Enable spouseholding for Raiser’s Edge NXT – Avid

This article explains what “spouseholding” means in Avid’s Raiser’s Edge NXT integration and how to enable it by updating your field mappings. Use it when you want Avid to treat a household as the primary donor record (instead of each constituent).

Use this article when

You want donor counts and rollups to align to households (not individual constituents).
You want gifts and related credit behavior to follow household-level rules in your model.
You are onboarding and need to apply Avid’s recommended spouseholding mapping changes for NXT.
You are troubleshooting unexpected deduping or donor-count changes after connecting NXT.

This is optional and not the default. Spouseholding changes how records roll up and can change donor counts, which can surprise users if they are expecting an “individual constituent” model.

Applies to and prerequisites

Applies to	Raiser’s Edge NXT connections in Avid
Permissions	You need access to edit connection mappings (Admin or Integration Manager role in Avid).
What you’ll update	Field mappings for `Constituents` and `Transactions`
Time	~10 minutes, plus time to validate in your datasets

What spouseholding means

Spouseholding (spouse householding) is a data-model choice where Avid treats the household as the “account-level” donor entity, while still keeping each constituent as an individual contact record. In practice, this is implemented by mapping household identifiers into Avid’s account identifier fields and preserving constituent identifiers to prevent unwanted deduping.

When to use spouseholding

You want household-based donor counting and rollups.
You want analysis and segmentation to align to “household giving” expectations.

When not to use spouseholding

You report and plan strictly at the individual constituent level and do not want household rollups to affect counts.
Your team expects current Avid donor counts to remain unchanged from the default NXT mapping.

Expected impacts

Spouseholding can change how Avid groups records and calculates rollups. This may affect donor counts and can influence how giving levels and credit-related behaviors appear in analyses.

What may change after you enable spouseholding

Donor counts: Counts may shift because households become the primary grouping key, not individual constituents.
Rollups: Household-level rollups may replace individual-level rollups in places that use the account identifier.
Credit behavior: The transaction account identifier is intentionally changed to read from household fields (see the mapping table) which can influence how credit/attribution is represented in downstream reporting.
Deduping risk if misconfigured: If you do not map Constituent ID as the default contact identifier, contacts can fall back to the account identifier and dedupe within a household.

Mapping changes overview

To enable spouseholding, you update mappings in two places: your Constituents mapping and your Transactions mapping.

Area	Source field (NXT)	Map to (Avid)	Why it matters
Constituents	`Household ID`	`Account ID`	Makes the household the account-level donor key.
Constituents	`Constituent ID`	`Contact ID` (default)	Prevents contacts from falling back to `Account ID` and deduping within the household.
Constituents	`Constituent ID`	Custom field `Original Constituent ID`	Keeps the original identifier visible/searchable for audits and troubleshooting.
Constituents	`Is Head Of Household`	`Is Primary Contact`	Marks the household’s primary contact using NXT’s head-of-household indicator.
Constituents	`Is Head Of Household`	Custom boolean `Is Head of Household`	Preserves the original head-of-household flag separately for filtering/searching.
Transactions	`Household ID`	`Account ID` (swap from constituent-based)	Moves transaction account attribution to household-based behavior (soft credits by default).
Transactions	`Constituent ID`	`Original Constituent ID`	Preserves the original constituent reference on gift records for audits/searching.

Steps

Open your Raiser’s Edge NXT connection mapping screen in Avid.
Update your Constituents mappings for spouseholding.
1. Map Household ID as Account ID.
2. Map Constituent ID as Contact ID (default contact identifier).
3. Map Constituent ID again as a custom field named Original Constituent ID.
4. Map Is Head Of Household as Is Primary Contact.
5. Map Is Head Of Household again as a custom boolean field named Is Head of Household.
6. Update your Transactions mappings for spouseholding.
  1. Swap the transaction Account ID mapping so it reads from Household ID (instead of a constituent-level identifier).
  2. Map Constituent ID as Original Constituent ID on transactions.
  3. Save your mapping updates and re-run any required sync or refresh.
Expected result: New and updated records reflect household-based grouping and the added custom fields.
Validate the results in Avid.
- Confirm households do not collapse into a single contact (a sign Contact ID is missing or mis-mapped).
- Spot-check donor counts and rollups in the views your team uses most.
- Search for Original Constituent ID on a few known records to confirm it is populated.

What you’ll see

Household identifiers mapped into Account ID for constituents and transactions.
Constituents preserved as distinct contacts via Contact ID.
Additional fields available for search and filtering, including Original Constituent ID and Is Head of Household.

Next steps

Review the downstream places you track donor counts and confirm they align to your household expectations.
Update any saved segments or reports that assume an individual-level donor model.
If you are using playbooks or audiences that key off donor counts, re-check thresholds after enabling spouseholding.

Notes and warnings

Do not skip the Contact ID mapping. If Constituent ID is not mapped as the default Contact ID, contacts can fall back to Account ID and dedupe within the household.

Get help

Contact LockStep Support if:

You enabled spouseholding and donor counts changed in an unexpected way.
You see contacts collapsing into one record per household (deduping symptoms).
You cannot locate the mapping screen or the required destination fields in your connection.

Include:

The name of your connection (Raiser’s Edge NXT).
Whether spouseholding is enabled (yes/no).
Screenshots of your Constituents and Transactions mapping rows for the fields listed above.
1–2 example households where the behavior is incorrect (no donor names needed; use internal IDs if available).

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