Constituent Active / Inactive

Ali Khan Dawood

Please suggest who to mark a constituent inactive in RE-NXT Web View

Alex Wong

@Ali Khan Dawood
Not sure if your question has a typo in it, b/c I can't understand.

If you are asking “how” to mark a constituent inactive on webview, you can do that under the “Mark as…” menu

If this isn't what you asking, then please clarify what you mean by “who to mark a constituent active”

Karen Diener

@Ali Khan Dawood:

Please suggest who to mark a constituent inactive in RE-NXT Web View

Before deciding who should be allowed to do this, please make sure your organization has a policy regarding when a constituent should be marked inactive.

I never recommend marking individuals as inactive, and only mark organizations as inactive if they close.

Karen

Dariel Dixon

@Karen Diener: I am curious as to why you have this recommendation. I think I might have an idea, but would love to see why you have this recommendation.

I never recommend marking individuals as inactive, and only mark organizations as inactive if they close.

Karen Diener

@Dariel Dixon:

@Karen Diener: I am curious as to why you have this recommendation. I think I might have an idea, but would love to see why you have this recommendation.

I never recommend marking individuals as inactive, and only mark organizations as inactive if they close.

I've just never found a worthwhile use case for it on an individual record.

Any Query I have ever written pulls constituents based on a lot of “inclusion” criteria - they gave a certain amount during a certain time, they are assigned to a solicitor, they are on the board, they attended an event, etc. Every time I work with an organization and ask why someone is marked inactive, they don't have an answer.

The one organization who did have an answer had a policy to mark donors as inactive if they haven't given in 5 years so they could be removed from solicitations. That could have been accomplished by adjusting their queries. Now their fundraising strategies are changing due to new leadership, and they want try engaging with long-lapsed donors. It isn't hard to uncheck the “is inactive" checkbox, but they also had some other constituent management policies in place that are causing this to be a problem.

I'd be interested to hear who does use Inactive for individual records, and why!

Alex Wong

@Karen Diener
the use of Inactive for my org:

someone or org that does not want to hear from our org AT ALL by any channel or means.

Dariel Dixon

@Karen Diener For queries, you're right that it's easier to adjust for time. I've seen/been at organizations who used it for those purposes. Or, what @Alex Wong stated, no communications by any means. I would argue for reporting it's better for when looking at longer time frames or historical data. The fact that I can click a checkbox and remove those records from a report helps out quite a bit. Also, in NXT it's placed in a very prominent place in the constituent header, which may help fundraisers.

Karen Diener

@Dariel Dixon and @Alex Wong you both make fair points. I've just never experienced either situation after working with dozens of RE customers. No one seems to have a grip on what “inactive” means in the institution.

If an organization has a good rule that everyone understands, AND there is no other more appropriate method area to code this, the “inactive” checkbox has a role.

Ali Khan Dawood

@Alex Wong
Great, thank you. I was looking somewhere else.