Salesforce Data Structure - NPSP Affiliations

The NPSP Affiliations object provides records that document associations between SF Contacts (representing persons) and SF Accounts (used typically) to represent organizations (businesses, nonprofits, foundations, etc.)

However, many groups don't immediately recognize that Affiliation records provide a great deal of flexibility... and can be used to nicely represent data in a superior fashion compared to custom fields in objects like the SF Contacts object

For example:

Board Membership
Many groups track board membership using a custom Contact field. But this only allows a crude tracking through settings like current, former, prospect, etc. The actual time periods and roles played by board members are usually not well tracked by this approach using a board member field on the Contacts object.

By constrast, the Affiiliations object can be used to track the exact start/end date of membership and the actual role played (chair, treasuror, etc) during that time period. By using Affiliation records, the full history of board membership can be tracked and reported exactly. For instance, a SF report can readily indicate who the members were on 1/1/2010.

Here is the approach to use:
- Establish an Account record to represent your organization
  For example Acme Charities
- Establish an Account record to represent your board, and link the Account used to represent your organization as a parent
  For example Acme Charities Board of Directors
- Establish Affiliation records that link a Contact record representing the board member with the board Account. A separate Affiliation record should be used to represent each time period when this contact served on the board in a specific role.
  If the role changes, from say treasuror to secretary, set the appropriate end date value on the Affiliation representing the treasuror role, and establish a new one appropriate for representing the new role.
Committe Membership
The same general approach outlined above for board membership can be used. Just establish a different Account record representing the committee.

For instance, you might create a child Account named Acme Charities Fundraising Committee, Acme Charities Volunteer Committee, etc.
Employment
Use the same general approach, but using Affiliation records that link Contact records representing employees to the Account record used to represent your organization
Subscriptions, Mailing List Memberships, etc
Create a child Account record to represent the subscription, mailing list, etc being tracked, and use Affiliation records to represent start/end date for those contacts, etc.

Last modified: 10:44:04 12-Mar-2015