Where to track source of new record in RE

Laura Lyons

Hey all,


I'd love to know how other RE users are tracking the source of new constituents when they are being added to RE.


FYI, the vast majority of our constituents are alums/alum family members--for our organization, alums are former patients that have "graduated" from our therapy program. These individuals are tracked with constituent codes. I'd like to start adding prospective donors to RE that don't fall into these groups so I can include them in my annual giving acquisition efforts. For example, I'd like to include event attendees that are guests of a table sponsor to see if they will financially support our programs. In prior jobs, database managers have sometimes used the Address Info Source field to track this information (e.g., code as "event attendee"), but that doesn't fit with how my current org is using that field.


Ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

Dariel Dixon

I'm imagining that you'd almost have to create a custom field/attribute for this information.  I agree that the source of the record and the constituency are two different things.  Using this information in address source field is somewhat misleading, as that field is specific to the address in question, not the constituent as a whole.

JoAnn Strommen

At my previous org I created a constituent attribute for Source of Record.  It was extremely useful there as we had lists coming in from chambers, committees, events, staff lists, club memberships, spouse/personal referrals, etc. etc. I actually made it a required field. I used a table for the description field for consistent entry. 


Worked well in that situation. 

Karen Diener

I have not encountered many organizations who track this, but when they do, it is a constituent attribute.


Karen