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hey guys,
i wanted to ask an informal poll. for constituent codes (in my case, our board members), do you find the date ranges effective? in particular, does it help you search more easily? what's your favorite method for using the dates? thanks
I found from/to dates helpful in keeping track of Board members if they tend to join the board and stay on until retirement. As long as you keep the dates current, you can query on those board members with from dates > a given date to get a list of current members or report on the giving of current members while excluding past members. If you have Board members who jump on and off--on for 3 years, off for 1, back on for 2, etc.--it might be easier to use codes like Board Member/Past or Former Board member and change their code when they change status. Add a Board Member Service notepad to your Notes tab to record the changes if you want to record the complete history of a given member's service.
Of course, this depends on your organization, but I have found Constituent Code dates very confusing for my users.
Typically, someone forgets to include the valid date range in the query, and therefore gets old Board Members in their query.
What I have found more effective is to create a new Constituent Code of "Former Board Member", which is a good way to amplify a list to include people that are close to, and important for, the organization, but aren't on the Board.
Keep in mind that the date to field is also a determining factorin the constituent code designation for gifts. As for our board, we have a lot of people who are on for a couple years, off for a couple years, back on etc. We track each term with its own board member code and specific date ranges. We like to know specifically when someone was or wasn't on the board so "former board member" doesn't work for us.
We track our Board in the Volunteer module so we do not keep term date ranges on the constituent code. We have a" from date" for when we add a constituent to the DB and "To date" when we mark a record deceased (this is filled in automatically by RE). We also put the Class year of our Alumni there, for easy reference. As for Board members when they drop off the board their CC is changed to Friend (non alum) or Alumni and given a secondary CC of Former Board.
__________________ Nina T. Williams The Cleveland Institute of Art Making Art Work
"Typically, someone forgets to include the valid date range in the query, and therefore gets old Board Members in their query."
With all due respect, this sounds more like a user issue than a constituency code issue. The from/to date range is designed (obviously) to enable an easy filter for sorts and extracts. People forgetting to use date ranges might need a refresher course in RE 101.
Date ranges enable us to minimize the quantity of constituent codes. By using "date to", we do not need codes prefixed with former, prior or ex- whatever a particular constituent code was.
This helps simplify queries and also helps ensure that a meaningful code is at the top of our list. This, the primary code, is the one associated with a gift and picked up, e.g. in the summary by constituent code in a gift detail and summary report. ( On a side note, we don't really need a code of "donor" if there is a gift in the record)
Also
Using the "date to" is "Blank" operator (alongwith the constituent code "equals") in any query associated with an Opening Constituent Business Rule based on constituent code means that only those constituents which are actively, whatever the code is, are returned. e.g. Returned with the message, "This constituent is a Board Member". i.e. the query is truly dynamic.
I actually think that using date ranges REQUIRES me to add the constituent types of former board, etc. If you add an end date to a board member and you go to use their primary cons code it goes back to individual (or whatever they were before they were a board member) and I want to record their giving and activities today as a former board member not as an ordinary individual.
I do not use the dates much in query (I simply use primary cons code whenever I can) but they matter a huge amount to me in reports.
Several years ago, we dropped the dates for some of the same reasons your other respondants suggested, viz accidentally pulling in old members. However, we regretted it since we lost history and have now gone back to the dates. All our queries stipulate the DATE TO: if the date is this field is prior, it is bypassed. We also use blank DATE TO fields for permanent members such as 'Life Trustees' (this requires a double check of course, but the resulting consistency of info is worth it.)
Discovered another problem with constituency dates, however. We use the first constituency code line for major donor types (individual, business, foundation et al.). We've found that using any kind of date in either of the date fields causes this code to be ignored in some canned reporting, such as Gift Summary & Detail. The next valid constituency is grabbed by RE and the grouping is wrong. We have to make sure there are no dates on the first constituent code line. I've spoken to RE support and they were unable to resolve. It may be resolved in a release newer than ours, however.
John King
Manager, Database Administration
Ravinia Festival Association
Highland Park, IL 60005
__________________ John F. King
Manager, Database Administration
Ravinia Festival Association
Highland Park, IL 60035 www.ravinia.org
Don't forget thet constituent codes can live on both Constituents and Gifts. As you enter gifts in batch (or any other way) you can select which of the constituent codes on the record you want to associate with that gift.
The gift detail and summary report - in filters when you choose selected filters - do not ignore that box at the top which can allow you to use the gift constituent code instead of the constituent code on the constituent. This is a much more accurate way of reporting on giving by constituent code. This way if a person has 2 gifts in your date range and was a volunteer for one gift and a board member for the other each gift is properly put into its place.
In any gift report based on the record constituent code (vs the gift constituent code) the dates absolutely matter and are important. If you report on a date range in which a constituent has no valid dates - or multiple valid dates it will likely not report the way you want it to.
We use the first constituency code line for major donor types (individual, business, foundation et al.).
Out of curiousity, why are you using constituent code of "individual" or "business"? Individual verses organization is determined by key indicator (which is determined as you import or create the record), and your constituent code should define what type of individual or organization it is...
Not saying its wrong, just curious why the double standard
Doug
__________________ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Doug Creek
RE Database Administrator
University of Alaska Foundation sndgc@email.alaska.edu
Out of curiousity, why are you using constituent code of "individual" or "business"? Individual verses organization is determined by key indicator (which is determined as you import or create the record), and your constituent code should define what type of individual or organization it is...
Not saying its wrong, just curious why the double standard
Doug
Actually Doug, I'm going to kind of disagree with you on this one. Sometimes Individual needs no further definition.
Unless you are a school for which you have alumni, parents, and other types of individual relationships - somtimes Individual is a completely appropriate constituent code. I use it and unless you are a board member in my database you are an Individual. I do not want to use Donor or Prospect since you can query on donor based on giving history and someone has to maintain these codes after every gift batch - not worth it in my book.
Out of curiousity, why are you using constituent code of "individual" or "business"? Individual verses organization is determined by key indicator (which is determined as you import or create the record), and your constituent code should define what type of individual or organization it is...
Not saying its wrong, just curious why the double standard
Doug
Following onto the previous comment about different types of individuals...
On the organization records, it may be important to distinguish "businesses" (Corporate Donors) from "foundations" or "government agencies".
often, constituent codes are used to indicate the primary relationship to your organization and/or an immediate way of knowing what the individual or organization is in the database W/O having to search through the various tabs in the record. in this instance, individual would not be a useful code.
__________________ things haven't been the same since that house fell on my sister.
