Business Constituency Codes

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Nancy McDougall
Nancy McDougall ✭
Tenth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
Our database contains mostly alumni but also has businesses, professionals and college vendors.  We have a contituency code for each of these categories.  I am having difficulty preparing mailing lists for these codes because some constituents fall into all these categories and it can change year to year (vendor status).  The professionals are usually attorneys, real estate or insurance agents that could contract with a different business and we want to stay contact with the person.


I'm curious to know how others handle these types of constituents.  I'm thinking we may have too many contituency codes for these companies and could use attributes instead.  Eliminating a constituency code could be tricky though since some gift constituency codes would be affected.


Any suggestions? 
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  • Daniel Bayer
    Daniel Bayer ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    How many constituent codes are you talking about? If it's just the three you mention (Business, Professional, Vendors), then that doesn't seem like an inordinate amount to me, although you could probably change Professionals into Vendors if you wanted to cut down. Here we just use Vendor for anyone outside the college with whom we do business, and use the Relationship tab to keep track of where they work/have worked.
  • Jennifer McHale
    Jennifer McHale ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    Nancy,

    Is your challenge that the same person does not remain a vendor year after year? It's hard to keep these records updated?

    Or, that might be what I'm reading, because I face the same challenge!

    Do you use dates on your constituency codes? It may not solve everything, but might be a good start.

    Jennifer
  • Nia Smith 2
    Nia Smith 2 ✭
    Ninth Anniversary First Reply
    Nancy,


    I'd recommend that non alumni, should continue to keep the professional constituent code but you can monitor the details of that via the relationship tab. This will allow you to keep on top of the various career paths as well as use start/ end dates. 

    As far as vendors, consider creating an attribute or membership tab as an alternative. 
  • Christine Cooke 2
    Christine Cooke 2 ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    If it is just the 3 Constit Codes and their status as to which of the 3 they fall into each year. If they are an org or person that fits more than one constituency my suggestion would be to just make whatever code is THE code for the year, or in general, the Primary Code. 

    You know that constit codes are in hierarchy order on Tab 2.  So the one at the top is the one that serves as the Gift Constit Code.  So if you just change the order when necessary that should be find.

    Also - on the relationship with the Biz/Orgs utilize the Contact Type and yoru case -- either make Primary Secondary etc. contacts.

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