decide this, not the front desk on the spot.
- Does the other person get anything? Some organizations let the departing person finish the current term on a separate individual membership, or offer a discounted join. Others simply remove them at renewal. Pick one approach and use it every time.
- How should past giving be credited? Joint gifts already in the system are historical. In general you leave them as recorded and change how future gifts are credited and acknowledged. Rewriting old revenue to “split” it rarely helps anyone and can cause problems in your reports.
Clean-up order that works
1. End the spouse relationship
Change the relationship from current spouse to a former or ended one, with an end date, rather than deleting it. Keeping the history means the next staff member understands why two people share years of joint giving. Once the relationship is no longer current, check that joint addressee and salutation formats stop applying. If your organization uses custom name formats, test one record before assuming they all update the way you expect.
2. Separate the household
Remove the departing person from the shared household and give them their own household or leave them as an individual, depending on how your database is set up. Watch which address stays with the household and which goes with the person who moved out.
3. Fix addresses, emails, and phones
Update the person who moved with their new address and mark the old one as former, not deleted. If both records share an email address, ask each person which address is theirs now. A shared inbox is one of the most common reasons “removed” people keep hearing from you.
4. Adjust the membership
Remove the departing person as a member or cardholder on the membership, and deactivate any cards issued to them so they don’t keep getting scanned in. If the remaining member now fits an individual level instead of a dual or family level, decide whether that change happens now or at renewal, and note it on the record. How Altru handles changing levels mid-term depends on your membership program setup, so if you haven’t done this before, try it on a test record or confirm with Blackbaud support first.
5. Review communication preferences
If one person has asked not to be contacted at all, record that as a solicit code or communication preference on their own record, not just as a note. Notes don’t stop mailings; preferences that your queries actually filter on do.
6. Check your mailing queries
Run your renewal, appeal, and newsletter queries against both records and confirm who now comes back and with what name. If a query pulls “member and spouse” or “all household members”, it is worth checking that it respects ended relationships.
A few notes on handling it well
- Keep notes factual and minimal. “Relationship ended, membership retained by primary member per call on [date]” is enough. Don’t record personal details about the separation; constituents can and do ask to see what you’ve written about them.
- Don’t reveal one person’s information to the other. The caller isn’t entitled to the ex’s new address, giving, or membership status.
- Write a short checklist for staff. The steps above are easy to do halfway. One page listing the relationship, household, address, membership, preferences, and query check keeps it consistent.
- Look for the same pattern elsewhere. Deaths and adult children moving out leave the same loose ends. A periodic query for households with ended relationships but shared addresses will catch records nobody called about.
Quick answers
Should I merge or delete either record?
No. They are two real people with their own history. Separate the links between them; don’t remove either person.
Will ending the relationship change past acknowledgments?
No. Letters already sent stay as they were. The change affects what is generated from now on, which is why it’s worth reviewing anything already queued for mailing.
