Mark an Individual Constituent as Deceased

When an individual constituent passes away, you can mark the constituent as deceased. When you mark a constituent as deceased, you can enter information such as the deceased date. The program automatically retains the information about deceased constituents but excludes them from constituent searches. To search for a deceased constituent, you must first select Include deceased on the Constituent Search screen.

After you mark a constituent as deceased, you can edit the deceased date or confirmation information as necessary from the Personal tab. For information about how to edit information about a deceased constituent, see Personal Information.

Note: If you use Blackbaud’s DeceasedRecordFinder service and your system administrator configures the Life Changes options in Constituents, the program automatically marks deceased constituents as deceased and updates their constituent records. For information about the Life Changes options, see Life Changes. For information about DeceasedRecordFinder, see the Administration Guide.

Note: Your system administrator may configure the Life Changes options so you can edit information about a deceased constituent from the Deceasing Options page.

If you accidentally or incorrectly mark a constituent as deceased, you can make a constituent marked as deceased active again.

  1. Open the record of the individual constituent to mark as deceased. For information about how to open a constituent record, see Constituent Search.

  2. Under Tasks, select Mark deceased. The Mark individual deceased screen appears.

  3. In the Deceased date field, enter the date the constituent passed away. If you are unsure of the exact date, enter a fuzzy date such as the month and year or year only. If you do not know the date, leave the field blank.

  4. In the Confirmation field, select how your organization confirms the constituent passed away, such as a death certificate or relative.

  5. In the Source field, select how your organization first learns the constituent passed away, such as an obituary. Your system administrator determines the options for this field.

  6. Select Save.

    • If your system administrator configures the Life Changes options to enable users to edit information about deceased constituents, the Deceasing Options page appears. For information about the Deceasing Options page, see Deceasing Options.

    • If your system administrator does not configure the Life Changes options to enable users to edit information about deceased constituents, you return to the constituent record. The Status field displays Deceased.

  1. Open the record of the deceased constituent to mark as active. For information about how to open a constituent record, see Constituent Search.

    Tip: To search for a deceased constituent, select Include deceased on the Constituent Search screen.

  2. Under Tasks, select Undo mark deceased. A message appears to ask whether to no longer mark the constituent as deceased.

  3. Select Yes. You return to the constituent record. The Status field no longer displays Deceased.

    If your system administrator configures the program to automatically mark deceased constituents as inactive, you must manually mark them as active again. For information about how to mark a constituent as active, see Mark a Constituent as Inactive or Active.