Revised 08/21/2026
Death of an Individual
When an individual passes away, check and update several records in akoyaGO.
Begin by navigating to the individual's Contact record. From the Contact record, you can easily see other records that reference this Contact in akoyaGO.
Donor Records
From the Donor Summary tab of the Contact record, you will see all Donor records where this Contact is listed as the Primary or Secondary contact:
If the deceased individual is listed as the Primary Contact on the Donor record for a household (couple or family), navigate to the Donor record to make necessary updates. If the donor has a living spouse, set the living spouse as the Primary Contact on the Donor record and the deceased as the Secondary Contact. Update the Formal Default and Informal Greeting as needed moving forward.
For example, Susan Thompson has passed away. She was listed as the Primary Contact on the Donor record for Mr. and Mrs. Thompson:
After Susan's passing, Samuel was set as the Primary Contact and Susan as the Secondary Contact. The Formal Default for the Donor was updated from Mr. and Mrs. Thompson to Mr. Thompson to ensure it is correct for future acknowledgments and mailings. The Informal Greeting was set to Samuel.
Though the Donor record has been updated for future gifts and mailings, the Formal Acknowledgment on historic gifts, the GL Memo on historic Gift Payments, and the Memo that appears in the General Ledger have been preserved for historic purposes:
If the deceased individual is listed as the Primary Contact for an Organization Donor record, update the Organization Donor record by assigning a new Primary Contact who will manage donation-related communications for the organization moving forward:
If the deceased individual is listed as the Primary Contact for an individual Donor record (for themself only), you may choose to keep the Donor record active so any gifts received after death can be recorded.
However, if you keep the Donor record active for a deceased individual, consider the criteria for any future Mailing Lists or marketing efforts. In our final step, we will deactivate this individual's Contact record. If you have Mailing Lists that include Donors, we recommend including the criteria Primary Contact = Active when adding members to Mailing Lists. This will prevent any accidental mailings.
Fund Records - Primary Contact, Primary Donor, Fund Connections
If the deceased individual is listed as the Primary Contact or Primary Donor for any funds, evaluate how to update the fund record. For example, is there a succession plan? Can a surviving spouse or family member be listed as the Primary Fund Donor/Primary Fund Contact? If additional gifts will be received for this fund, keep the fund active.
Evaluate if the deceased individual was listed on any fund connections. If this connection should no longer be active, add an End Date and deactivate. Do not delete the historic connections.
Committees/Committee Members
From the Committees tab of the deceased individual's Contact record, evaluate if they were a member of any active committees.
If so, add an End Date and deactivate the Committee Member record:
Requests/Payments
From the Requests/Payments tab of the deceased individual's Contact record, evaluate if they were listed as the Primary Contact for any Requests or Payments that will still require communication with the Primary Contact (for example, award/denial notification, payment, reporting, etc.) If so, update the Primary Contact for any Request or Payment records by assigning a new Primary Contact who can currently manage Request-related communications for the organization.
If there are outstanding GOapply Status Tracking records related to any of these Requests, consider whether any other registered GOapply Users for this organization can take over outstanding reporting. If not, consider if you will need to reach out to the organization to determine how to proceed.
For historic Requests or Payments that do not require any further communication, the Primary Contact does not need to be updated.
Contact Record
Once all related records have been updated, the final step is to add a Deceased Date and deactivate the deceased individual's Contact record. When a Deceased Date is entered, the system will prompt you to deactivate the record:
Alternately, you can Deactivate the Contact record by selecting Deactivate from the top navigation bar, and choosing Deceased as the Status Reason:
Please note that if the Contact remains as the Primary or Secondary Contact for any Donor records that are remaining active, you will receive this banner:
Divorce - Household Donor
Because a couple can share a household Donor record in akoyaGO, you must review and update data when a divorce occurs to protect the relationship with each individual. There are two primary approaches for updating Donor records following a divorce. The appropriate option depends on your relationship with each individual and how you choose to preserve gift history.
Option 1: Updating Existing Donor Record and Creating One New Donor Record
If you primarily work with one member of the couple, you may choose to retain the existing donor record for that individual and create a new donor record for the other member of the divorced couple.
This approach preserves the full giving history for the individual who remains associated with the original record, ensuring fields on the History tab, such as Total Commitment and Most Recent Gift, remain accurate.
As mentioned above, even after updating the Formal Default and Informal Greeting on a Donor record for future gifts and communications, historic information including Formal Acknowledgments on past gifts, GL Memo on previous gift payments, and Memos in Business Central will remain unchanged and intact for historical accuracy.
For this option, you update the Formal Default and Informal Greeting on the couple's shared household Donor record and remove the Secondary Contact.
Before update:
After:
A new Donor record would then be created for the other member of the divorced couple, using the steps outlined here: Entering a Donor in akoyaGO
Option 2: Deactivate Existing Household Donor Record and Create Two New Donor Records
If there is no clear primary relationship or reason to associate the historical Donor record with one individual over the other, you may choose to deactivate the shared household Donor record and create two new individual Donor records.
Be aware that selecting this option means historical gifts will not be reflected in the new records. As a result, fields such as Total Commitment and Most Recent Gift will not include the couple’s past giving history.
For this option, deactivate the shared Donor record and create new Donor records for each individual, using the steps outlined here: Entering a Donor in akoyaGO