Families as Constituents in RE

Beth Ann Scruggs

Good morning all,



I was wondering if anyone has used families in their donor software as a constituent in Raiser's Edge? Have you used a family instead of individuals in your donor software - and did you create this family unit as an individual or an organization? What are the pros and cons of doing this?



Thanks



Beth



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Beth Scruggs

Advancement Services Coordinator

York Technical College

Rock Hill SC

(803) 981-7170

JoAnn Strommen

Beth Ann Scruggs:
Good morning all,



I was wondering if anyone has used families in their donor software as a constituent in Raiser's Edge? Have you used a family instead of individuals in your donor software - and did you create this family unit as an individual or an organization? What are the pros and cons of doing this?



Thanks



Beth



-------------------------------------------

Beth Scruggs

Advancement Services Coordinator

York Technical College

Rock Hill SC

(803) 981-7170

We have not. 

Not to say it couldn't be done but be sure to think through all the reporting issues.  Your signature shows your org is a college.  If you do as a family how will you track which individual is your alumni.  What if they both are? How will you ID so that search finds them?  Are you going to manually enter every addressee/salutation?   How will you accurately track relationships for children vs. the parent?  Down the road how will you track deaths?   If you put them in as org how will it mess with any donor analysis of gifts from orgs/ foundations/individuals... I just think there could be a lot of ramifications for you down the road.  My 2 cents...

We do have a number of cases where more than one family member has their own constituent record in RE and we're able to work with it fine for mailings and reports just using relationships and attributes.

Laura Caswell

Beth Ann Scruggs:
Good morning all,



I was wondering if anyone has used families in their donor software as a constituent in Raiser's Edge? Have you used a family instead of individuals in your donor software - and did you create this family unit as an individual or an organization? What are the pros and cons of doing this?



Thanks



Beth



-------------------------------------------

Beth Scruggs

Advancement Services Coordinator

York Technical College

Rock Hill SC

(803) 981-7170

 I work at a university and I would agree with JoAnn. We solicit based on class year, majors, activities alum engaged in while at the university (basketball, chorale, student govt, etc). I couldn't imagine trying to decipher that data from a family record. Everyone who graduates and everyone who works here gets their own record. We link spouses. If we find out about parent-child relationships, we set that up. (We do not create a separate record for someone's 5year old but if someone's child graduates from here or works here, we use Relationships to connect the 2 records.) There is always one record that is marked Head of Household and we use that processing to avoid sending multiple pieces of the same mail to one family.

If you are NEVER going to solicit except to the whole family unit, you could possibly create one record for a family but never is a strong word and I wouldn't go this route. [;)]

My 2 cents.

 

laura

 

James Andrews

Laura Caswell:

 I work at a university and I would agree with JoAnn. We solicit based on class year, majors, activities alum engaged in while at the university (basketball, chorale, student govt, etc). I couldn't imagine trying to decipher that data from a family record. Everyone who graduates and everyone who works here gets their own record. We link spouses. If we find out about parent-child relationships, we set that up. (We do not create a separate record for someone's 5year old but if someone's child graduates from here or works here, we use Relationships to connect the 2 records.) There is always one record that is marked Head of Household and we use that processing to avoid sending multiple pieces of the same mail to one family.

If you are NEVER going to solicit except to the whole family unit, you could possibly create one record for a family but never is a strong word and I wouldn't go this route. [;)]

My 2 cents.

 

laura

 

What about, conceptually, a family record AND individual records? And individuals linked to family via relationships, with all pertinent information stored in each individual's record, and the family record holding things like giving (that is not from one individual specfiically)? I find this idea interesting, although maybe not practical, and if I remember right, I believe it was talked about back when RE8 was still a concept.

JoAnn Strommen

James Andrews:
What about, conceptually, a family record AND individual records? And individuals linked to family via relationships, with all pertinent information stored in each individual's record, and the family record holding things like giving (that is not from one individual specfiically)? I find this idea interesting, although maybe not practical, and if I remember right, I believe it was talked about back when RE8 was still a concept.

Interesting idea - would hope it would be very, very well tested before implementation. 

For us, we wouldn't need individual record for children unless they are employees/donors.  Can see issues with recording gifts and dealing with soft-credits, even updating addresses would need design work so that all relevant records updated without losing history.  I had heard with RE8 about each spouse having their own record but hadn't heard the 'family' record.

Interesting to think about....