Add Gender Options In Raiser's Edge 7.96, Patch 8
Published
We’re so happy to announce a much needed feature to help your organization promote an inclusive community. Until now, the Gender code table in the Raiser’s Edge only included the Male, Female, and Unknown options. These were problematic for a few reasons but mostly because you couldn’t add other options to reflect the different ways an individual might define their gender identity. To fix this issue, the Gender code table is now editable and you can add as many options as needed to accommodate your constituents. As a heads-up, the Male, Female, and Unknown options are still included and cannot be edited or deleted from the table. Also, all relevant queries and reports will include your new gender options.
If you need guidance on what gender options you should use, here are some resources about collecting gender information. We also recommend asking your community for their input!
If you need guidance on what gender options you should use, here are some resources about collecting gender information. We also recommend asking your community for their input!
News
Raiser's Edge® Blog
02/02/2018 2:39pm EST
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I can confirm that the Gender code changes are in Patch 8. I will work with our support and user education teams to get something added to the downloads page to make this more clear.
Thanks,
Jarod Bonino
I understand your viewpoints and first of all want to make sure you both understand that continued usage of this field in a traditional way (Male, Female, Unknown, and blank being the only options) is still fully supported. We are by no means forcing organizations to adopt this feature or formally acknowledge non-binary genders. So please do feel free to continue tracking your donors however you see fit.
I do want to point out, however, that I wouldn't be surprised if many of the organizations and users that requested this very feature (which has well over 100 votes in the idea bank) actually share your beliefs. That may sound counter intuitive, but allow me to explain.
Our goal with Raiser's Edge has always been to give our users a tool that assists with fundraising efforts, and it's widely accepted that "good fundraising" requires strong relationship building with your donors and constituents. Being able to communicate with a donor in the way they wish to be communicated with is imperative for foundational relationship building. So, at some point, the capabilities that we provide within Raiser's Edge are less about you and your organizations beliefs and more about your donors'. From that perspective, if your primary goal is effective communication and relationship building, it actually may not matter how you would classify a given constituent's gender. What matters is how they would classify themselves. That is what I hope this feature represents. An acknowledgement that in our modern society, many donors and constituents do not identify with binary gender roles. If we (Blackbaud) aren't providing our users a way to respect and track that (if they wish to), then we would be ignoring the fact that effective fundraising in a modern world, at times, requires us to track donor preferences that don't align with ours.
I am not here to convince you to make use of this feature and I am certainly not here to change or argue your beliefs. Our goal with feature delivery is never about making a political or religious statement or "taking sides" so to speak. It's about building a product that our users love and can use to power their missions. My only hope with this post is that it might help to articulate the motivation behind this feature and likely, the motivation behind many of the requests for it.
Thanks,
Jarod Bonino
Product Manager, Raiser's Edge