How do we add Organsition contacts to an event without having to key all thier information in manually as they are not on the database as an individual but as a relationship within a company, we are not inviting the organisation but the contact within the organisation.

We've run into this same dilemma. We made a business decision that being invited to one of our events is justification to make the move from Relationship to Constituent. From now on anyone invited to an event in support of our capital fundraising efforts becomes a constituent with a code of "Event Guest" Peter Gulka Database Administrator NAIT Development Office Edmonton AB Canada email: [Email Removed] www.nait.ca/buildingondemand

We don't add an event to people's records unless they register and we keep track of who was invited using the appeals tab. In this situation we would simply put the appeal on the organization even though we know it actually went to the contact. We then only add the contact as a constituent if they register for the event.

When you are ready to make them a constituent you would not need to key in anything manually. You can go to any relationship on a constituent's record - open it and go to the menu under relationship and select "add this individual as a constituent" and their record is created with all their stuff in it. This may help speed things up.
Melissa S. Graves
Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail
Planned Parenthood of Connecticut
[Email Removed]
203-752-2804

The problem we have then is do you remove them from the Company record or do you have them on the database as a constituent and as a relationship which leads to duplicate tagging (when numerous different people access the database)etc. when the reason they are invited to the event in the first place is because of their position not person.

It seems a shame that such a useful tool needs Band-Aid solutions to use it to its full extent. We actually use the appeal tag when sending out appeals to use it for an event would just confuse the situation. We try to use the event so that as soon as we know we have an event to organise we start adding invitees so that the event module is used right from the start that way you know who was invited and who accepted and who came you have the entire picture not just half of it. The problem we have is that for some organisations we can have up to twenty relationships so if we just tag the organisation as invited we don't actually know who from the organisation was invited.

I hate having all invitees in the Event Module. We invite so many people that they would have this huge list of events on their event tab and have never been to any one. Our staff (and I) like going to someone's record and only seeing an event on someone's record if they actually attended or donated to it. All bulk mailings are tracked by us using the appeals tab and because the events we do most often have ticket prices it is a solicitation so appeals is not so far fetched. I don't consider it a band-aid at all - just another way to use the software that works for us. Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804

Susan - making them a constituent does not remove them from the company record - the relationship remains intact. You may need to be careful about how you code them if you do not want them included in solicitations, etc. but you probably have solicit codes that can handle that. If you use the mail module to prepare mailings you have special settings on what to do if someone meets the mailing criteria both as an individual and as a contact for an organization and which one should override the other so you don't mail to them twice. Once you get used to using that then having org relationships that are constituents is not so bad. Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804

Melissa I realise that you can have them on as both a constituent and as a relationship linked etc. that you don't have to remove them. We do use the mail module but if the relationship is only on the database because of the position they hold then we don't want them having individual records as well. Individual records in our case are for donors, Alumni and people that we have a personal relationship with. That's what I meant by Band-Aid solution you should be able to search for and add a relationship within an organisation as a participant to an event without them having to have an individual record.

I've heard this discussion so many times. First of all, you must define relationship based on your org's business rules. In most cases, relationship in fundraising is defined by who gives at what level. A donor represents a hierarchical relationship level since he or she may give various amounts and forms of money during different times of a year under certain conditions. In terms of an event, I see these folks as a type of constituency yet potential donors. So, if you wanted to code them based on the fact that they are "invitees" to a particular event perhaps view them as potential donors and give them an attribute type targeting an event.