Automatic Constituent Matching

When someone completes a donation or registration form in Raiser's Edge NXT on behalf of themselves or an organization, gives through JustGiving, or creates a JustGiving fundraising page, Raiser's Edge NXT uses the constituent information to search for an existing constituent record to update before it creates a new one. This reduces the number of duplicate records and saves you time so you don't need to manually review new constituents as potential duplicates.

Raiser's Edge NXT updates the existing individual constituent record if it finds an exact match for name and either email, phone, or address:

  • Last name — When a last name is hyphenated, or there are two last names, Raiser's Edge NXT uses both names to find a match.

  • First name or Preferred name — Raiser's Edge NXT also searches for common first name alternatives, such as Mike and Michael, and considers them a match.

  • Email address or Phone number — Raiser's Edge NXT searches all email addresses and phone numbers, not just those marked as primary. If a person’s name includes a suffix, the existing record must include the same suffix or not include one all. For example, if the person’s name includes Sr, but the existing record doesn’t, Raiser's Edge NXT considers the records a match.

  • Address — Raiser's Edge NXT searches all addresses, not just the one marked as primary. To prevent errors when a Jr and Sr share an address, if a person’s name includes a suffix, the existing record must also include the same suffix. Otherwise, Raiser's Edge NXT creates a new record.

    Tip: To review addresses updated by Raiser's Edge NXT forms, create a constituent query in the database view and use Preferred Address Date Added and Preferred Address Added By as criteria. When Preferred Address Added By contains NXT System User, the address was updated through Raiser's Edge NXT forms.

Note: Currently, the criteria Raiser's Edge NXT uses to match existing constituent records isn't available to edit.

Raiser's Edge NXT creates a new constituent record when:

  • It finds a match on multiple existing records, because it doesn't know which of them to update. To avoid this, clean up your existing potential duplicates from Tools, Data health. For more information, see Manually merge duplicates.

  • It finds a match for the last name and email address, phone, or address but not first name, because the person might be a family member or spouse of an existing constituent.

Note: To also check for existing records when people use online registration forms to register guests, you must configure the form. For more information, see Constituent Matching for Participant Records.

Raiser's Edge NXT updates the existing organization constituent record if it finds an exact match for:

  • Organization name

It creates a new constituent record when:

  • It finds a match on multiple existing records, because it doesn't know which of them to update. To avoid this, clean up your existing potential duplicates from Tools, Data health. For more information, see Manually merge duplicates.

Tip: From Tools, Data health, you can clean up duplicates that slip into your database. For more information, see Manually merge duplicates.