Salutations/Addressees for All-Girls' HS

Miki Martin · April 2021

Hello to all. I am in a quandary. I've been here now a year and still have so much to not only learn but also clean up in our database. One of the main things I'm seeing lately is so much inconsistency with names. I've been handling corrections record-by-record because so many of our constituents end up using some form of their middle name or a nickname so it's difficult to really globally correct. One of the big issues I have is all of the records entered (that I haven't yet corrected and we have almost 20,000 constituents) use editable or custom salutations. So one thing may have been selected but the names were typed. In every. single. field. Some constituents have 10 additional salutations.

Some Background

Being an all-girls' high school, our alumnae are, of course, all female. We track parents as well, but if the mom isn't an alum we add the dad as the constituent with his wife as spouse. For our faculty, staff and board members I have gone through and made some spouses constituents to accurately apply constituent codes (for example, we had a husband marked as board member but it was the wife, so I had to make her a separate constituent to accurately show her as the board member).

As of now, we still use the more formal approach. We have found that it's typically just the "Mr. & Mrs. John D. Smith" and then "John and Jane" for a salutation. Of course, we have many variations of that. For an alumna's record, she has her salutations and if she's married she gets joint ones, as well. Plus, right now the Recognition Name is her name. However, for parents that do not include an alum, we just use joint names and the Recognition Name is their combined names.

What I'm trying to determine through all this is this:

1) Should we use the same named salutations for both alumnae and parents? If either are married, it's Joint Envelope (or Short) Salutation. If unmarried, it's Primary Envelope (or Short) Salutation. I know there's the Primary Addressee and Salutation that are required, but I've been using those for just the Constituent and then adding the various additional salutations. I know some of it is repetitious but when I started I just continued on what they were doing. I know in reports and mailings I can specify to use a particular salutation for an Individual or Organization with a backup, but that's not doable with query so I have to pull Joint and Primary then physically move them in the Excel output (or have I missed something in querying that would alleviate this?).

2) How can I globally update these records? I'd love to be able to delete the Personal salutations, as those aren't used. I've deleted what I could from the salutation table already but there are so many more I'd like to remove to reduce our options. I've found some great ideas on querying already out here to determine where to start to try and get rid of some of them.

3) I'd seen some great guidance about using Excel with some crazy formulas and vlookups and all. I don't think I quite absorbed all of that but I will likely revisit it at some point. I don't know if this is a solution to my issues or not, though, since I wasn't quite absorbing it all.

4) Many of our First Name fields actually have the person's nickname or first and middle name if that's what they prefer. Is there a way to easily update these types of records (or maybe pull them out in a query to better identify them)? Since we do lean toward the more formal addressing, it only makes sense to me to have their given names listed there and then have their Preferred or Nickname in the other field. I've already considered a query to identify those records with no preferred name to populate with the first name field so that we can then use that field exclusively.

5) Since we have alumnae and parents (plus others affiliated with the school) in the system, I am thinking rather than using the Recognition Name as the alumnae recognition we should utilize an Alumnae Recognition salutation. I know of two alumnae that are staff here that want their husbands included in recognition so this would give us both options: the Alumnae Recognition plus the joint Recognition Name.

I think that about does it for this issue. I've found so much great guidance out here, I wish I would have put this out here last year. Thank you all!

JoAnn Strommen · April 2021

Oh Miki, I feel your pain. Add/sal is on my clean up list here too. What I was told by staff member who enters most new donor records is that my predecessor set it up for her to use one of top two options on the list. So that's what she does and checks the editable box. At some point I still dream of getting to add/sal and relationship clean up. LOL

If you search the forum you should find past posts where many of us have shared our process/experience.

Your #1 - yes you can query/output specific add/sal. Addressee/Salutations > Specific Addressee/Salutation > the type you've named it like Recognition / Alum with Yr. If you format a 'joint add/sal' and the person does not have a spouse it will only use the individual name. You don't have to select multiple formats in letters/reports. The joint formal and joint informal were my go to add/sal forms.

Globally updating is a challenge. When deleting the formats be sure you understand the difference. I move the formats we used to the top of the list but I chose not to delete the formats should they be needed at some point.

What I hope to go to is something similar to my previous org. We had a set of add/sal that were entered on every record. Primary was formal individual (with changes in society and lack of titles at this org I'll probably make Primary informal individual). We had joint formal and joint informal. I had section in listing for those with different last names so user can pick format, not make it editable. The nickname field gets a little mess IMO as it doesn't have the same Smart functions so you need to have it entered on every record.

Just some thoughts - meeting time. Will check back to see what others post too.

Best wishes on this project.

Karen Diener 2 · April 2021

There is A LOT to unpack here, and it is hard to make a recommendation on what you should do for some scenarios. I'll let you know what I did in a similar situation, except it was at a boys school that did go co-ed.

I recommend that Primary Addressee and Primary Salutation be standard across the board for everyone. I did change my approach on this a couple of years ago, and am preferring that those primary settings be for the primary record holder only. And then every single constituent who is in a relationship would have a "Joint" or "Couple" addressee and salutation in the Additional section. I typically start off with a standard that the organization agrees upon, and change it upon request or staff member input. The rule for exports and mailings is to use Joint or Couple add/sal if it is there, otherwise use Primary. That's it. You don't have to clean it up in Excel.

Editable is the exception and never the standard. Ever. I've been in too many situations where a name is misspelled, and when the donor yells and someone changes it, it is only changed on Bio 1. So the next mailing is sent with the (still) misspelled name and everything hits the fan. I honestly cannot say that I blame the donor. Maybe for overreacting, but my name was printed on the check I mailed you, and I feel very strongly that staff need to get that right. It is step 1 of donor stewardship.

At the school, we also listed people differently in the annual report. If they were an alum, their class year listing was for them only and included their class year. If they were also a parent, they were listed with their spouse (if applicable) and it included the class year. If they were an employee, they were sometimes listed as an individual but other times with their spouse. I had an Additional addressee type for every single one of those scenarios. They were sometimes all the same, but I let the Type dictate where I used it, and not the actual listing. It took some work to set up, to be sure, but it was pretty smooth sailing and easy maintenance after that.

To make changes, yes, you can use Import and / or Global Change, depending on the situation. I won't go in to tons of detail on that, mostly because it is much too involved to explain in detail without knowing more information. But it can be done, so don't give up.

One last thing you can do is set up a default set for your data entry person. This is one of my favorite tools when you are adding constituents or even reviewing them. It will pre-populate the standard entries that you define for a constituent, along with the type. I set that up at another organization for Major Gift officers, since anyone in a portfolio needed the Primary Add/Sal, as well as 4-5 others (for the MGO to use, for the President to use, etc.)

I would consider getting rid of the old / unused ones first. It will just make you feel a little better, I think. You can use Global Change to do this.

I hope that is at least partially helpful. Like I said, it is hard to fully grasp without seeing your data and all of the Types. Work on it in chunks - either tackling it by type or by constituents who have given recently, are in a reunion year, etc. That way, you're cleaning up the records that are most likely to get mail from you.

Karen

Christine Cooke 2 · April 2021

Hey Miki -- As mentioned there are lots of posts about Add/Sals and approaches and methods for cleanup and formatting.It seems to always be a thing, though I really don't know how an org can live with messed up add/sals as they are used quite frequently.

I've done this project - a few times at a few orgs - and I found you have to break it down into sections. There is no clean sweep global changing because once you really start digging you're going to discover that there are specific Add/Sals that are on some records that are specific to them and that the donor requested, and you do not want to lose those.

This is gonna be long and I will try and remember what I've done in the past when I've tackled this.

1. Come to an agreement with your team, with final say on your DoD, as to how you want to address, literally, your constituents. Making it clear that this is a permanent cleanup that will be documented. The 'rules' for formatting Add/Sals and the exception(s) to the rules will be documented. Give them examples to choose from for Primary Addressee and Primary Salultation. We are in a changing culture of many orgs having a more casual Add/Sal for daily use so that will have to be part of discussion. A lot of times it depends on your org and community.

2. I've always set up the Primary Add and Sal and then additionally a Publication Name (used for annual reports or other donor acknowledgement lists) And then because there are those rare occasions that still exist where you do need to address folks in a very formal way have added Formal Add and Formal Sal, In 20+ years I've only had one org use the Formal Sal as a daily use the rest have used first/nicknames. And if there is interest in sending one publication or invite of something to the household once even though you have several family members with the same address the last Addressee I add in is Household Addressee and it is only on the HoH record.

3. Once you have agreement and it's established what the right formatting for your Add/Sals go in and clean in them up in Configuration. Carefully comb through what is already there and the ones that you DO WANT to use that fit your criteria for formatting - you will be surprised how many exist or may be there but missing one little detail. Because there are other fingers besides the data person I always want it to be obvious what this list is so I break it into sections that I establish by making an Add/Sal that is just ------------ Primary Addressee----- and ------- Primary Salutation----- and ---Publilication Name--- . Get the picture? and I move the Add/Sals that fit the ceriteris into the sections established. Then you can add any tvariatioins you may need hat are missing from the. It also helps the data person not lose their mind while cleaning up! (lol). Once you've done that - it becomes apparent which are funky or not necessary or do not fit the formatting that you are establishing as the rule. But it's impossible to delete the unwanted until they have been removed from the records. I move all of those to the bottom of the list and add the Const ID field before the first field in it's format so that when it comes up in a record you know it's one that needs attention -- so it will read 54798Jack & Jill Smith '98 and then you can change it to Mrs. Jill Doe'98 Smith and Mr. John Smith or whatever.

4. I would also add to the list of Add/Sals one that is Friend and another that is Anonymous and since you're a school Anonymous '97.

5. My preference is to have as few editable as possible. So I've written a query and cleaned up all of those first -- also because that is where you are going to find those special ones that are not going to fit any formatting you may establish -- there is always a handful. So that handful may have to stay editable, which is fine, but I change the Add/Sal "underneath" the editable to be as close to standard off the list as possible. And also because if you don't you can have those unwanted Add/Sals hiding there and one of your goals is to get rid of them so you can eventually delete them from Config.

6. This is a big job. This part takes the most focus and time. You've got to write queries looking for certain populations and then you can globally change their Add/Sals. The queries are situational. Examples: unmarried alums, alums married to a alum, alumni married to a non alum, because usually schools include the grad year the alums need to be cleaned up separately. Then there's single people, married people, widows, divorcees, deceased people. You'll have to have the query searching for every possible Add/Sal in the list and then globally change to the one that you DO want.

You're going to have to change not just on the record but on all the relationship records that are non-constituent records.

7. After all of that you should be able to deleted those unwanted Add/Sals from Config. though honestly, it always seems there is one to a few hidden somewhere that you just cannot find and therefore cannot get rid of. :-). you are going to have to do the cleanup on the deceased also or you will not be truly clean.

Hope this helps. Yeah, I know some folks do an export and cleanup and import, but I have preferred this way because I can click around the records and see immediately if changing their add/sal is counterintuitive or problematic. Doing it this way has also allowed me to segment out the most active/recent records and clean up them first so that they are done and easy to utilize for daily tasks. And then work backwards.

Miki Martin · April 2021

Thank you JoAnn Strommen‍, @Karen Diener, and Christine Cooke bCREPro‍ , for your input here! I have so many tasks for clean-up in the database sometimes I don't know where to start. I think part of that is because I'm the keeper of the database, plus the main person for data entry and for gifts. So trying to determine what to tackle first when there's so much I want to fix is daunting.

I will certainly keep referencing your suggestions and perspectives here as I plod through things. Of course I clean up ones I see as I go but am hopeful to get at least some of the global fixes done soon to lessen what I need to touch. I may have to just accept that using the smart functions will make it a lot less busy and require less touches overall.

I definitely like the idea of setting defaults, though. That could definitely help some things since we do have another lady that sometimes enters people when necessary.

Thank you, all!

Salutations/Addressees for All-Girls' HS

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