The Dreaded Constituent Code

Ken Hontz
Ken Hontz
Ninth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions
Hi Everyone, 


Our Foundation is rebuilding/refocusing itself from the ground up and I have a lot of data hygiene tasks ahead of me. But, I want to start with our mess of constituent codes created by my predecessors. Where can I find best practice resources around structuring a reasonable set of constituent codes vs. constituent attributes? I really believe the former should be a limited value set, and more detailed definition of constituents should be handled by the latter.


Thoughts, opinions, references will all be gratefully accepted.


Thanks!


Ken
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Comments

  • Elizabeth Perron
    Elizabeth Perron
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant
    Hi


    I have moved this forum post to the RE Community in hopes of getting more product specific eyes & replies...


    In harmony and inclusion,

    Elizabeth

    Blackbaud Community Team
  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 January 2026 Monthly Challenge 2025 bbcon Attendee Badge
    Kenneth Hontz‍ Great place to start with clean up!  So key and yes I agree constit codes should be limited set.  I'm still working on clean up too.  Have numerous codes that no one seems to be able to tell me what they are indicative of. :) 


    I see you've been in community for a bit but you may find some of these other posts about constituent codes helpful. One poster said they were cleaning up a list of 8000 codes. Makes my clean up look easy.  This is just some of the threads related to constituent codes.


    My general guideline has always been constituent code should tell my why that record is in the database - what is their relationship to us (ex: Endowment Holder). Any specific details or additional info can be captured in attributes (ex: type of endowment, membership details).


    Wishing you the best on your project. 

    https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/143/48834?post_id=189347#p189347

    https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/160/15331?post_id=48230#p48230

    https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/147/36268?post_id=136527#p136527

    https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/147/27254?post_id=97665#p97665
  • Bill Connors
    Bill Connors
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper
    I have two free resources on Cons Codes on my website at https://billconnors.com/resources and chapter 2 of my book on RE talks about cons codes -- if those ideas help.  Thanks.
  • Joan Blue
    Joan Blue
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 1 Facilitator 1
    Ken - 

        The key to whatever you come up with is consistency!  And consistency is born of carefully, with more than one person, thinking through all the basic descriptors you want to list for a record.   Then figue outof they are defining descriptors or modifying escriptors.  The Constituent Code list should be fairy static, and should stay as a limited list.   With all that said - I find an easy way to distinguish between Constituent Codes and Attributes is to go back to 4th grade grammar: 

         Constituent Code = Noun that defines the record for your organization.  ( My personal preference is, this definition does not change as a record interacts with your org.anization.) 

         Attributes = Adjectives - - they tell you more about the record.  And there can be lots of descriptors/adjectives (as long as they are categorized well, and use Tables for the descriptions, staying away from text description.)

       Best of luck with project.  (And don't forget, you'll need to clean up your gift constituent codes as well.)

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