Households and Member Elections

A household is how Muin treats a family as one unit instead of four separate contacts. A member election is how a membership organization elects its board without a spreadsheet of paper ballots.

When you’d use this

A husband and wife both give, and your donor list shows them as two unrelated people.
You sell a family membership and need to know who it covers.
Your food pantry serves per household, not per person.
Your by-laws call for an annual board election and you need a result you can defend.

Households

Where it lives: Sidebar → Directory → Households.

A household groups people who share an address and, for giving purposes, a wallet. It carries a name, an optional primary person, an address, notes and a status (Active, Inactive, Archived). The authoritative membership is the link on each person’s record.

To create one:

Press Add Household.
Enter the Household Name. This is required, and most teams use a family name such as “The Smith Family”.
Set the Status, pick the Primary Person, and fill in the address block (the address field autocompletes).
Press Create Household.

To add people to it:

Open the household from the list.
In the Members card, press + Add Member.
Pick the person and set the Relationship: Head of Household, Spouse, Child, Parent, Member, or Other.

Removing a member removes only the link. The person’s own record, history and enrollments stay exactly as they were, and Muin says so in the confirmation.

The list shows Name, Members, Status, Location and Created, and is sortable on Name, Status and Created. There is a status filter and a CSV export. The search box filters the rows already on screen, so page through or use the status filter when your list is long.

Deleting a household is a soft delete, and the confirmation says it cannot be undone from this screen.

What a household changes in giving

Donor actions collapse per household. A family appears once per cause instead of once per contact, under whichever member interacted most recently.
Soft credits. A household or spouse soft credit lets a gift one spouse made appear on the other’s profile, without double-counting the money.
Family memberships. A membership can belong to a household, and a membership tier can cap how many household members it covers.
Distribution fairness caps. A household can carry its own cap on how many members are served at a distribution event. The household detail screen shows that rollup.

Member elections

Where it lives: there is no sidebar row. Open Sidebar → Nonprofit → Membership → Memberships and press the Elections button in the page header. The screen is titled Member Elections. You need permission to view governance to read it, and permission to manage governance for every action on it.

Members vote on their own member portal. You can also record paper ballots on this screen.

Running an election

Press New election.
Fill in the Title (members will see it, so name it something recognizable such as “Board of Directors 2027”), an optional description, Seats to fill, and Names per ballot (usually the same as the number of seats).
Decide whether Members in their renewal grace period may vote. Only turn this on if your by-laws allow it.
Press Create election. The election starts as Draft.
Press Open nominations.
Add nominees. Use Add a nomination on the expanded card, pick the nominee, and optionally write a Candidate statement that members read on the ballot.
Review each nomination with Approve or Reject. Only approved candidates go on the ballot.
Press Close nominations when you are done taking names.
Press Open voting. Confirm with Open voting and email members. This freezes the roll of eligible members and emails every eligible member who has an email address a link to vote on their member portal.
Record any paper ballots with Record a paper ballot: pick the voter, tick up to the allowed number of candidates, press Record ballot, and confirm. Recorded ballots are final.
Press Close voting when the window ends.
Read the tally, then press Certify result.

Cancel election is permanent. Ballots already cast are kept but never counted.

Reopen voting is available after voting closes and before certification. Ballots already cast stay counted, and members are not emailed again.

Eligibility and the roll

Eligibility is membership in good standing, measured on the date the roll is frozen, which is the moment you open voting. A member who joined after that date cannot vote in that election. Grace-period members are eligible only if the election was created with that option on.

One member gets one ballot. The tally is always the server’s count, never a local total.

What it affects

A household changes how donor actions, soft credits, family memberships and distribution caps group people. It does not merge the people themselves.
Opening voting sends an email to every eligible member with an address on file, so check the roll before you open it.
Certifying an election stamps each candidate as elected or not elected and records who certified it and when. It does not create board seats on the board register; record those on the governance screens.
The Form 990 workspace links to member elections as a source for its governance questions.

When it goes wrong

“No approved candidates, so the ballot would be empty.” Approve at least one nomination before opening voting.

“This person was not a member in good standing when the roll closed.” Their membership started after the roll was frozen, or lapsed before it. You cannot add them to this election. If the roll was frozen too early, cancel and run a fresh election.

“A ballot has already been cast for this member.” They voted on the portal, or someone already recorded their paper ballot. Check the tally before re-entering.

“This ballot allows at most N selection(s); M were made.” The paper ballot names more people than the election permits. Re-read the ballot and enter only the allowed number.

“A selected candidate is not on this ballot.” The nominee was withdrawn or never approved. A withdrawn nominee cannot receive a vote.

“Close voting before certifying.” A result certified while ballots can still arrive is not a result. Press Close voting first.

“N candidates are tied for the last seat.” Muin shows the tie and never breaks it. Your by-laws decide a tie. Resolve it per your by-laws, record the outcome, then certify.

“Failed to create household.” Usually a missing name. The household name is required.

Next step

With households in place, see how family giving reports in Fundraising and Donor Management. For membership tiers that cover a whole household, see Membership and Giving Programs.