Cleaning up related companies

Lisa Moseler:

Our organization has long standing ties to a particular industry that has 3 or 4 major manufacturers.  These manufacturers have numerous divisions and plants across the globe.  Some of these manufacturers have also changed names numerous times and closed/moved headquarters/plant locations, etc...over the years.  Such changes were never recorded in Raiser's Edge.  Furthermore, it appears that many times when gift officers were entering actions, they were putting them in on the incorrect record...they may have been talking to some guy at an assembly plant but, ultimately, the gift came from the corporate office.  We are talking about decades of gift and action records that all appear to be mismatched, but I can only speculate at this point. I've inherited the mess and need to clean it up.  Does anyone have any advice?  I thought about making all closed locations 'inactive' but worry about losing the action history.  Should I merge the action history onto the headquarters' record?  I'm not sure what would be the best route.  Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

 I have to tell you that I don't know what industry you're talking about, but I have certainly had the same problem at multiple organizations and many different industries.  Banking is a big one.  And we have companies who have merged but sometimes still use the former name for some purposes.  Or an employee works for ABC which is owned by XYZ.  ABC matches gifts, but the check comes from XYZ --  not just a different address but a different company name altogether.  But just about any larger company with multiple offices can pose a problem.  Through in companies that have separate divisions/locations for matching gifts and foundations and you have quite a mess on your hands.

I would say to identify your major offenders.  Make sure you set up relationships between them.  Use the "prent corp" field on the Org2 tab.  I've tried to set up aliases for companies under the same umbrella corp. Where appropriate, consider soft crediting.

Go to your paper files.  It will take a long time, but if you can see copies of checks and letters you may get a better idea of the mismatching. 

 Marking something inactive doesn't really mean you lose the history.  It's all still there, it's just easier to filter out.  And if someone becomes active again just uncheck the box.  Make sure that staff understands that before they add a new constituent they should include searching for inactive records in the search window.

It's unfortunate that there isn't some kind of "soft credit" like function for actions.  I believe there is a suggestion for it though.  I don't think I would merge them -- you'll lose them on the original record.  Perhaps you can use an export/import to essentially "copy" them.

Christine Cooke:

 I have seen this kind of mess a few times and it does take years to unscramble.  As Nicole said, banks are notorious, along with a few other corporations with mulitple sites/offices etc.

I agree that the paper files will give you a better idea of what belong where. The records should all be linked in Relationships with a Relation Code and Reciprocal Relation of Parent Company or Headquarters and Subsidiary or Branch/Division. I would also utilize Aliases and list every Alternate, Former, Subsidiary/Division name that is tied to that main headquarter record.  On the subs/divisions I would add aliases for the subs/divisions that are directly related to one another along with the headquarters. The Constituent Code -- depending on the structure you are using, I cannot give advice without more info.  I can imagine that some of the individuals linked to the records on Relationship tab may also be linked to the wrong record, or they were at one location and are now at another.

When I have businesses with multiple locations in RE -- such as a franchise or multiple bank locations I add that location, after a hyphen to the Org Name field. example: Costco - South San Francisco or Costco - Embarcadero Oakland.  That way when doing a lookup, you can see right away.  Matching Gifts are notorious for coming from different places every time there is a match.  It's the same company, the same employee and the check is disbursed with a different name and address every time.  So each one of those is entered as a new record and that particular check is entered on that record, and there is a relationship established with the Org/Company.

Yes, if you can, I would move all the actions to the headquarters record IF they are not specific to that particular subsidiary/division.  

I would also suggest as you go along on this housekeeping project, you write down what you are doing and what you want as far as protocol/procedure moving forward.

This is a huge undertaking, and I would suggest focusing on tackling the most recent first.  Go back 5 or 10 years, establish that date as your start date and reporting date and fix those first.  Then work your way backwards.  You can put a bandaid on the giving history by soft crediting  each subsidiary/division, though that will be time consuming also since there is no Soft Credit button for relationships except for Spouses.  But if you did soft credit, that could be the thing that gives you more complete full gift history reporting until you can clean up and de-dupe, link etc.all the records.

This brings to mind that you need to prioritize what you "fix" first.  Constituent Code (because it bubbles down into all the other areas), Soft Credits, Aliases, Soft Credits,  Gift Constit Code for those that had their Constituent Code on Bio/Org 2 changed.  In order to get folks to NOT enter on the wrong record you could use a business rule that pops up and tells them that all gift entries should default to the Main/Headquarters record.

I did this sort of project with just foundations at one org I worked for.  Went all the way back through the paper files -- adding old addresses and gifts that were from before RE existed. 

 All agreed -- I've also set up some "automatic" soft credits for companies that are super intertwined but have different names.  Staff are often looking for gifts under one company record, but the hard credit is on a company out of state with a different name.  And I set up some annotations to automatically display --  see also XYZ company.  I also do this for any paper files -- see also file for XYZ.

Gina Gerhard:
Christine - Thanks for your excellent reply with great guidance for tackling this cleanup project. I've seen this topic come up many times -- how to handle these complex organization relationship scenarios that crop up. Basically, I think of this somewhat as the 'billing address' vs. 'mailing address' situation. Is the crux of the problem that for financial/accounting/check purposes, you may need to define one 'path' and for mailing/contact purposes you need another 'path'? So you may have a constituent that is physically located/affiliated with Costco- San Francisco, but that for getting them a check it needs to go to Costco- Oakland for accounting (or other financial) purposes. So does we need systems that could add an intervening step -- that ask you which of the associated addresses do you need to use for specific purposes?

 Gina --  Yes, I have seen those types of situations also -- where the "path" for the check/accounting is different than the one you want to contact.  You can have those in the same record.  You can have both addresses, but the one that is for mailing/contact should be marked as the primary and the other address as the alternate.  And you have to make sure that the contact person, if there is one, has the address they are to receive at on their record.  IF you are making contact peeps/employees have their own individual constit record, you have to be sure to actually go into their record and make sure you have the correct address/contact info.  Just looking at in in the window on the Relation tab does not insure that it is correct on their record when you pull a mail list or send something.  If you change it in that window it does not automatically reflect on the the individual constit record, annoying but I guess RE sees it as a safeguard in case you intended a business address instead of a personal/home address for that person.  If you felt the need to be very specific, you could make the Address Type "accounting address" and "solilicit address" or "mailing address" and so on.  Though I have found that making the mailing address the Primary was sufficient.  Depends on your staff and how well they follow protocols.

I have run across situations where We have the company name and do not have or cannot locate an address for the headquarters, but we have personal address or a site specific address for the contact person.  In that case, the Company/Org record has no address, but the individual person has an address on their record that is not shared with the Org record.   Hope this helps clarify.