Now, let's pause here a minute, because this is the tricky part. The way GCM records donors is legally tied in to the name by which they donated. Here are a few different scenarios that can cause issues:
- With a married couple
- The husband might mail a check with just his name on it, and later the wife mails a check with just her name on it. These are two distinct donors according to GCM.
- A wife may have checks labeled "Jane and John Doe" while a husband's checks may say "John and Jane Doe". These are two distinct donors according to GCM.
- One member of the couple may have died, or the couple may not be divorced. You may see these donors as "John and Jane Doe" and "Jane Doe". These are two distinct donors according to GCM.
- With a Business
- If a donor gives through their business, GCM will have their business as a donor. If they also give personally it is considered a separate donor.
The DataSync will prompt you for each donor that GCM has recorded. The point in mentioning this is that many people would have these related donors as a single contact in TntMPD. It is up to you to decide if you want the contacts listed separately (like GCM) or if you want to combine them into a single TntMPD contact. You can do it either way, but you need to remember that if you combine them in TntMPD, they will not match what you see on staffnet. TntMPD will show you that their are multiple donors associated with a single TntMPD contact (you'll see this at the end of these instructions). If, however, you would like to have everything identical to GCM's records, you should head to http://www.gcmstaff.net and go to MTD > Donors. From the donors page select "All Dates" in the "By Giving" drop down box. This will then give you a list of all donors who have ever given to the account you are responsible for. This list will match the list in the DataSync file, so you can use it as a guide when TntMPD prompts you for each donor individually. Without it you may not realize that you are combining donors into a single contact until later. There is no way to reverse this process. Once you have matched a GCM donor to a TntMPD contact the effect is permanent. Again, there is no way to reverse this process, except by restoring a backup of your TntMPD database from before this initial DataSync and starting the whole process all over again. This is definitely a case of "measure twice, cut once". You might ask your MTD coach what they think you should do.
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