Best Practices for Deceased Volunteer¶

The best practice for handling volunteer records for deceased volunteers is this:

• If you don't already have one, create a Deceased Flag and Flag the volunteer as Deceased. You can also note the date the volunteer passed on the Notes tab of their record.
• If the volunteer was previously Active change their Status to Inactive.
• Archive the volunteer's record.

Changing a decedent's status to Inactive will remove them from any schedules they may have been on (unless you've changed this default setting in your account).

If the deceased volunteer performed any volunteer service during the current year, and your organization tracks volunteer hours, archiving the record for the deceased volunteer instead of deleting it ensures that their hours will still be included on any year-end service reports you run. Archiving the record rather than deleting it also gives you a way to restore or examine the record in the future if there are any questions about the volunteer's participation with your organization.

Moving the deceased volunteer's record to the archive prevents you from inadvertently sending any email, text message or postal mail to the decedent through Volgistics.

If you track and report volunteer service, keep the deceased volunteer's record in your archive at least until you've completed any year-end service reports you choose to run. You may delete the deceased volunteer's record from the archive any time you deem appropriate after that.