Answers.Body: <p>It sounds like your expectation is that <em>all</em> contacts are active donors/subscribers unless otherwise excluded. But I think a more common approach to CiviCRM is for a contact to have no particular role unless somehow <em>included</em>. So a contact might just be someone who used to be on staff, or is the brother of one of your donors, or just someone who's phone number you collected a long time ago. These people are not automatically anything. You only take action on them if e.g.</p>
  <ul>
  <li>They sign up to receive mailings (a CiviCRM group)</li>
  <li>They are flagged as a donor of interest (e.g. via a LYBUNT report)</li>
  <li>They are part of a smart group you define (e.g. of recent donors in a geographical area)</li>
  </ul>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-02-17T20:16:45.507Z
Answers.Text: Thank you...  That's a different way of thinking about contacts.  We think of everyone as a potential donor for certain bulk mailings.  
  
  We'll have to look at this other perspective more closely.
Answers.UserDisplayName: ldgpangeo
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-02-18T13:54:39.377Z
Answers.Text: @ldgpangeo you should also consider the legal implications of what you're doing. Sending bulk-emails to everyone you know runs afoul of most country's anti-spam laws. Typically the rule is that users must explicitly opt-in to your list & otherwise you're not allowed to message them.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Coleman
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-02-16T03:07:38.967Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-02-16T03:07:38.967Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Coleman
Body: <p>What is the best practice for contacts that are considered idle?</p>
  <p>We have a number of contacts who gave once 10+ years ago but never since.  We'd like to clean things up so that we don't waste resources chasing these old and idle contacts.  Is there a best method for designating them?  For example:</p>
  <p>We can create a group, but then we need to remember to exclude that group in future mailings.</p>
  <p>We can delete them, but that loses the data about their contributions from years back.</p>
  <p>We could flag them as &quot;do not mail&quot; but that's usually only for people who have opted out.</p>
  <p>How are other groups addressing this?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-07-15T07:44:41.113Z
Comments.Text: If you only want to keep the contact for "statistical purposes" (e.g. keep all activities) a good approach could be to anonimises them using this extension https://github.com/systopia/de.systopia.anonymiser. That would also likely cover privacy requirements. Obviously this would imply that you cannot send mailings to them anymore. If the contacts have no relevant history and you do not want to contact them anymore, simply delete them.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Fabian
Tags: <contacts>
Title: Best practices for idle contacts
ThreadText: # Best practices for idle contacts
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2024-02-16)
  
  What is the best practice for contacts that are considered idle?
  
  We have a number of contacts who gave once 10+ years ago but never since. We'd like to clean things up so that we don't waste resources chasing these old and idle contacts. Is there a best method for designating them? For example:
  
  We can create a group, but then we need to remember to exclude that group in future mailings.
  
  We can delete them, but that loses the data about their contributions from years back.
  
  We could flag them as "do not mail" but that's usually only for people who have opted out.
  
  How are other groups addressing this?
  
  **Tags:** contacts
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: If you only want to keep the contact for "statistical purposes" (e.g. keep all activities) a good approach could be to anonimises them using this extension https://github.com/systopia/de.systopia.anonymiser. That would also likely cover privacy requirements. Obviously this would imply that you cannot send mailings to them anymore. If the contacts have no relevant history and you do not want to contact them anymore, simply delete them.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2024-02-16. Score: 0
  
  It sounds like your expectation is that *all* contacts are active donors/subscribers unless otherwise excluded. But I think a more common approach to CiviCRM is for a contact to have no particular role unless somehow *included*. So a contact might just be someone who used to be on staff, or is the brother of one of your donors, or just someone who's phone number you collected a long time ago. These people are not automatically anything. You only take action on them if e.g.
  
  * They sign up to receive mailings (a CiviCRM group)
  * They are flagged as a donor of interest (e.g. via a LYBUNT report)
  * They are part of a smart group you define (e.g. of recent donors in a geographical area)
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Thank you...  That's a different way of thinking about contacts.  We think of everyone as a potential donor for certain bulk mailings.    We'll have to look at this other perspective more closely.  
  > **username_2**: @username_0 you should also consider the legal implications of what you're doing. Sending bulk-emails to everyone you know runs afoul of most country's anti-spam laws. Typically the rule is that users must explicitly opt-in to your list & otherwise you're not allowed to message them.  
  
  ---
  
  