We have a scholarship luncheon each year and I need some help.  How do you add a contact for the company who supports the scholarship without having two participants?  (I don't want to have both records show up as registrants). 

Is there a best practice for this?  Sometimes I have more than one contact for the company with different addresses.  Any feedback would be appreciated.

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Margaret M. "Marcel" Hart
Administrative Assistant to the Director of Development

Margaret -
If I'm understanding you correctly - you are asking about the difference of entering the company as a Sponsor for the Event - vs a Non-Participating Participant. 
I use a different practice depending on the event and what we are terming as "sponsorship".  For example - for our Scholarship Dinner - Corporate Checks were entered as a gift on the Organizational Record, and linked to the Event as a Sponsor with the approrpriate Regsitration Unit.  I also set the Corporation Sponsorship Records with a Participation Type of "sponsor", a status of "not attending" and a registration status of  "do not register". 
Once the gift batch was committed - I had to go to the event and add in the guests of the Corporate Sponsors as Participants with a Participation Type of "guest" and a status of "guest" - and then link them to their Corporate Sponsor. 

However - for our Golf Outing - I follow a different practice.  When a company check comes in for a foursome - I enter the gift on the Organizational Record - but link the gift to the event as a Registrant.  I now use a Participation Type of "sponsor", a status of "Not attending" and a registration status of "do not register".  Then - during data entry of the batch - I enter the names of the foursome (if I have them). 

In both of these scenarios - I am able to link contacts as participants in the event - and don't end up with event regsitrations for an entity that is not attending. 

Hope this helps