Security by Constituency, But Hide Constituency Codes?

Nate Laning

I've been looking into granting view-only RE access to two new users who work for a segment of our organization. Similar to what I've seen other users suggest, I plan to create a new security group limited by a unique constituency code for constituent record viewing, as well as a unique fund ID for gift record viewing. My testing has worked great so far, except for one hiccup -- the new limited users can still see all of our constituency codes that we assign to a constituent. They cannot see all of our constituents, but they can see all of the codes on the constituents they have permission to view. Perhaps it's best to provide an example...


John Smith donates to their Org XYZ, as well as our Org ABC. Since we own the database, and this is a significant donor for us, John Smith has a constituency code noting him as a "Major Donor." When our Org XYZ users log in, they have access to John's record, since he's also a donor to them. John's unique constituency code "Org XYZ" grants them security permissions to view his record and his gifts to Org XYZ. However, in RE database view language, they can see our indicator that he is a major donor right there at the bottom of the Bio 1 tab.


I cannot restrict access to all records with the constituency code of "Major Donor." I do not want to create two distinct records for John Smith, causing a duplicate record in the system. But I also don't love the fact that these new users see the importance our organization places on this donor. Is there a way to hide constituency codes? Am I missing something here?

Dariel Dixon

I'm not aware of a way to hide constituencies codes.  I understand that they work for a different segment of your organization, but there is obviously some trepidation to allow them to see this information.  I would hope that as employees they would be subject to the same confidentiality agreement as anyone else in the organization.  What is the biggest fear with seeing a code that does not apply to them.  Obviously, there is a business need for them to have access.  If you can't remove those codes from the view, would you revoke their access altogether Nathan Laning‍?

Nate Laning

Thank you for the response, Dariel Dixon‍. The hesitancy I have is that we use constituency codes to identify major donors and prospects, allowing us to easily pull those lists or exclude them from various direct mail pieces. It's basically a nod to the fact that either the constituent itself, or a related constituent, is assigned to a fundraiser. It's worked wonderfully for us so far.


This separate segment of our organization, however, does their own fundraising apart from our office. They're basically a sub-organization to our larger organization, and we handle their gift processing. But they have their own direct mail appeals, personal solicitation strategies, etc. My hesitancy is with their employees viewing who we've identified as our major donors and prospects. 


If the fields could not be hidden, perhaps it would simply be a matter of creating a policy in regards to handling those rare instances. 

Stephanie Crawley

Nathan - Wouldn't another way to look at it is if the sub-organization sees that a constituent is a Major Donor for the parent organization and is already assigned a solicitor, they would know to follow protocol and contact the main solicitor to ask for assistance or maybe even permission to solicit or approach the Major Donor? Anyway, this seems less of a technical issue to find a technical solution for and more of an organizational issue to find a colleague trust/training solution for. Just my outsider's view, but you know your organization best.

Nate Laning

Stephanie Crawley‍, your response is nearly identical to the response I received from our organization's consultant earlier today. I like your approach. Thank you!