Help with Orgs and Contacts

Amy Horrocks

I need some help with best practices for handling Orgs and contacts.  Currently, ours are all over the map and in desperate need of streamlining/consistency.  Can someone please tell me, on an Org record, when I add an Individual relationship, what do the various checkboxes at the bottom of tab General 1 do?  I can't find this info in any KB article/guide.


For this organization, this individual is a(n):

__Employee   __Primary business information

__Contact      __Do not mail to this contact

Contact Type: (drop down)

__Print organization name with address


And do I need to fill in the Primary addressee/salutation fields on tab General 2?  Are those auto populated if the Contact has their own Constituent record?


I can't get my conditional merge Donor Ack letters to come out right and I think this may be part of the issue.  Thanks!!

Dariel Dixon 2

All contacts are relationships, but not all relationships are contacts.  Contacts in RE are individuals who may receive mail for the organization.  If you don't check the checkbox for contact, then they can't be setup to print the name with the company address.  The Employee checkbox and primary business information only applies if the relationship is (or will be) a constituent.  The other checkboxes are pretty self-explanatory for the most part.


I think it's always a good idea to populate addressee/salutation fields.  It takes all of 3 seconds, and will save you a lot of editing later.  These fields do auto-populate if the constituent already has a record.


I would look at the options for addressee & salutation for your merge.  


The biggest thing is the checkbox for contact, and contact type.  Those are the biggest things to be consistent on.

Teri Fields

I am having the same problem, and about ready to post my first BB Community question. However, your question covers all of mine. Were you able to resolve your issues with your Ack letters?

Melanie Lachcik

I agree! Thanks to Dariel for explaining a little more. I could really benefit from a robust discussion around this. We are starting to refine our org/contact/mailing preferences and I am struggling with a standard practice.

Dariel Dixon 2

Melanie Lachcik:

I agree! Thanks to Dariel for explaining a little more. I could really benefit from a robust discussion around this. We are starting to refine our org/contact/mailing preferences and I am struggling with a standard practice.

I wanted to emphasize this part because it's the most important thing. Having consistent data entry is key. But the process itself isn't that hard. I think you need to look at your options for the letter that you are creating.


I have a complex set of letters that are created from my conditional mail merge. I went through the same issue until I just realized that I could add the contact name at the top of the address block, and changed the options for addressee to look at the contact info. You'll have to play around with it Melanie Lachcik‍ and Teri Fields‍ to get it right.

Christine Cooke 2

This is how I've tackled it when I've managed to get that far down the housekeeping list.


--Employee --> do they work at this org? check the box

- Primary business info --> is their main or only place of employment? check the box (note that if you check this box it RE will automatically check the Employee box)

- Contact --> is this person a contact for this org? Meaning if you were going to correspond with the org is this the primary person you would contact? or would that be someone else? This is where the Contact Type:drop down comes in. It is key to have ONE Primary Contact for each org whenever you can. I know, I know, a lot of us have no contact person. I set up Primary, Secondary and Third Contact. Some will also add Event Contact or Gala Contact or Golf Contact

-- Do Not Mail to this Contact --> pretty self explanatory. If you do not want this person to receive any contact/correspondance

- Print organization name with address --> you definitely want this checked for every record - if it is not, then when you pull lists/reports the org name will not be included - which usually defeats the purpose.


IF the individual has their own constituent record do a link, don't just add them under relationship as a non-constit record. Otherwise you are just contributing to dupes and confusion.


Yes, you should fill in the Primary Add/Sal fields on Gen 2 - if you are pulling for letters those are the fields RE is pulling from.


Remember to go to the Org tab on the Donor Ack letter and include your contact type(s) that you want to address the letter to and make sure that including the preferred address is chosen.


Any merged letters either through Ack or Quick letters will be wonky until you clean up Orgs and Contacts.