Hook & Context
A memorial gift often arrives at the hardest moment in a family's life. Someone has died, an obituary names your charity, and over the next few weeks dozens of gifts come in from people you have never heard of.
How you handle those gifts says a lot about your organization. It also has a big effect on your fundraising.
Tribute giving is common. According to Nonprofit Tech for Good, 46% of online donors have given a tribute gift in the past 12 months, and memorial gifts are the most popular type at 43%. Yet only 41% of nonprofits have a tribute giving program, according to the 2026 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report. Even when charities offer one, Nonprofit Tech for Good notes that most tribute programs exist only as a tick box on the main donation page.
That tick box creates a data problem. It captures a name but not the relationships, preferences, and follow-up steps that make tribute giving work.
Insight & Analysis
A tribute gift involves more people than a normal gift. There is the donor who gave the money. There is the honoree, the person being honoured or remembered. And there is often a notification recipient, such as a spouse, parent, or family contact, who should be told the gift was made.
Most small charity databases are built around one person per gift. When a tribute gift comes in, staff often squeeze the extra details into a note field. That leads to three common problems.
Families do not get notified, or get notified badly
When the family contact is buried in a note, notifications get missed or delayed. Worse, some charities accidentally share gift amounts with the family. Guidance from Little Green Light is clear: notification letters should tell the honoree or family that a gift was made, but should not include gift amounts.
Tribute donors are treated as one-time donors
Many tribute donors give because of the person, not the cause. That makes them hard to retain. An older analysis presented by Big Duck found that in-memoriam donors had some of the lowest retention rates of any donor type, in single digits. That figure is several years old, so treat it as a warning sign rather than a current benchmark, but the pattern is widely seen in the sector.
The long-term opportunity is missed
Some tribute donors are among your most valuable future supporters. UK research from Legacy Futures found that donors with a known in-memory connection were three times more likely to pledge a legacy gift than standard regular donors. The UK market is different from North America, but the lesson is clear: if you cannot see who gave in memory of whom, you cannot steward that connection.
The good news is that this is mostly a data structure problem, and data structure problems are fixable.
Actionable Steps
1. Store the donor, honoree, and notification contact separately
Every tribute gift should capture three things as separate, linked pieces of information:
- Donor: The person who gave the money and gets the receipt
- Honoree: The person being honoured or remembered
- Notification recipient: The person who should be told about the gift, if any
Glue Up recommends keeping the donor, gift, honoree, tribute type, notification recipient, privacy preference, and campaign as separate but connected information. If your CRM supports a tribute record or a relationship link, use it. If not, create custom fields rather than relying on free-text notes.
2. Add a tribute type field
Use a simple dropdown with options such as "In memory of," "In honour of," and "Celebration (birthday, wedding, other)." This lets you report on memorial gifts separately and send the right message. A thank-you for a birthday tribute should sound very different from one for a memorial gift.
3. Capture privacy preferences at the point of giving
Ask donors on your gift form:
- May we share your name with the family?
- May we share your address so they can thank you?
Never share the gift amount with the family by default. Store these answers in your CRM so every staff member follows them.
4. Send two separate communications
Each tribute gift needs two messages:
- To the donor: Your normal thank-you and tax receipt, with a line that confirms the tribute and that the family has been notified.
- To the notification recipient: A short, warm note telling them a gift was made in honour or memory of their loved one, without the amount.
The Association of Donor Relations Professionals, in guidance shared by the Community Foundation of Jackson County, recommends timely notification to families, clear ownership of who sends notifications, and a set reporting rhythm. One example is weekly for the first month, then monthly for up to a year. When reporting to families, share overall totals rather than individual amounts.
5. Build a tribute fund view for memorial campaigns
When a family names your charity in an obituary, create a tribute fund or campaign code for that person. Link every gift to it. This lets you give the family a respectful summary, such as "47 people have made gifts in memory of your mother," and helps you see which memorial funds keep growing over time.
6. Create a gentle follow-up path for tribute donors
Do not drop tribute donors straight into your standard appeal stream. Instead:
- Send a timely, personal thank-you first. Research by Penelope Burk, cited by GiveCampus, found that 90% of in-memoriam donors said a timely thank-you letter was the single most important communication they received.
- A few weeks later, share a short story about the impact of gifts like theirs.
- Invite them to stay connected, without assuming they share the honoree's passion for your cause.
- Flag repeat memorial donors and family members as possible legacy prospects.
7. Review tribute data every quarter
Pull a simple report each quarter: number of tribute gifts, number of active tribute funds, notifications sent on time, and how many tribute donors gave again. This turns a tick box into a program you can actually manage.
Regional Insight: Canada and the U.S.
In Canada, the tax receipt always goes to the person who provided the funds, not the honoree. As the Charity Accounting Firm explains, the CRA requires charities to issue official donation receipts only to the true donor. When family members pool money for a memorial gift, each contributor can be receipted for their own share, provided the charity has a detailed breakdown. Receipts must also meet the CRA's official receipt requirements, including the donor's full name and address, the amount, and the eligible amount of the gift.
In the U.S., the IRS requires donors to have a contemporaneous written acknowledgment for any single contribution of $250 or more. It must include the organization's name, the amount of a cash gift, and a statement about whether any goods or services were provided in return. The tribute notification to the family is not a tax document, so it should not include tax language or amounts.
On both sides of the border, the rule is the same: the donor gets the receipt and the amount, and the family gets the kind words.
Conclusion
Tribute and memorial gifts are personal, emotional, and often your first contact with a whole new circle of supporters. Handling them well is not about fancy software. It is about storing the right information in the right place: the donor, the honoree, the notification contact, the tribute type, and the privacy preferences.
Get that structure right, send two thoughtful communications, and follow up gently. You will honour the people being remembered, respect the families who trust you, and give your charity a real chance to build lasting relationships with the donors who come to you at a difficult time.
