Primary Contacts - Best practice - make them a full constituent?

Diana Gray · July 1

What are your rules for Primary Contacts? Do you make them full constituents? By making them a full constituent, It seems like there is a lot more flexibility with coding so that you can do things like identifying a subset for specific types of communications.

JoAnn Strommen · July 1

@Diana Gray We do not make them a constituent. If your org feels you need to for communication purposes, go for it. If you do a lot of communications to them, I can see where RE might be limiting.

We have not found that need. When we have needed to send, we have been able to do it thru mail org criteria settings.

Joe Moretti · July 1

@Diana Gray Every organizations is going to be different on this matter. We only make a primary contact for an ORG have their own record if they give money on their own or if they become a board member.

Dariel Dixon · July 1

@Diana Gray What constituency would they have? I'm not a fan of creating records for people because of their position. That includes government or elected officials. I know the last part is an unpopular take, but it's the next level of the same issue.

Here's the rub though…if you really are going to be contacting them so frequently that all those options are necessary, then you would have to create full records for them for that. My question is why does it matter? If they make a gift/volunteer/some action that needs changes their relationship with your organization, then you create the record for them at that time.

Diana Gray · July 1

@Dariel Dixon Thanks, Daniel. The codes for example: “Primary” or “Secondary” sometimes require further defining. We may want to occasionally send to a subset from each of these groups because particular contacts from each of these groups are interested in one of our program offerings. If the contact is a full constituent there are many options for coding so you can capture this subset. How would you handle this if the contact is not a full constituent?

Dariel Dixon · July 3

@Diana Gray: If this is the case, I think you have to treat these contacts as prospective constituents. I would then follow your org's coding on prospects for those individuals.

@Dariel Dixon Thanks, Daniel. The codes for example: “Primary” or “Secondary” sometimes require further defining. We may want to occasionally send to a subset from each of these groups because particular contacts from each of these groups are interested in one of our program offerings.

Primary Contacts - Best practice - make them a full constituent?

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