Mailing List for Non-Giving Constituents

Whitney Wallerius
Whitney Wallerius
Fourth Anniversary Participant
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions
Hello! I'm new to the development world and new to Blackbaud/RE, but I'm now in charge of development and the database at my small org. I'm currently going through our data practices and proposing changes that include whittling down our constituent codes and moving excess information to its proper home or to attributes.

We have a group of constituents under what we call "mail code." These are people who do not give, but are either potential prospects or had past non-financial engagement with our org. They periodically receive communication from us until they've gone through the cycle and are removed. I'm not really sure how to ask my question, but basically does anyone else have a way that they segment constituents who don't give but are in the system for a variety of reasons? I'd rather them not all be under the constituent code: mail. It just feels like a random group, but they all got in the group because no one knew what to do with them.

Additionally, if you have any tips for a newbie, I'll take anything!

Thank you!!

Comments

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 January 2026 Monthly Challenge 2025 bbcon Attendee Badge
    Good question, Whitney. Welcome to the BB community!

    Best wishes on your clean up projects! Lots of fun some days. Not so much other days.


    At previous org, when we would upload lists from various committees/chamber listings before each capital campaign or names added by our volunteer solicitors, we used a constituent code of Prospective Donor. This worked well for us. Might be more work than some want to keep updated but I liked it. As all the db work fell on me, I made sure codes were updated. I had constituent window up during batch gift entry so I could see if that code needed to be changed. Also ran query once a month to check for any that were missed (code prospective donor/gift summary total more than $1 type criteria). We also used an attribute of record source where we tracked how the record came into the db. That allowed for clean up like when no activity/relationship added from one of these 'external' sources.


    Here non-donors who are not coded with primary code of alum or faculty/staff get a Friend of Mines code. Same code used for donors as we don't have too many non-donors who don't have one of the primary codes.


    If it's a group you don't know what to do with perhaps you may want to just change the code to something a little more descriptive or friendly like Mailing list friend. Just a thought.
  • Heather MacKenzie
    Heather MacKenzie
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 August 2025 Monthly Challenge Badge bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge
    Great suggestion and process by JoAnn Strommen‍!


    If your records need to have that elsewhere than the constituent code, I'd suggest a combo of the Consent area or Solicit Codes with a Note to record what added, when, and why. This would also mean a periodic review to move records off that status when they no longer qualify. I'd set up a query to do that with.


    Tips for you as a newbie - come here to the Community often, and search before you ask, because it could already be here. Take all the classes you can. Don't be shy about asking "why" and "when" questions to your co-workers and boss. (If they feel attacked, you can explain it's because you want to learn!) Another resource is the Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/REUserGroup).


    Best of luck in your new spot!
  • Faith Murray
    Faith Murray Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper
    Ditto to JoAnn Strommen‍. We mark all miscellaneous donors as "Friend". Highly recommend the "Donor Source" attribute. We have been using it for about five years, and it has made life so much easier for tracking conversions, acquisition success rates, and data hygiene. For specific mailing lists (such as to enroll somebody in your newsletter), that would be best done in Solicit Codes/consent.
  • Potique Johnson
    Potique Johnson
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    Whitney,

    We use the attribute tab and tag them as a “One Time Memorial Gift” or a “One Time Gift”.

    You can create queries based on attributes so it is easy to weed them out of mailings if you need to do so. Once they donate again, we remove the designation of One Time Gift from their record and make sure that they are designated as a “donor” in the constituent code

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