Managing constituents effectively begins with accurately tracking constituent contact and current employment information, familial relationships, educational background, contact preferences, and interests. Additionally, you will want to manage volunteer information.
Constituent Types
Constituents are defined in GENERATIONS 3.x as any entity with a relationship to your organization. GENERATIONS 3.x distinguishes between two types of constituents:
- Individuals (these can be a marriage or partnership)
- Organizations
The user determines the constituent type when creating a new constituent record. Constituent information is recorded and managed in the Constituents file.
Constituent Type: Individual
Individual constituents with partners are designated as the primary constituent and his or her partner is designated as the spouse throughout GENERATIONS 3.x. If both the primary constituent and his or her partner are alumni, you may want to create separate records for each in order to manage them more effectively. However, some spousal information can be recorded along with the primary contact information.
This record type distinction drives functionality in two separate ways: how names are configured by the solution and what primary contact information is tracked. For constituents designated as individuals, GENERATIONS 3.x manages nicknames, maiden names and tracks spousal/partner information.
Constituent Type: Organization
Constituents designated as organizations can be linked to individual constituents and, if the organization matches employee contributions, this information can be indicated. Matching contributions are assumed to be one-to-one unless otherwise specified by the user.
Constituent Codes
During the creation of a new constituent record, Constituent Codes (CC) are assigned by the user to help further classify constituents. Constituent Codes are two-letter codes defined during installation of the solution. More than one may be assigned to any given constituent. GENERATIONS 3.x keeps track of all Constituent Codes assigned to a constituent and calculates a final Primary Constituency (PC) code based upon a hierarchy defined during installation. The PC code can be overridden on a record-by-record basis.
The default CC codes are:
AL: Alumnus/Alumni
CS: Current Student
CP: Current Parent
AP: Alumni Parent
TR: Trustee
CG: Current Grandparent
AG: Alumni Grandparent
TE: Trustee Emeritus
NG: Non-grad
FA: Faculty
ST: Staff
FF: Former Faculty
FS: Former Staff
FR: Friend
MG: Matching Gift Company
CO: Company
FD: Foundation
Primary Contact Information
GENERATIONS 3.x tracks one current address for every constituent and one additional alternate address. Dates for seasonal mailings can be indicated for the alternate address and addresses may be archived if needed. An unlimited number of email addresses, mobile phone numbers, pager numbers, and web site addresses can be recorded for each constituent and for his or her spouse.
Using the contact information, GENERATIONS 3.x automatically generates names, addresses and salutations for use in mailing labels, letters, reports, flyers, informational sheets, etc. There are a variety of addressee and salutation types, both formal and informal and with and without spousal information that are generated and can be chosen for specific tasks.
More, any of the addressees and salutations can be overridden on a record-by-record basis to accommodate special circumstances.
Employment Information and Education Histories
Current employment information and educational histories can be recorded for individual constituents and their spouses. Additionally, constituents can be linked to foundations and/or organizations that have been entered as constituents.
Familial Relationships
An unlimited number of familial relationships for individual constituents can be recorded and relationships to both existing constituents and non-constituents can be accommodated. The reciprocal relationship, the date of birth, year of graduation, and sex of the constituent’s relation can all be recorded.
Constituent Attributes
Two types of attributes are tracked by GENERATIONS 3.x: Primary and Secondary Attributes are those attributes that are most common among constituents. There are generally a limited number of Primary Attributes. An example might be that the constituent is a solicitor. Secondary Attributes are those attributes associated with a smaller group of constituents and serve to help further categorize constituents. An example might be that someone regularly attends the golf event.