Here's an example:

You are running a list of letters for your President to sign. You want the people who your President knows really well (good friends of your organization) to get pulled with an informal salutation. But everyone else needs a formal salutation. How do you track in constituent records those people who have a close relationship with certian people in your organization (like your Pres.) so that you can pull them when running letters or invites?

I'm guessing I can create a President's Friends Addressee and Salutation - but it would kind of be a duplicate because it would just be another way of saying informal. Also, the President won't always be the one who needs to sign letters. It might be the Development Director -- so do I just do a basic Friend of Addressee and Salutation?

I know when I pull a report together I can say, use Friend of Addressee/Salutation, then if not present, use "Formal Addressee/Salutation"  - that way if they are a friend of us, they should have that addressee/salutation and it will pull that one, but if they aren't that close to our organization, it will just pull the usually formal addressee/salutation. But I don't know if this is the best way to do this.....how do other people handle this?

 Depending on who signs the letter or invite - the addressee will need to be either formal or informal and it will be different for each constituent depending on how well they know us. Is there even a way to handle this in RE?

Sorry for babbling. Hopefully this all makes sense. I'm getting confused just writing this question!

Thanks!
Melissa

 We have a very similar situation at my office.  Many different letters are signed by many different individuals...as such, we need several types of salutations. 

 Our Primary Addressee and Primary Salutation are always formal and semi-formal, respectively.  So, we could have Dr. Robert Smith and Dr. Smith. 

 All our gift officers and other important users (President, Provost, etc.) all have individual salutations.  We only put these salutations on records when they are needed.  So, there really isn't a repeat issue.

 Then it's just a matter of pulling the "signer's" salutation first on all letters/exports and if none exists, then having it do a default pull on the Primary.

 Is that kind of what you were wondering?

We also have individual salutations for gift officers, trustee signors, etc.  I'm considering adding an informal salutation to all records but haven't needed correspondence where all are addressed informally.  Does anyone else do that and what are the benefits?  Also, my primary addressees/salutations are all joint format -- so Robert and Mary Smith's addressee is Mr. and Mrs. Robert Smith on both records.  Blackbaud advises that Robert and Mary Smith each have an individual addressee and salutation as primary and an additional addressee and salutation as Mr. and Mrs.  I can see the logic in this but haven't explored salutations enough to know how to globally change.

Sorry to muddy the waters with my additional questions but it's a good topic and one I'd like an expert out there to help with.  Thanks,

Leslie

I'm not sure if this really answers any of the questions on the table, but we use at least 7 salutations for each record:

• Primary Addressee:  Mr. John H. Smith, Jr.
• Primary Salutation:  Mr. Smith
• Addressee 2:  Mr. and Mrs. John H. Smith, Jr. (if single - Mr. John H. Smith, Jr.)
• Formal 2:  Mr. and Mrs. Smith (If single - Mr. Smith)
• Informal 1:  John
• Informal 2:  John and Donna (if single - John)
• Honor Roll:  John H. Jr. and Donna L. Smith (if single John H. Smith, Jr.)

We also have an Alumni Addressee which is used for contacting only alums, which default to the constituent, but if the spouse is an alum, it is the Mr. and Mrs.  (We have a matching salutation which is the informal). 

We also ensure that the exact same plural addressees/salutations are for the spouse if they have their own record.

Because every record has these salutations, it makes it easy to choose the correct addressee/salutation for all letters, regardless of marriage status.

Now, we do have a VP that is considering adding another salutation similar to what your President is requesting.  I'm not sure where I stand in adding this simply because of the additional work in adding it and because our acknowledgement letters are all run together based on batch and we'd have to run multiple acknowledgement letters per batch (because you can only export one salutation per acknowledgement letter set).  If we do, in fact, implement the VP's salutation, I will globally add the salutation as the formal "Mr. Smith", then manually change the salutations as we go along to the informal.

If, like in your situation, we were to use the VP salutation for letters/invitations, we would have to do two VP salutations - one for the plural and one for the constituent only (John and Donna vs. John).

 I know this makes sense in my head, but may have just confused you more.

Cindy Hicks, Database Manager, Columbus State University (706) 568-2668