My colleagues and I are trying to figure out the best practice on this and would like more opinions and examples of what others do: When you enter an organizational consituent and its individual relationships in the relationships tab (example: key employees you deal with), do you also automatically create an individual record for each of those relationships? My instinct is to not do that and instead just keep them in the relationship tab of the organization. The exception would be if I also have a relationship with the individual such as if the person makes personal donations. Do others do it differently?

 Thanks

Kim Strydonck, CFRE

Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation

Hi Kim, 

I agree with you.  I don't create seperate records for organization contacts unless there is a compelling reason to do so apart from their relationship to the company.  But I'm interested in hearing if others do and what the benefits are.

Leslie

Hi Leslie,

 The only reason I've ever heard why an organization might have the practice of making organization relationships also have their own individual file is for events - in order to make it easier to track which individuals attend, and to make it simpler to send invitations to those individuals the next year. However my feeling is that there's probably a way to track which individuals attend by using the events tab of the organization's record and noting which individuals by using the registrant and guest keys. It's probably also possible (albeit a bit more complex) to ensure invitations can be sent to the right people by putting a code on the individual relationship's notes/attribute table and then doing a query based on that code to get the person into a mailing list the next year.

 How do you manage organizational relationships for events?

Kim

The Blackbaud Knowledge base has two entries related to this question. See solution number BB8878 and BB57122. They can't say "for sure no matter what" what to do, but it does give some suggestions. That said, I'd love to hear from others about what they do in "real life".

 Kim

I've always adopted the thinking of "what is the harm to have an individual record for each" (contacts, event registrant, etc).  Here's the reason why.  Let say you have Sean Bryan and he is the Primary Contact for an Organization, but you only add him as a relationship, not an individual record in RE.  Let's say he makes a donation, or comes to an event, or becomes a prospect as a result of the suggestion of a trustee - and you THEN add him as an Individual.  You probably wouldn't have that relationship (i.e., contact) record to connect.

Wouldn't you want to have the most comprehensive record possible?

It's not like RE has any record restrictions.  Also, let's say you start collecting information on that contact (Spouse name) or you want to code him to be invited to fund-raisers... it's just easier to have the Individual record.

Just my thoughts. 

Hi Joe,

You make great points, thanks for sharing. I'd love to know, therefore, how you handle a few things:

1) You invite Mr. Schmoe of company ABC to your annual event. So far the relationship is based on the company and he has never donated or appeared as a qualified individual prospect. Do you put the invite and registration info into both of his company record and his individual record? If so, then when you do analysis through Raisers Edge, doesn't it come out as if double the amount of people came since the attendance record will come out from both records? We had this situation and I'm still not sure how to handle the analysis impact.

2) Let's say that (as it is in my case) numerous people in the charity enter notes and actions in the database. Every time someone enters an action that relates to Mr. Schmoe do they enter it into both records? If so, is this doubling people's work or is there a way to make it automatically copy to the other record? If it only goes in one record, how do they know which record to put it in?

3) Is there risk that someone will enter info only into his individual record even if that info actually relates to the relationship with the company? If so, will this impact things when someone is doing prospect research for sponsorship i.e. could they end up missing an important detail because it's not in the company's record?

I'm sure you've found ways to handle these things and that we can all learn from your experience on this.

Thanks for your input,

Kim

These are my opinions on the topic:

• If he is not an individual prospect for a personal gift I would prefer that he not even have an individual record - everything should be on the company's record with him as a contact.
• If he were an individual prospect or for some other reason you needed an individual record for him users should only be recording notes on the constituent with which their actions were related.  If they met with him to discuss his company's gift then it ONLY goes on the company's record.  If they called to thank him for his personal donation then it ONLY goes on the individual record.  If they met and both gifts were discussed then an action goes in with notes only about what was discussed about each gift on the related record.
• For events you would never list both as registered participants.  The way we do it is the participant is the constituent who is paying.  If who is paying is not coming then the person coming is listed as a guest of that participant.  So if he paid personally then he is the participant and nothing goes on the company's record.  If the company pays then the company is a participant (coded as do not seat and not registered) and the individual is a guest (coded registered and seated).  Your attendance list should only pull those coded properly (for us that would be registered and do not seat is unchecked)
• Anyone doing research MUST know to check the individual activity of any contacts related to that company they deal with.  If they do not do this then their research is incomplete - full stop.

I agree with Melissa. 

I just cleaned up a bunch of unnecessary records because every contact was given their own individual record.  I only have an individual record for a contact of an organization if they personally gave to our organization.