Relationships

Relationships are familial, social, or professional associations with the constituent. Successful fundraising revolves around the ability to cultivate and manage all types of relationships. When you add a relationship for a constituent, the relationship appears on both constituents’ Relationships tabs. To view and manage the relationships for a constituent, select the Relationships tab.

You can also view an employment history of an individual or organization constituent. For more information, see Employment History.

Note: To view a hierarchal view of the relationships entered on the Relationships tab, select Extended Network under More information. The Extended Network page appears. For information about the items on this page, see Extended Network.

Under Relationships, the individual, organization, group, and household relationships of the constituent appear.

• Individual relationships are the people with whom the constituent is associated, such as a spouse, friend, family member, or business associate.

• Organization relationships are the businesses, churches, agencies, and other organizations that have an association with the constituent. For example, a constituent can be a member of cultural organization, an employee of an business, or a board member of a nonprofit organization.

• Household relationships show the association between constituent households and the constituents included in the households. A household can have multiple constituents as members, but a constituent can be a member of only one household.

• Group relationships show the association between constituents and the constituent groups to which they belong. Group relationships include families made up of multiple households, giving circles, and family foundations.

When you add relationships to constituents, you specify the reciprocal relationship. If you add a relationship type of “Father” to a constituent, the reciprocal relationship might be “Son” or “Daughter.” The most common relationship pairs become the default reciprocal relationships. If your organization has more father/daughter pairs than father/son pairs, the default reciprocal relationship when you add a relationship type of “Father” will be “Daughter.” However, you can still select “Son” or any other value for the reciprocal relationship.

For each relationship in the grid, you can view the name and type of the related constituent, the relationship type, the start and end dates of the relationship. To help find a specific relationship, you can filter the relationships that appear. On the action bar, select Filter, select the criteria of the relationship to view, and select Apply. You can select to view only current or contact relationships and those of a specific relationship type.

You can also limit the relationships that appear in the grid to individuals, organizations, groups, households, or any combination of these relationship categories.

To view additional detail information about a relationship, select the item in the grid and select Show Details on the action bar. The Details window appears and displays additional information, based on relationship type. For example, for individual relationships, you can view whether the relation is the spouse of or shares a household with the constituent. For organization relationships, you can view whether the constituent is a contact for the organization, the position the constituent holds with the organization, whether the organization is the primary business for the constituent, and whether the organization matches the constituent’s gifts.

Each relation has its own constituent record in the database. To view the constituent record of a relation, select the relation in the grid and select Go to constituent type on the action bar.

Note: From an organization constituent record, you can also write a letter to the contact of the organization. Under Relationships, select the individual to receive the letter and select Write a letter on the action bar. For information about how to write a letter, see Write a Letter to a Constituent.

From the grid, you can also manage the relationships of the constituent.