Do you have a policy on when to create records for new organizations?

Larry Ladutke · October 2015

My boss wants to develop a policy on when to add organizations to the database if we do not have a relationship with them yet.

Generally, I have been creating records when I do research on a company or foundation.

Her suggestion is to create a record for an organization when we reach out to them, regardless of the response so that we no that we have made the attempt.

JoAnn Strommen · October 2015

We add the record when we have the information. We do not require that they be contact. Contact can be recorded in attributes/notes etc later. We use a constituency code of 'prospective donor' for those type of records.

Joost Groen · October 2015

At my organisation (a University with a RE database of Alumni), we add an organisation to the RE database when this organisation is linked to a constituent/alumni, i.e. when we receive the employment information of an alumni. We only add the most basic information of this organisation to RE: the organisation name and (if the information is easily found on the internet) the physicial address.

When an organisation is linked to a lot of our constituents (alumni), then we add more details, like the contact info (general/contact phonenumbers, website, emailaddresses). We do the same when this organisation donates cash (or is a prospect).

Larry Ladutke · October 2015

You can indicate that an individual works at an organization without creating a record for the organization itself. I wouldn't think it would be necessary to creat an organization record for the employer if you were not interested in establishing a relationship with that organization. For example, an alum works for a small company on the opposite coast that has nothing to do with your university. It is therefore highly unlikely to contribute or be involved in any events. In this case, I would list the the employee's job under relationships, but I would not create a separate record for the employer.

Joost Groen · October 2015

Larry Ladutke:

You can indicate that an individual works at an organization without creating a record for the organization itself. I wouldn't think it would be necessary to creat an organization record for the employer if you were not interested in establishing a relationship with that organization. For example, an alum works for a small company on the opposite coast that has nothing to do with your university. It is therefore highly unlikely to contribute or be involved in any events. In this case, I would list the the employee's job under relationships, but I would not create a separate record for the employer.

If you don't create a relationship record for an organization, you cannot see how many constituents work for or are linked to a particular company. At our organization we would like to know how many constituents (alumni) work for which companies.

For example: I would like to know how many and which persons are working for PriceWaterhouseCoopers. If the organization is not added as a record you might get lots of different company names (PWC, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Price Water House Coopers etc etc...) and thus, you cannot use the company name to make a query to see how many people work at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. By adding the organization as a record you can go to record itself and rightmouseclick on the relationship list and get an immediate list. Or make a query with the correct company name. Etc.

Jenny Kleintop · January 2016

When the need arises. In both of your examples you'll want to add the Org record. It's a fundraising management system so includes prospecting. When you get the lead, you'll want to enter it. Then when you research and/or reach out, you'll want to add Actions.

Do you have a policy on when to create records for new organizations?

Comments

Categories