Criteria for adding: New Constituent - Interactions - Documentation

Claudia Cervantes

Greetings!

My organization (Museum - Arts and Culture) is trying to set some criteria or thresholds while encouraging staff to contribute to the database in an efficient and meaningful way.

What criteria does your organization have in place for adding:

• New Constituents
  (Especially in the context of community partners/prospects/contacts or other who otherwise have never purchased an admission ticket, membership, or donated - and are not in our system. Trying to be tactful and respectful of constituent privacy as well as avoiding unnecessary entry on the part of our staff.)
• Interactions in Constituent Record
  (with so many actual daily interactions, what merits being included in Altru interactions?)
• Documentation in Constituent Record
  (what is the threshold for documentation as well

We are trying to be intentional with what is entered while respecting staff time. With so many departments handling different areas it seems necessary to have Altru be the place where staff looks to find important/useful information. Defining criteria, what is important or potentially important, sometimes feels arbitrary.

I would greatly appreciate your feedback!

Best,

Claudia

Chris Nungesser

Hi @Claudia Cervantes!

That's a great question and it's awesome that your team is being so intentional about your processes.

Regarding interactions and documentation, I think there are two main things to consider:

First, think about how you are going to use the information. Are you pulling reports on interactions? Does it affect your moves management in the prospect tool? Is tracking an interaction important just to cover your bases? (Like in case someone later says “nobody called me," you could say we left voicemails on these dates).

And second, think about the people using the system that can't ask you questions. Imagine that people in your office pool some money and buy a bunch of lottery tickets. You all win, retire, and enter the phase of your life as magnates. It's very exciting. So there's all new people using Altru at the museum. I believe, when you're doing data entry, you think about those people. What do they need to know? If we decease a person in the system, when possible, we will add the obituary as documentation just as a way of confirmation. If we have some donor research, we might add that as documentation if it would help a new person familiarize themselves with the donor (or help remind us details down the road). So I think about our current team, but also the team that will come after us. If it seems like something we or they need to know, then it probably should be documented.

Regarding adding a person into the system, I might add them when you begin a business relationship with them. Or in the case of a donor prospect, I'd add them when you begin amassing information regarding that prospect (e.g. contact info, relationships, interactions, documentation, etc.).

If you are worried about that person pulling into an appeal, perhaps you could create a specific Solicit Code for this purpose. Use that code to opt them out of appeals/lists until you are ready to remove the code at a later date. (If you go that route, I might use a special Solicit Code that you monitor and maybe leave a comment in the solicit code, just so it's not like “Do Not Mail” and later nobody knows if the donor requested that or if your team set it up).

It sounds like you are asking the right questions. That's awesome. I'd love to know what y'all end up deciding to do.

Chris ?