What are your Non-Profit's Constituent Codes?

Margaret Kennedy
Margaret Kennedy
Seventh Anniversary
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions
Hi, we are a mid-size non-profit moving from Donor Perfect to Raiser's Edge and are in the process of deciding what Constituent Codes we will use in RE. Would love suggestions especially from other non-profit organizations as to what Constituent Codes you use and how you have organized them.  Thanks!

Comments

  • Stacey Brake
    Stacey Brake
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
    Hi Margaret -


    Do you mean the "Constituency" code field on the Bio 2 tab?  We migrated from DonorPerfect to RE almost 2 years ago and mapped the "Flags" field from DonorPerfect to the "Constituency" code field in Raiser's Edge.  The codes we use are simple:  Volunteer Current, Volunteer Former, Board Member Current, Board Member Former, Parent/Family, Staff Current, Staff Former, etc.  We recently reintroduced a 5K run to our annual walkathon so any runners that signed up were given a constituency code of "5K Runner".  It's nice to be able to see the many ways a constituent is connected to us.  That being said, we do not utilize the start/end dates for constituency codes as it could make it difficult to pull reports and lists.  We have had a consultant, RE users and even some RE trainers tell us this.  (It's why we created codes with the terms "current" and "former" in some of them.  Even without the dates, we can still tell who is currently active in certain areas.)  Anyways, hope this helps.  Good luck!
  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 January 2026 Monthly Challenge 2025 bbcon Attendee Badge
    I am also looking for some sharing on Constituent Codes.  Still getting settled in here but have identified an issue with current use of constituent codes. Have found about a third of our records contain a code of "Miscellaneous." We have about 45 different codes on records. Some don't carry much meaning and should be attribute info.  I've been charged by our president to get this clean up this spring.  


    We're trying to decide if various committees should be a constit code or only live in attributes. How do you code family members of alumni? 


    So I'm interested in knowing what codes other universities about our size utilize.  Our enrollment is about 2500. We have about 35,000 constituent records. Alumna code count is not accurate due a practice of changing it when someone died.  This is being changed immediately.


    Would love to receive a few lists to compare. Thanks in advance.

     
  • Dariel Dixon
    Dariel Dixon Community All-Star
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply PowerUp Challenge #3 Gift Management
    I hate to give this answer, but the most honest answer is it depends on the type of organization it is.  Christine Cooke bCREPro‍ defined constituencies so well, and made the case for the hierarchy better than I could have done.


    I am a big fan of having broad constituencies, and using attributes/custom fields to fine tune. 


    And keep your constituencies to the minimum that you can for your reporting needs.  Having an idea on how this data will be extracted/reported/sliced and diced will help you determine if something needs to be a constituency code or not.

     
  • Christine Cooke
    Christine Cooke
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant
    To answer Joann Strommen question about relatives of alums.  


    Siblings that are NOT also an Alum, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins = Friend-Relative or Friend-Family Member


    Parents that do not have a current student attending = Parent-Current

    Parents with students that are done attending = Parent-of Alum or Alum Parent (I tend to like the Parent of Alum so that they show up alphabetically in the same place on the list

    Grandparents = Grandparents

    Other peeps like neighbors or friends that have no other direct affiliation = Friend-of someone in Community


    All of these records should be linked to each other of course, in the Relationships tab with Relation and Reciprocal defined if you can, and if not at least the from date so you know how your org has known about the relationship.

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