Constituency Code Use Best Practices

@Jennifer Holdgreve, the article from @JoAnn Strommen covers most of the basics, but I would add one more consideration: how will you act and report on these constituent codes?

Raiser's Edge (both database view and webview) is made to seamlessly break down your annual revenue (as well as lapsing and retention variables) by Constituent Code. This data, in turn, feeds your appeal segmentation strategies. So, it can be tempting to get really specific in your Constituent codes, but at the end of the day, maybe you don't really want to have more than 5 segments in your mailings and so, strategy-wise, maybe it doesn't matter if your donor is a Corporation or a Nonprofit. Maybe you really only want your revenue broken into 4-5 main silos: Friends, Alumni, Board Members, Volunteers, Corporations, etc. Therefore, think about what is truly actionable when you create your main categories.

Most orgs have just a few primary constituent codes, plus some extra sublevels. All constituents should have one of the primary codes, and these should be ordered at the top of your code menu. But then you may have secondary codes that you don't use for your primary reporting and segmenting. So for example, an employee at our org would have a primary code of FRIEND (yes, we put the primary codes all in caps) and a secondary code of "Employee" and "Local". This is because the percentage of employees in our database is so small, there's no strategic benefit to having them sectioned out in our annual reports or appeal segments; thus, their primary code instead is “Friend”.

@Jennifer Holdgreve We currently have 15 active constituent codes and only allow one per constituent. Any other affiliation with the institution is tracked via attribute (VIP community members), relationship (boards, giving clubs), or membership (athletics booster, museum). Hope that helps. Good luck to you!