Households: When to Use Them in DonorDock
Households help manage relationships between contacts in DonorDock. If multiple people belong to the same family or household and interact with your organization independently, we recommend creating separate Individual contact records and connecting them through a Household.
Examples include:
Spouses who donate separately
Spouses who volunteer or attend events independently
Parents and children who each participate
Students and their parents or guardians
Parents, children, step-parents, and other family members who need their own contact history
A Household is its own contact record with one or more Individual contacts connected as Household members.
You may use the Household simply to understand how Individual contacts are related, or you may also record gifts, pledges, and other information directly on the Household when the interaction applies to the family as a whole.
For example, a check written from a joint family account or a family membership may reasonably be recorded directly on the Household.
If a Couple Interacts Together
If the couple generally donates, attends events, and interacts with your organization together, you may use one Individual contact record and enter the spouse's information in the available spouse fields.
This may be the simplest option when you do not need to track each person's activity separately.
If a Couple Interacts Independently
If each person interacts with your organization separately, create an Individual contact record for each person and connect them through a Household.
Examples include:
Each spouse makes their own donations
Each spouse volunteers independently
Each person attends different events or programs
You need to communicate with or report on each person separately
This allows each person to maintain their own history while still showing that they belong to the same family.
What If I Want to See the Family's Combined Giving?
DonorDock includes an optional Roll Up Household Member Giving setting.
When this setting is enabled, Household giving statistics include applicable giving recorded on the Household itself plus giving recorded on its members.
For example, if:
Alex gives $500
Morgan gives $250
Both contacts belong to the Alex and Morgan Smith Household
The Household can show $750 in combined giving, even though the gifts remain recorded on Alex and Morgan's Individual records.
This can make Households useful as family-level fundraising records while preserving each donor's individual history.
Household giving roll-up is a good fit when:
Family members already have separate Individual contact records
Those Individuals are connected to Household records
You want to report on giving by family
You want Household giving statistics to reflect member activity
You may prefer to leave the setting off when:
You primarily manage couples using spouse fields on a single Individual contact
You do not need family-level giving totals
Your reports routinely combine Individual and Household contact totals into one overall contact-based giving total
When roll-up is enabled, spouse fields are no longer available for new spouse information. Existing spouse information remains visible as read-only information and is not deleted.
To enable this feature, an Admin can:
Open the settings menu (grid icon top right)
Select Setting
On the navigation pane on the left, select Features
Scroll down to the toggle for Roll Up Household Member Giving
Click Save
When you change the setting, DonorDock recalculates Household records. For organizations with a large database, updated totals may take a few minutes to appear.
Communication Considerations
When using spouse fields on a single Individual contact, emails may be sent using both the primary email address and spouse email address stored on the contact.
Text messages are sent only to the primary mobile phone number.
If you want to text both members of a couple or manage their communication preferences independently, create separate Individual contact records for each person.
What About Children or Other Family Members?
A person does not need to be a donor to have their own Individual contact record.
For example, a child may volunteer or participate in a program while their parents make donations.
You can create the child as an Individual contact, add an appropriate badge such as Volunteer or Participant, and connect them to the Household.
This keeps each person's history accurate while still showing the family relationship.