I was hoping that some people wouldn't mind sharing their list of constituency codes. I am specifically interested in whether other organizations use "donor" as a constituency code. The organization that I am working with is a nursing home.

Thanks.
Mara Chan
[Email Removed]

While some organizations do use "donor" as a constituency code, the concensus seems to be that these folks can easily be group and identified by using the gift date info, i.e. Gift date not blank equals a donor to the organization at some point in time, gift date within a specific date or date range equals a donor during the specific time period. Donna Marie Foos Data Base Administrator American Red Cross of Southeastern Virginia 611 West Brambleton Avenue Norfolk, Virginia 23510 757.446.7382 [Email Removed]

We do use Donor because we have so many ways that our constituents can be a part of our database. Ticket Buyer is actually our most populated constituency. Donor is far less populated, but that is the nature of our business. I can see for service organizations, Donor might actually be redundant.

As a public library, we use PATRON (which is our jargon for a library cardholder), DONOR, BOARD, FRIEND (our sister membership organization), EMPLOYEE, COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION, and a bunch of source-related designations that were in place when I took over but that I think may belong somewhere else, like in attributes. I am thinking of adding VOLUNTEER, which is now tracked in attributes, but I think wants to appear at a higher level. I am starting to re-think the whole list so it will be more meaningful for executive director and Board members who I want to get in the habit of actually looking at the records regularly. So I am trying to decide what will be the most important things we might want to know about someone at a quick glance if we are talking to them on the phone. I will be interested to hear what others do. Mary Rindfleisch Ridgefield (CT) Library

We are also a nursing home. I use Trustee, Volunteer, Resident, Relative of Resident, Employee, Vendor, Prospect, Guild, Adult Day Center, Assisted Living Resident (Family), etc. These can be changed to former. We would mark the resident deceased or discharged and the relative former or discharged just to give you an idea. We had used Donor and then removed it because it seemed redundant at times. We now put it back being more specific, i.e. Legacy Donor, Endowment Donor, Membership, etc. Hope this helps. Foundation Assistant [Email Removed]

We use "donor" because we have a golf tournament & want to separate donors from "golfers" and "sponsors" who also have a gift record by a simple query without having to go into funds to be included & exluded. In addition we use "HMD" Honor Memorial Donor and "HMF" Honor Memorial Family because we want to be able to easily separate out those Hon mem donors from our regular donors.

We use the Constituent Code table to reflect the main identity of the constituent to the organization such as: Board Member (for current members only and track former status on Attributes); Individual; Corporation/Company; Organization (other non-profits); Foundation; Volunteer; Staff; and Archive Record (for those that have moved away or are deceased). Donors and Committee Members move in and out of these categories and why take on extra work to constantly having to assess their Constituent status? By keeping your Constituent Code list very short, you can achieve more accuracy in your reporting. It is very easy to determine a donor by querying on Gift Import ID not blank or Gift Amount is => .01. By keeping your Constituent Code table short, you eliminate the clean up problem of keeping them in hierarchal order because most reports will only look at what is in the top position on the Constituent Grid. I have suggested to Blackbaud that they give the Constituent Code table a Ranking Category that can be entered by the organization when they set up the table. This will keep organizations from entering too many Constituent Codes and will allow the most important codes to automatically reshuffle themselves in hierarchal order, based on their ranking, when cleaning up this table in existing records. Wouldn’t that be great? My advice: Keep the Constituent Code table for the main identity and keep it a very short list, i.e. if a constituent is a “Volunteer”, then they do not need an “Individual” Code from the suggested list above, and if they are a “Board Member” and “Volunteer”, make sure that “Board Member” is in the first spot on the table grid in their record. Keep it simple by not creating too many codes that Constituents will move in and out of when you can get the detailed information from Attributes and/or Queries. Deborah Spencer

Deborah, have you created a case of the code hierarchy suggestion? I would like to add my support to that terrific idea.

Hear, hear. good idea. Do people use the dates in the codes - for instance, Board members who come and go, and sometimes come back again. We do want to code them in some way as Ex or Past Bd Membs. Struggling to find the best way (efficiency, trackability, etc) Judy Bromley

I use constituency code to reflect onlyu current status as volunteer Trustee, corporator, etc. I have an Attribute Category "Volunteer History" and Description drop down "Former Trustee" or "Former Corporator" or "Former Finance Committee" etc. with dates on and off in the comments code. Our volunteers move from main Trustees to Regional Boards to Corporators back and forth & I want to track their history but it clutters up the constituent codes if you keep them there - also makes query for current Trustees more difficult as you have to allow for dates in yoiur query but if only current Trustees have that as constituent code it is easier for staff to use.

We do keep dates on board members in Constituent Codes and add a new primary code of former board member when they leave the board. Reason we do this. On some reports you can report by primary constituency code and it helps determine where your $ is coming from. We do not so committee membership because that list can get unruly and long and is less important for our analysis. When you remove a constituency code is it also gone from all gifts for whom you have that code as a gift constituency? Does anyone know this? Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804

Judith: Blackbaud told me that they will submit my request to be able to enter Ranking on the Constituent Code Table and you can log on to Open Solution ID: BB128996 and add your name to the list. This functionality would really help organizations think about their Constituent Codes in a more streamlined way and keep their databases more efficient.

I suggested to Blackbaud that they keep a tickler file of client's suggestions and when they decide to adopt one in an upgrade, they email the clients that their suggestion has been fulfilled. Wouldn’t that be an excellent client relation move? Maria Blowe at Blackbaud told me that they are working on that…hmmmmmm.

Deborah Spencer

Melissa - when you are cleaning out a Constituent Code, it has to be removed and/or replaced not only on every Constituent record, but you need to create a Gift Query and remove/replace it on every gift as well before you can delete it from the Constituent Code Table. This gets tricky when gifts have been posted because even though the Gift Constituency is not linked, sometimes you may have to temporarily Unpost a gift to delete the Gift Constituency. Blackbaud has a utility that will allow you to Unpost a gift but this should only be done by a Supervisor to make sure that the gift is not Reposted to the General Ledger. I stay away from entering Start and End Dates on the Constituent Code Table because not only does it make your code table grids longer in your records, but unless the Start and End Dates are used consistently, in every query, they cause gifts to be excluded on reports. The Start and End Dates on the Constituent Code Table are a good idea in theory but not in practicality. My experience has found that moving Former Statuses to the Attribute Table keeps your tables and reports cleaner and you can still track date terms by having a protocol of using the Attribute Date and Comment fields in a consistent formatted way. Deborah Spencer

Deborah, I think you misunderstood me. Story of my life. I just want to remove it from a consitituent not from the code table. But it is the gift constituent code on some of those constituents gifts. Does it stay there on the gifts or is there a problem? Example: Board member term is 3 years and person gives 3 gifts in that time and each gift has a gift consitituency of Board Member. When they are no longer a board member and I remove that constituency will the constituency on the gifts change? How on earth can a correct start and end date cause gifts to be excluded on reports? If they really were a board member for those 3 years and you want a report showing board gifts then only those in the 3 years should be in your report - not others. Do you not track giving from Former statuses? We track Former Board Member giving so unless that is the new primary constituency code which can be put on gifts they give while a former Board Member we can't track it. I don't get how attributes can be used in this way since they only have one date. Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804

Rather than entirely deleting the constituency code make it inactive and/or put an x in front of the name. The code will remain on the gifts (that is ok) but won't be easily selected by staff for coding a constituent or for filter in reports. We also use attributes: ours is History: former this or former that. and can use comment field for dates or reason.