Options > Constituent Matching

Marie Harris

What fields do you use for matching records coming into RE from Luminate?

Raj Aiyer

Tried or trying many many fields, to reduce the no. new records being created, but so fare, matched records are less than 10%. We tried,

1) First Name, Last name and email - around 5-6%

2) First name, Last name, Address, City, Province & Postal code, around 5-6%


It is frustrating to see so many duplicates are been created but don't know how to stop. Every two years, we run the merge tool & reindex or reorder the database as an alternative.

Michael Bober

Are you noticing anything about how the Donor is entering their information? We find if a period is added or not added in a field this can cause it not to show it as a matched record. Also, if a salutation/suffix is missing or off it may cause this.


Additionally, the tighter you have your parameters the less likely the system will find a match. We have found that using First Name field causes issues since folks use nicknames or middle names when entering their personal information. It may be the parameters you have set up. We use last name and zip code but have "Exact Match" uncheckered. We have the majority come up as linked. We go through the matched to make sure they are not duplicates.


What kind of volume are you working with on a daily basis?

Austen Brown

Hi Marie Harris‍ - As others have mentioned previously, it is likely that no matter the default fields you select for Constituent Match, you will have to search for constituents yourself and manually change information to match your database standards (i.e. Addresses).


We have a number of fields selected for default Constituent Matching (which may or may not be a good thing), 'Exact Match' is not selected:

• First Name / Last Name
• Birth date
• Address / State / ZIP
• Any Phone or Email

We review every constituent that comes through the RE/LO portal, and do not allow RE/LO to process any new records or linked records automatically. We have found that some of records RELO shows as 'matched' to a record in our system are not correct. While this review does take a fair amount of time, I would rather spend the time upfront ensuring records are matched/linked correctly than deal with duplicate records later.

Christine Robertson

I'm no longer using RELO, but I did the same as Austen. It was much better to spend the time on the front end - especially with business/org records. I kept running into duplicates of those that couldn't be merged due to RELO

Marie Harris

Michael Bober:


Our volume has increased quite a bit right now due to Covid-19. We had a high of 1600 online gifts one day in April and now are running closer to 250 per day. Our volumn is usually highest around the Nov/Dec holidays. We just had Blackbaud initiate the validation tool for Luminate and we are hoping that helps with the addresss issues - like where people put in a period or spell out things like North/South.

Alessandra Iuppa

What is the validation tool for Luminate you mentioned?

Raj Aiyer

We have tried to match with First name, Last Name and email (WO exact) also First Name, Last Name and postal code. I believe Marie is correct in saying to check each record which comes thru, but our daily Volume is average is around 50, that means every morning i have to spend more than an hour that is impossible for a 1 man team !


I would like to understand the logic behind the matching program to better implement a process.