Adding non-constituent organization relationship on constituent record

Larry Wheeler

RE seems to want me to create a constituent record for any new organization I try to add as a relationship on an existing constituent (their place of employment).  I thought this would be simple to do, but I must be overlooking some procedure and overlooking the process in documentation.


So, I have 2 questions for you folks.  Do you make every relationship organization a constituent or no?  If no, where can I find the step so that RE will allow me to make the Organization a Non-Constituent?


 

JoAnn Strommen

Question 1 - no, we don't make everyone a constituent

 2 - odd. What's the message you're getting?  
https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/46016?_ga=2.177517805.913593355.1587390346-1860906219.1579726065

This is the basics how to add a relationship - assuming you know this info.

Larry Wheeler

Well, my first - I think - brain misfire on these forums

It was the other required info that wouldn't allow me save the relationship.   Obviously, my brain must have been on vacation yesterday.  I was just completely ignoring the rest of the required fields as if they shouldn't be required since I wanted a Non-Constituent Org.   Wow.

Thank you JoAnn!  Somehow, you made me see the light!  

Madeleine Holdsworth

No, we do not add every new org as a constituent.  There was a period of time at my org where that was done (before my time) and it just inflates the database.  Now we try to keep the org constituent records limited to orgs that would be possible donors.  Do you really need the preschool where an alum works to have it's own org record? LOL.  Same with spouses (we do not create "couples" records).  My predecessor created spouse records for the spouse of every alum, for every spouse of every individual constituent, if known.  in my opinion, big mistake.  Of course, if the person is a donor, that's legit, but I advocate for the non-constituent record unless the organization or spouse warrants its own record.

Christine Cooke

Glad to see that you figured out your issue with not being able to save.  But thought I'd chime in on the "do you add every Org relation as it's own constituent record" question.


I/We do not.  But we do want clean/consistent Org Names throughout the data no matter whether the Org has a constituent record or not.  So I've done clean up and any Org that has two or more employees, that Org gets a constituent record and the individuals are hard linked to that Org record.  That way, you can see who/how many folks in your community are working at any particular organization.  And you don't then have the Org entered in the system in a million different ways (abbreivated, not abbreviated, partially abbreviated) which does not allow for efficient sorting/reporting or publication.  All of this abbreviated versions or possibilities are put into Alias field.