Add Constituent Groups

Your organization may find it important to track groups of constituents. For example, multiple constituents may pool their funds together to donate to your organization in a joint effort or you may have a group of constituents who serve on a committee for your organization. You can add the constituent group to your database. When you add a constituent group, you can enter information about the group and select the members of the group. Each member of the group must be a constituent in your database.

If you want to add a group of constituents as a committee, you can use Add a committee to add a group with a constituency of “Committee” or you can add a group and manually assign it the “Committee” constituency. When you add a committee, you can indicate whether or not the committee can coordinate events or solicit revenue, which regular groups cannot do.

Note: Before you can add a constituent group, you must define its group type in the database.

From Constituents, select Add a group. The Add a group screen appears. Or, to add a group as a committee, select Add a committee. The Add a committee screen appears.
For information about the items on either screen, see Add a Group Screen.

Note: Committees are groups with a constituency of Committee. You can add a group and assign it the committee constituency, or you can select Add a committee to add a group that already has the constituency.
Select the Details tab.
Enter a unique name and description to help identify the group.
In the Primary contact field, search for and select the constituent who acts as the main contact for the group.
In the Group type field, select the type of the constituent group.
If the selected group type can be a donor, the Group gives anonymously checkbox is enabled. If the group requests to donate anonymously, select this checkbox.
If you add the group as a committee, select whether the committee can coordinate events, solicit revenue, or set committee goals.
Under Group member data, select whether summaries about the group should include all constituent information about its members or only constituent information as of a specific date, such as when the group formed. If you select Consolidate member data as of, select the date in the field.
Under Group primary contact information, to use the address information entered for the primary contact, select Copy from primary contact. Otherwise, select the type of address to use as the primary address for the group and enter the information.

If the group or contact requests that you not send mail to the address, select Do not send mail to this address and select the reason why the group does not want to receive mail at the address.
With Data Tune-Up, you can use an address validation service to verify the address entered exists. When you use the address validation service, the program updates missing or incomplete information such as the (Undefined variable: BB_Variables.ZIP Code_UC), and standardizes the street address.

To not include the address entered when your organization runs the address validation process, select Omit from validation.

To run the address validation process for the address now, select Validate. The program updates the address fields accordingly. If the program cannot validate the address, a message appears to ask whether to search for the address. To select the address from the address validation results, select Yes. For information about how to validate a single address, see “Validate an Address for a Constituent” on page 29.
In the Phone type field, select the type of phone number to use as the primary number for the group. In the Phone number field, enter the phone number to use to contact the group.

If the group requests that you not call the number, select Do not call this phone number and select the reason to explain why the number is not to be used, such as Donor preference.
In the Email type field, select the type of email address to use as the primary email address for the group. In the Email address field, enter the email address to use to contact the group.

If the group requests that you not send email to the address, select Do not send email to this address.
If the group has a website, in the Website field, enter its complete web address.
In Information source, select the source for the group’s contact information to indicate how you received the information.

Note: Sources help you track additional information about the reasons for new or changed contact information. The information source appears next to the new or updated contact information on the Contact tab of the constituent.
To add information about the members of the group, select the Members tab.
Under Current members, the primary contact automatically appears. To add an additional member to the group, search for and select the constituents to add as members.
To add additional members to the group based on the relationships of a current member:
1. Under Current members, select the constituent with the relationship to add. Under Find additional constituents, the relationships of the selected constituent appear. To view the relationships of a constituent under Find additional constituents, select the plus sign next to the constituent.
2. Under Find additional constituents, select the constituents to add as members.
3. Select Add selected. Under Current members, the selected constituents appear.
Note: To remove a constituent from the Current members box, delete the row for the constituent.
Select Save. The record of the constituent group appears. For information about the items on a constituent group record, see Constituent Group Record.