RE: Blackbaud CRM: Entry of Volunteer types

huzefa r

Greetings,

This is my first post on here. We are trying to determine where best to record volunteer types i..e Chair, Co-chair, Fundraising Volunteer. We have two options:

Option 1: Record the information in wealth and ratings under “nonprofit affiliations.” My limited understanding here is that the relationship map will NOT work if the data is added under nonprofit affiliation? We would like to utilize the functionality that the “relationship map” offers without having to go back to the constituent record to create a volunteer relationship.

How does the “relationship map” work and where is it pulling the relationships from to show on - relationship map?…We are told wealth and ratings is a separate system used in the U.S by wealth point? (i say this because we are Canadian based institution)…we are unclear how this functionality pulls the from relationships (if at all) to wealth point and mainly to the relationship map?

Option 2: Is to record volunteer information as an attribute. This is not as neat We have also got to manually code the values as we do not have customization capacity at this time. Currently, the attribute fields are being used for awards …so it can get fairly buy.

Which is the best place to situate volunteer data? Option 1 or 2 based on following constraints:

Decision Constraints:

1. Will the RM's/Development/Alumni Engagement Officers look in wealth ratings for volunteer info?

2. We have a separate Records Entry team that does not have access to Wealth and Ratings…should we give them access, so both team are entering the data on the affiliations tab in wealth and ratings?

3. We have limited ability to customize any of the data fields.

4. If we have to create relationships on the constituent record by “adding a new volunteer relationship” we will have to create non-profit organizations…we wish to avoid this scenario….we are already creating records for important executive relationships…but do not want to do the same for volunteer data. This becomes a factor if this is how relationship data is being pulled into the relationship map!

Any strategic advice or guidance on this subject will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Zef

Ray Bergman

Moving this topic to the Blackbaud CRM community.

Clint Grossnickle

Hi Zef,

The relationship map is populated with data from the constituent relationship table. Adding non-profit affiliations within Wealth and Ratings will not add data to the map.

If creating new constituent records for these non-profit organizations to capture volunteer activity is not desirable and you'd prefer to not to create a new constituent attribute for this purpose, then utilizing the Affiliations within Wealth and Ratings might be the best option.

There is a third option you could utilize which would incorporate constituent group functionality. Instead of creating an affiliation or an attribute, you could create a single constituent group record (e.g. Non-Profit Volunteer Activity Group) and add the constituent volunteers as members to this group. The comment field on the group member record could capture the non-profit organization name and role field the volunteer type and start/end dates as needed. This will make the data more visible on the constituent record than it would be within Wealth and Ratings or stored as an attribute.

Below is a mock-up of how the data would present on the group record.