Donor names as it should appear in print?

Dodie Stogner:

Just wondering if there is a best practices place to record this information.  We are currently starting our first capital campaign and the gift committment form asks the above question.  I didn't know if it was best to just record that information in the Addressee/Salutation field or if I should set up an attribute specific for this field.  Any thoughts or suggestions woudl be greatly appreciated.

For individuals we use an addressee type of "Capital Recognition Name" for our capital campaign, and just "Recognition Name" for the Annual Fund.

For Org/Corp/Foundation records we have the listing as an attribute. 

Dodie Stogner:

Just wondering if there is a best practices place to record this information.  We are currently starting our first capital campaign and the gift committment form asks the above question.  I didn't know if it was best to just record that information in the Addressee/Salutation field or if I should set up an attribute specific for this field.  Any thoughts or suggestions woudl be greatly appreciated.

We ask this question also and we code it as an alias.  I find that it's much easier having it coded the same place no matter what type of record you are working with. 

Dodie Stogner:

Just wondering if there is a best practices place to record this information.  We are currently starting our first capital campaign and the gift committment form asks the above question.  I didn't know if it was best to just record that information in the Addressee/Salutation field or if I should set up an attribute specific for this field.  Any thoughts or suggestions woudl be greatly appreciated.

We use addressee/salutations for individuals.  We are able to have several different recognition listings recorded:  annual campaign, XXX capital campaign, endowment, etc.  Have found that listings for many donors vary from one to the other.  Annual campaign listing is updated each year if needed based on listing requested.  The best part that I've love about using this over attributes is that I don't have to do data entry to get the name.  I choose the format we want and it's auto filled.  Prevents many typos/mistakes. Put in an addressee of "anonymous" so can just choose that for those desiring that listing.  Try if at all possible to avoid making the field editable.  Can also pull field easily into mail to include in listing confirmation letter when we've needed to do that. 

For organizations, we have aliases with the same listing categories and put the company info there.  For most it's just a copy/paste of org name so don't have to mess with typos either. 

Yes, have to pull from two fields when generating final list and would love it if RE could find a spot with auto format/fill for both types of records.  Until then we'll stick with this. 

JoAnn Strommen:

We use addressee/salutations for individuals.  We are able to have several different recognition listings recorded:  annual campaign, XXX capital campaign, endowment, etc.  Have found that listings for many donors vary from one to the other.  Annual campaign listing is updated each year if needed based on listing requested.  The best part that I've love about using this over attributes is that I don't have to do data entry to get the name.  I choose the format we want and it's auto filled.  Prevents many typos/mistakes. Put in an addressee of "anonymous" so can just choose that for those desiring that listing.  Try if at all possible to avoid making the field editable.  Can also pull field easily into mail to include in listing confirmation letter when we've needed to do that. 

For organizations, we have aliases with the same listing categories and put the company info there.  For most it's just a copy/paste of org name so don't have to mess with typos either. 

Yes, have to pull from two fields when generating final list and would love it if RE could find a spot with auto format/fill for both types of records.  Until then we'll stick with this. 

JoAnn - Any tips for minimizing/preventing users from changing these specific addr/sals to a wrong value?  We have  these "specialty" addr/sals that follow very exact rules and have copious documentation about how they should be assigned, but we seem to always have staff members (that have rights to enter/edit records) that will decide to change the correct selections into something else. 

Also for these "specialty" addr/sals, if anything other than the "standard" selection is chosen, there is a corresponding notepad that must be completed to explain why a non-standard selection was chosen.

I would love to see security rights by Addr/Sal type so that staff that set up records can enter/edit the basic/standard addr/sals, but only specific staff can set add/edit the "specialty" addr/sals -- but I don't believe there is that level of security?

Gina Gerhard

Christine Cooke:

 Gina

You can change the rights in Admin Security so that folks cannot edit Addressee/Salutation.  It's under Records and to the right in the list of areas is Addressee/Salutation -- uncheck the Edit checkbox and the person loses ability to change any A/S.  Yes it would be nice if it was specific, but if the changes folks are making are an issue then shut it down and leave the monthly maintenance to one person to go in and add the proper adds/changes.  That's what I do.

Christine - We have over 40 users who enter and maintain records on a regular basis, so unfortunately we cannot lock out edit rights to anyone. For some reason, when people look at the addr/sals they sometimes don't think it through and hence make off-the-cuff changes to them.  That's why I'd love to be able to lock these down by type.  Or maybe a true audit trail would be helpful to see who is making changes to addr/sals (I think there are some products available now that give more audit information?).

Gina