Best Practices for org records with multiple branches/locations

Courtney Klein 3

Hi. I was hoping to learn how other organizations handle org records with multiple locations/branches/addresses. 

Current way of processing: Chase Bank branch from Albany, NY sends us a check. If gift processing doesn't find a record with that address, a new record is created and the gift is processed.

Changes we want to make: Chase Bank branch from Albany, NY sends us a check. We have a standalone Chase Bank record that all gifts, regardless of location, are processed in. The new address is added to the address tab and gift is processed in the single Chase Bank record. 


How do you handle records such as this? Do you see any pitfalls in managing org records in this way? Your feedback is greatly appreciate.


Thank you,

Courtney


 

Gina Gerhard

Courtney Klein:

Hi. I was hoping to learn how other organizations handle org records with multiple locations/branches/addresses. 

Current way of processing: Chase Bank branch from Albany, NY sends us a check. If gift processing doesn't find a record with that address, a new record is created and the gift is processed.

Changes we want to make: Chase Bank branch from Albany, NY sends us a check. We have a standalone Chase Bank record that all gifts, regardless of location, are processed in. The new address is added to the address tab and gift is processed in the single Chase Bank record. 


How do you handle records such as this? Do you see any pitfalls in managing org records in this way? Your feedback is greatly appreciate.


Thank you,

Courtney


 

Courtney - Just wondering in your proposed changed way, sounds like you are continually adding new addresses to the organization record?  

If you then want to produce a letter from that record, how would RE know which address to use?  

Are you inactivating all the prior addresses and only leaving one mailable address?

JoAnn Strommen

Courtney,

While what you outlined in 'cleaner' in many ways, there are some drawbacks like not able to easily track relationships with individuals at various branches.


While we put payment when received from a corporate office we still maintain a branch record also. Most often this has the pledge on it, the person contacted by our solicitor etc. When we get payment we send receipt to HQ and also a separate letter of acknowledgement to branch location thanking them.


If you search forums you'll find a number of discussions and input on how users handle this and pros and cons.

Melissa S Graves

What is the reason for wanting this change? How will you distinguish which gifts came from which branch and therefore who to thank? I think your current system is better. Just soft credit tot the main branch and then you can see all gifts there when you need a comprehensive view.

Courtney Klein 3

Gina Gerhard:

 

Courtney Klein:

Hi. I was hoping to learn how other organizations handle org records with multiple locations/branches/addresses. 

Current way of processing: Chase Bank branch from Albany, NY sends us a check. If gift processing doesn't find a record with that address, a new record is created and the gift is processed.

Changes we want to make: Chase Bank branch from Albany, NY sends us a check. We have a standalone Chase Bank record that all gifts, regardless of location, are processed in. The new address is added to the address tab and gift is processed in the single Chase Bank record. 


How do you handle records such as this? Do you see any pitfalls in managing org records in this way? Your feedback is greatly appreciate.


Thank you,

Courtney


 

Courtney - Just wondering in your proposed changed way, sounds like you are continually adding new addresses to the organization record?  

If you then want to produce a letter from that record, how would RE know which address to use?  

Are you inactivating all the prior addresses and only leaving one mailable address?

Gina - Thanks for your response. We were going to mark the headquarters as the primary and make all others alternate. At time of processing the gift, the gift processors would manually change the address on the letter.

 

Courtney Klein 3

Melissa Graves:

What is the reason for wanting this change? How will you distinguish which gifts came from which branch and therefore who to thank? I think your current system is better. Just soft credit tot the main branch and then you can see all gifts there when you need a comprehensive view.


 

Hi Melissa - thanks for responding. We want to consolidate records if it makes sense to do so. We have 5 Bank of America records, 5 TD Bank records, 3 Chase records and so on. We have relationships with a few and with varying amounts of donations supporting everything under the sun. I see the issue of tracking relationships though. Seems like the safest bet is to maintain the records as seperate entities when donations are received.

Courtney

JoAnn Strommen

I understand the consolidate if it makes sense but in the cases you described IMO it makes better sense to keep them separate. (We have 7 Wells Fargo, 6 US Bank, etc. I have consolidated a couple records over the years when I found they did some reorganization at corporate level and I could merge those HQ office/foundation/matching entities.)  Having separate records makes it much easier to receipt correct entity and to thank correct entity and to correct contact. The gifts are all SC to HQ so can look there for complete giving history if needed.

Courtney Klein 3

JoAnn Strommen:

I understand the consolidate if it makes sense but in the cases you described IMO it makes better sense to keep them separate. (We have 7 Wells Fargo, 6 US Bank, etc. I have consolidated a couple records over the years when I found they did some reorganization at corporate level and I could merge those HQ office/foundation/matching entities.)  Having separate records makes it much easier to receipt correct entity and to thank correct entity and to correct contact. The gifts are all SC to HQ so can look there for complete giving history if needed.

Hi JoAnn - Thanks for responding. Something you mentioned could help us with some of these records. You have a HQ record for corporate level money and matching gifts? Then if branches donate at a local level, you create records for those?

JoAnn Strommen

Hi JoAnn - Thanks for responding. Something you mentioned could help us with some of these records. You have a HQ record for corporate level money and matching gifts? Then if branches donate at a local level, you create records for those?

Yes, HQ record created when money pledged by a local company ends up getting paid by a HQ office. Similar for MG when match comes from HQ or a separate HQ foundation.

For us, pledge is solicited at local office and entered on local office record. If payment comes from local it goes right on their record, if payment comes from HQ payment is on HQ record and applied to local pledge.

Tracy Wadlow

HI;

The relationship manager and Donor Relations manage and maintain the contacts and contact types on the main constituent.  This way you can have one entity for all branches.  Each contact type would be separate and would have their mailing address on their relationship.  Any receipts or acknowledgements go to the receipt contact.  Endowment contact, event contacts, donor notice contact etc.  It is easier to manage the mailing list through the contact types and ralationships.  The main constituent has all the addresses and the relationship can share whichever address is the correct one for that contact.  


Of course there are franchises, subsidiaries and merges that are different.  Does that make sense?  You can also colour code the contact types and add Local, HQ or Regional Contact types. if you have multiple event or receipt contacts.

Christine Cooke 2

Courtney Klein:

Melissa Graves:

What is the reason for wanting this change? How will you distinguish which gifts came from which branch and therefore who to thank? I think your current system is better. Just soft credit tot the main branch and then you can see all gifts there when you need a comprehensive view.


 

Hi Melissa - thanks for responding. We want to consolidate records if it makes sense to do so. We have 5 Bank of America records, 5 TD Bank records, 3 Chase records and so on. We have relationships with a few and with varying amounts of donations supporting everything under the sun. I see the issue of tracking relationships though. Seems like the safest bet is to maintain the records as seperate entities when donations are received.

Courtney

 

and I don't think I saw it mentioned.  But link all the branches through relationships - minimally all branches linked to HQ -- that will help you keep track of how many branches you have records for with a single glance.

 

Christina Williams

We keep them separate. In my experience, different bank branches have a bit of money to use for marketing purposes as they see fit. It would be inacurate to track a stand-alone branch's gift under the main corporate entity. Additionally, we have contacts at various branches, and I can't even imagine keeping track of the proper address for various acknowledgement letters if we consolidated all of our bank branches into single records for each.


One thing I started doing is noting the branch location's name in the title. I have found that most banks list their branch names on their websites, so I will put the organization name as "Wells Fargo - Peachtree Battle". This makes it a little more obvious to our fundraisers that they aren't looking at a duplicate records when searching "Wells Fargo."


We follow these same guidelines for restaurants, retail stores, and all other corporate support. We also keep corporate foundation records separate.