Personify Householding Overview

As of 7.4.2, Household Management, or householding, is an important feature to many nonprofit organizations. At the simplest level, householding provides an organization with the ability to treat donors, volunteers, and constituents who live within a single household as separate individuals, as well as a single household entity, for the purposes of communications and reporting. A household is comprised of a number of individuals who share the same home mailing address. It is possible that a household can actually contain one or more companies, such as a family business or a family foundation.

Individuals can only belong to one household. It is possible that the same address – or household – might have multiple families.

Households generally have a primary record, or head of household. While a household has a series of individuals and companies that may also have relationships, other than the primary record, the hierarchy of the household isn’t generally that important. Households differ from company records in that they would not generally have financial, volunteer, or other transactions attributed directly to them, but would be a means for reporting the aggregate activities of their household members.

A household record has its own demographics, including addresses and other contact methods. The record shows information readily about the aggregate activities and financial transactions of the individuals belonging to the household. A household record also displays deceased members as well, as this information is important from a historical perspective. This information includes the giving and volunteer history of those individuals; although as is currently the case, these individuals would not be solicited.

Families vs. Households in Personify

A household is specifically a set of constituents who share the same address as their primary residence. A constituent can only have one household, but a household might have more than one family.

In Personify, users can define a primary family contact, as well as a head of household. For many households, it is likely that the primary family contact and the head of household will be the same. In Personify, the expectation is that primary family contact is assigned when the organization has activities in which children participate, and the primary family contact is the person who needs to be contacted related to health or permission issues involving the children.

Assumptions about Households

1.    Household records cannot place an order or make a payment. However, Personify will automatically create a customer record for each household, and that record can be used to record orders and payments.

2.    An individual can only belong to one household.

3.    A head of household is not required, although the head of household will be defaulted.

4.    Household members typically are individuals, but can also include a company (e.g., a family business run out of the home or a family foundation).

5.    Household members typically have family relationships with each other, but it is not required.

6.    No functionality is being provided for Households in the following modules:

·            Advertising

·            Awards

·            Certification

·            Committees

·            DCD/ECD Digital Content

·            Exhibitions

·            Facility Room Rental and Reservation Management

·            Inventory Products

·            Meeting Registrations

·            Membership

·            Miscellaneous Invoices

·            Order Entry

·            Transcripts

·            Volunteer Management