Best Practices: Groups & Committees

Best Practices: Groups & Committees

Groups and Committees in GAIL are great tools for keeping track of different collections of constituents. While they function the same way in GAIL, there is a difference in how they should be used. Committees are Groups with a fundraising component to them. It’s a square/rectangle situation where all Committees are Groups, but not all Groups are Committees. 

Tip: Any group of people with a direct connection to UGA should be a Committee, such as alumni boards, trustees, etc. Any people or offices that are outside of UGA should be a Group, such as legislative staff, local government offices, etc.

What’s in a name…

The first thing you should always do when setting up a new Group or Committee in GAIL is to add the naming convention for your school, college or unit. Not only does this habit allow you to identify your groups more easily, but it allows for better cross-campus collaboration.

Who’s #1?

Setting yourself (or another member of your team) as the Primary Member is also important when managing Groups and Committees. If another staff member has questions or information about one of the constituents in your group, they will know who to contact.
Additionally, you can add Roles to each member to show how they function within your group or committee. Ex: Chair, Staff, Vice Chair, President, etc.
 
Note: if you’re managing a Committee and are worried about skewing fundraising numbers by adding yourself, don’t stress. When you request the selection or report, you can ask for the primary/staff member to be excluded. 

Play to your Strengths

Groups and Committees were specifically created in order to manage members who roll on and off the roster regularly. Instead of creating a new Group/Committee every year for your alumni board, set an end date for last year’s members and add the new board members as active. This way you can keep track of all your members in the same place, and you have the option to sort and filter the members list to show all members, only active members, or only former members.

Tip:

You should never delete members from a group, rather, apply an End Date to preserve the data for historical information and tracking purposes. However, if you added the wrong person by mistake, then that person can be deleted.