How the Raiser's Edge Integration Matches Constituents

The first step of syncing data from Trellis into Raiser's Edge is to try and match the Trellis donor with an existing constituent. This article walks through how this process works.

When someone makes a purchase on your Trellis fundraiser, our integration completes three steps:

1. Match or Create a Constituent: Trellis searches your Raiser’s Edge account for an existing constituent using your match criteria. If no match is found, a new constituent is created.
2. Sync Gifts: The gift is added to the constituent according to your gift sync settings.
3. Syncs Event Participants: If you use Events in Raiser’s Edge, attendees are synced as participants.

This article dives into Step 1: Match or Create a Constituent.

Matching Individual Constituents

Trellis uses a two-step process to match purchasers to individual constituents:

• Primary Criteria: Required for the initial search and must exactly match an existing record. Criteria options include Name, Email and Phone Number. If a single match is found, the integration proceeds to sync the gift.
• Secondary Criteria: Used as tie-breakers if multiple matches are found. These criteria can account for small variations (e.g., "exact," "close," or "flexible").

If a single match is not found after evaluating all criteria, Trellis will create a new constituent. If there are multiple matches, Trellis will select the Best Fit constituent recommended by Raiser's Edge.

Matching Organization Constituents

The organization constituent match process follows the same as an individual, with a couple key differences. If a purchase is made on behalf of a company or organization:

• Primary Criteria: Organization Name is required but does not need to exactly match. Flexible matching accounts for common variations (e.g., "Trellis Organization" = "Trellis").
• Secondary Criteria: Additional criteria refine the search if needed.

If a single match is not found, Trellis creates a new organization constituent with the organization name and mailing address provided during checkout.

Preventing Match Errors

To ensure gifts are not added to an incorrect constituent, the constituent match system prioritizes creating accidental duplicates over accidentally matching and syncing data to the wrong constituent.

• False Positives: When the integration matches the wrong constituent. Often happens when the match criteria are too broad.
• False Negative: When the integration fails to find an existing constituent. Often happens when the match criteria are too narrow or there is not enough data on the checkout or constituent to make a match. This can be corrected later using Raiser’s Edge’s de-duplication tools.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do we prevent the integration from creating duplicates?

Check your match criteria to ensure they are configured to allow the system to find matches. If your primary criteria are too narrow, the system will not find any match on its initial search, which means it won't attempt to use secondary criteria. 

Our data shows that having Last Name and Email Address as primary criteria results in the best success rate for finding matches.

Q: Can you match with non-constituents?

Yes, the integration will search both full and non-constituents. Note that non-constituents cannot have gift data added to their record, so they will need to be converted to a full constituent in order to sync correctly.

If the non-constituent is just an event participant (guest of host), then they can remain as non-constituents.

Q: We're running a raffle where donors make purchases over the phone or by mail and don't give us their email address. What should we use as primary match criteria?

In this case, we recommend you use Last Name and Phone Number as primary criteria, as your database will be best set up to match on Phone Number.

Q: The integration synced the gift to the wrong constituent. What happened?

There are a number of possibilities as to why it matched to the wrong constituent:

• Your search criteria are too wide, so a false positive match was made. This usually happens when you do not include email address or phone number as a primary criteria.
• The "wrong" constituent happens to have the same information as the purchaser, according to the match criteria.

Q: What data is added to constituents and can I control what is added?

Our integration never deletes or overrides data, it only ever adds data if it does not already exist. There is no way to configure whether data is added to the constituent.

• For Individuals: All new contact information on the checkout will sync (name, email, phone number, and mailing address)
• For Organizations: Organization name and mailing address syncs, but the purchaser's name, email, and phone number does not. Instead, the individual purchaser is soft credited on the gift, and a relationship is added between the individual and the organization if one does not already exist.

Q: How are mailing addresses matched and saved? 

Our integration will standardize common words in addresses to Canada Post and USPS standards before we match and sync the address.