Constituent Codes

Tieara Power

Hello! what is the most constituent codes you've added to a single profile? I'm trying to figure out how many is TOOOO many

Joe Moretti

@Tieara Power 2 to 3, but the majority tend to be 1. We may have Board Member and Former Board Member. Rare for us to have 3. Like others have said, too many cause issues. Plus some places do not know how do constituent codes properly and end up using things that should be attributes. DRIVES ME CRAZY.

shani traum

@Tieara Power
As many as is accurate? Given our Constituent Codes, I could see a case where someone could have 7.

JoAnn Strommen

@Tieara Power As Shani posted - whatever is needed to be accurate. It really depends on what/how you use the codes.

If you use to track volunteer positions like board and/or committee service those can add up for someone who is with your org for a long period of time. I know we have some with 5-7 codes.

Karen Diener

@Tieara Power:
Hello! what is the most constituent codes you've added to a single profile? I'm trying to figure out how many is TOOOO many

Sage advice from @JoAnn Strommen and @shani traum. There can be “too many” if the same code is duplicated multiple times on a record, or if there are multiple codes that really mean the same thing. There is no way cite a specific number and say “you've crossed the line and that's too many codes”. It depends on your organization's needs.

If you are looking to remove some because it feels like too many, I would do a thorough audit of your codes to assess what each one of them means and if some could be consolidated. Also consider if some might be better placed elsewhere in the database, or if they repeat other information. For instance, I sometimes see “Donor” or “Event Attendee” as a constituent code, which is something you can identify by querying on giving or event attendance.

Karen

Tieara Power

@JoAnn Strommen
Thanks! Yes, it's the committees I'm worried about getting too long. But i'm sitting at max 7 for a constituent so i think im ok so far.

Dariel Dixon

I think @shani traum is on point with this one. Constituent codes explain the relationship between the organization and the constituent, so it's always one to many. I do think there is a tipping point that a person can have so many constituencies that they are included in everything and excluded from nothing, but that usually comes down to your code structure.

I think if this is a question, then maybe you're also questioning if certain codes should constituencies or should be categorized in other ways.

Dana Burton

@Tieara Power, I agree with the others that the constituent code tells the relationship between your org and the constituent. We have 1 constituent per record. However, for such things as Prisoner, Board Member, Volunteer, Visitor..we use attributes to assign these fields. Just a thought!

shani traum

@Tieara Power
So, not that you necessarily want to recode everything, but…

We have a single constituent code for Volunteer Leader and then track committee involvement through relationships.

Each Committee/Board has its own Org record and then we set up relationships between the individual and the committee, tracking current and former membership with start and end dates.

roger berg

@Tieara Power If you're using Constituent Codes to track committee assignments I would suggest instead creating a record for each committee and using relationships to track the committee members. That makes it easy to see both current and former members of your committees.

SALLY KHAN

@Dana Burton I was going to suggest the attribute tab as well. The description can be a drop down. I think the attribute tab is most often overlooked.

Faith Murray

@Tieara Power
We use an Attribute with a drop down menu for our various Board and Committee members. We have our board of regents, two different event committees, a campaign committee, a finance oversight committee, an alumni board, etc — I wouldn't want to have to track all of that in Constituency. We keep Constituency limited to the basics by asking, how do we want to segment mailings and report on revenue? Constituencies are uniquely suited to customized revenue reports and segmenting, so we use them where they shine.