No longer able to delete duplicates because there is Guidestar History
We have organizations that register multiple times without our realizing it until after we’ve started the review process for
their current request and run Charity Check. If we’re unable to delete these registrations, we’re going to end up with a huge number of duplicate organization registrations that are completely useless and just taking up space because all of the important information has been consolidated. It will also make looking up a grant/request by organization name a much more difficult process because we will have to go through however many empty registrations to find the one we are actually looking for.
There needs to be a way to delete or merge these organization registrations. I came across three just the other day and I hadn’t gone through a fraction of the registrations in our system.
Thanks
Idea posted July 9, 2012 by Mary Nicosia, GMA Foundations
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Mark commented
I am happy to say the process of making it easier to merge organizations and then delete the old ones is the next development effort. It was important to release 3.1 so we could better distinguish organization data from user data. Armed with the feedback from the Big Sky Summit, we will be working on this release. At this point, I am not willing or able to set a definite timeline for when it will be in production but we will keep you updated on the process,
I want to thank all of you for your patience and hope you understand that not allowing organizations with GuideStar history to be deleted was not due to it being hard to delete but rather us not wanting people to delete something that could be very important in an audit. The process on merging all needed data into a single record is complex, but I am confident that the end result will meet your needs while ensuring the process does not expose your organization to purging important historical data.
posted December 19, 2012 by Mark Larimer, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
We, too, have duplicate organizations (from our migration and name changes w/ tax entities) that we can't delate. Betty made a good suggestion a few months ago to add to the org name TO DELETE on the inactive one as a flag to not have anything further entered in it. We do a lot of manual entry, so it's helpful for us, not sure if it's helpful to your orgs or if it maybe inspires another creative, temporary solution.
posted November 15, 2012 by Jen Bokoff, Laurie M Tisch Illumination Fund
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Ideas commented
I understand that I can't remove these duplicate organizations when there is a Charity Check history (and the rationale) but is it possible for Foundant support to remove them? If I send you the name that I have marked "delete" in our system, could you do it? Just a thought.
Thanks!
posted November 14, 2012 by Marla Collum, National Trust for Historic Preservation
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Ideas commented
Mark,
I don't know how other organizations do this, but we check status when checking for completeness. If an organization doesn't have their 501c3, it doesn't make sense for us to forward their proposal for review. I understand the need to check at the time of payment, but Foundant doesn't check for duplicates when an applicant registers and we can't check each and every submission to see if an organization has already registered, so many times Charity Check will be clicked before we know it's a dupe - which still leaves us with the need to delete or merge duplicates.posted July 27, 2012 by Mary Nicosia, GMA Foundations
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Mark commented
Mary,
With the IRS now actively revoking status of Nonprofit organizations who do not file on time, we have had several instances where a customer has encountered the scenario where payment of a multi-year grant is interrupted due to temporary loss of status. Which points to the importance of checking CharityCheck prior to payment of any grant.
I look forward to seeing you in Big Sky.
Cherie,
I do not know if we will be able to record the discussion in a format that will be useful for our non-attending customers, however, I can commit we will post the finished product specifications document we develop during the session for additional feedback from our entire user community. I'll look into if we can somehow webcast or record the discussion.
posted July 26, 2012 by Mark Larimer, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
I'm so sorry that I won't be able to attend t he summit due to budgetary constraints. Duplicate entries is one of my biggest headaches. I hope you tape the session and make it available to those of us that can't attend.
posted July 13, 2012 by Cherie Simmers, Community Foundation of Greater Lakeland
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Ideas commented
Hi Mark,
I understand the idea that a foundation could delete proof of due diligence, but the only way I see that it would be a problem is if the applicant lost their 501c3 status sometime after the grant was made, so maybe a Guidestar check that came back on an organization that no longer had 501c3 status could show the dates the organization did have 501c3 status?
Of course, a way to merge the two registrations to ensure that nothing is lost would probably be best.
Having a session about this sounds like a great idea.
Thanks for the response.
posted July 9, 2012 by Mary Nicosia, GMA Foundations
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Mark commented
Mary,
This is something we are aware of and have been considering options on how to best resolve. We do not want to take the chance of letting a foundation delete proof of their due diligence and end up needing it for an audit sometime in the future.
However, this is a great way to introduce a new planned general session at the Summit 2012 Users' Conference you are attending this Fall. We have been discussing all of the issues around both merging duplicates as well as reducing or eliminating the creation of duplicates in Foundant GLM. Your issue from above is tied directly to how to properly merge contact into a single organization.
For a general session, we plan to open up to the group and show where we are at in the planning stages and what questions we are still uncertain of and then break into smaller groups to give all customers a chance to voice suggestions on how to solves this very real problem. Our commitment from the session is to have time scheduled within our development schedule to work on the solution we come up with from the session.
posted July 9, 2012 by Mark Larimer, Foundant Technologies