I would like to find out what other people are doing in order make our decision about what we should do.  Here's the situation:

In addition to having individual volunteers, we have groups.  Generally, group members volunteer once and don't return, so there's usually no reason to track them.  Therefore, we tag a job assignment just to the organization.

However, we do give them the option to be added to our mailing list and this is where the problem arises.  We could either add them in as their own constituents or simply as a relationship.  Adding them in as their own allows us to send them mail, but it takes up space and is time consuming to enter.  Plus, we would then need to decide whether to assign job assignments to just the organization, just the individual, or both.  If both, we would be duplicating this information.  If we add them just as a relationship, it's harder to get them (& their address) into a query.

 Any thoughts?

We add all groups as a Constituent.  Even if they only volunteer one time or donate something one time.  For the exact reasons you mention, we can add them to a mail list and for development/fundraising/gifts we need the information.

 Hope that helps.