Using the Org Directory in ActivistCentral

The Org Directory gives you a place to keep track of the schools, worksites, committees, districts, and other organizations that are part of your network — and connect them to the people in your Contacts directory.

Instead of repeatedly storing the same organization information on individual contacts, you can create the organization once and connect the appropriate people to it.

Org Directory vs. Contacts

The distinction is simple:

Contacts are people.

Org Directory records are the organizations, schools, worksites, committees, and other places those people are connected to.

For example, a union might have Contacts who work at Lincoln Elementary. Rather than treating Lincoln Elementary as another Contact, you can create it in the Org Directory and connect each appropriate person to it.

Org records provide context for your Contacts. They are not campaign recipients and are never directly sent Email, SMS, or Robocall messages.

Add an organization

Go to:

CRM → Org Directory

Select Add Org.

Enter a name for the organization and choose an Org Type.

You can also add optional information such as:

• Description
• Email
• Phone
• Website
• Address
• City
• State
• Postal code

Only the organization name is required.

Select Save when you're finished.

Choose an organization type

ActivistCentral provides several organization types:

• Organization
• School
• Committee
• Worksite
• District
• Other

Choose the type that best describes the record.

Organization types help you organize and filter the Org Directory. They don't change how the organization behaves elsewhere in ActivistCentral.

You can also change an organization's type later if necessary.

Find organizations

The Org Directory provides a searchable directory of the organizations in your workspace.

Use Search by name to find a particular organization, or use the type filters to show only:

• Organizations
• Schools
• Committees
• Worksites
• Districts
• Other

You can combine a name search with an organization type to narrow the directory further.

Select an organization's name to open its profile.

Connect a Contact to an organization

Connections are created from the individual Contact's profile.

Open the Contact you want to connect and find the Connections section.

Select:

Add connection

Choose the appropriate Connection type, then search for the organization you want to connect.

Depending on the relationship, connection types can include options such as:

• Works at
• Member of
• Serves on
• Student at
• Assigned to
• Other

You can also add an optional Title / role and Start date.

For example, you might connect a Contact to Lincoln Elementary using:

Works at → Lincoln Elementary

with:

Title / role → Teacher

Select Save connection to finish.

A Contact can be connected to multiple organizations, and an organization can be connected to many Contacts.

View the people connected to an organization

Open an organization from the Org Directory to see its profile.

The People section shows the Contacts currently connected to that organization.

Select a person's name to open their Contact profile.

This gives you convenient navigation in both directions:

Contact → connected organization

and:

Organization → connected people

For example, you can open Lincoln Elementary to see the people connected to that school, then open an individual Contact to see that person's other information and connections.

Edit an organization

Open an organization and select Edit Org, or use Edit from the Org Directory.

You can update its name, type, description, contact information, website, and address.

Connections are linked to the organization itself rather than its name. That means you can rename an organization without having to reconnect its people.

For example, if a worksite changes its name, update the Org record once and the new name will appear wherever that organization is referenced.

Organizations and outreach

Org Directory records provide context for your Contacts, but they are not themselves outreach recipients.

An email address or phone number stored on an Org record is informational. ActivistCentral does not treat that organization as a person to email, text, or call during a campaign.

Outreach is always directed to individual Contacts.

Currently, an organization connection is also not a Saved List filter. If you need to communicate with a particular group of Contacts, use Tags, Saved Lists, and the other available Contact filters to build the appropriate audience.

Practical ways to use the Org Directory

How you use the Org Directory will depend on your organization.

A teachers union might create records for:

• Schools
• School districts
• Committees
• Union worksites

A labor organization might use it for:

• Employers
• Worksites
• Departments
• Committees

A community organization might use it for:

• Partner organizations
• Neighborhood groups
• Committees
• Community institutions

The goal isn't to create an Org record for everything. Create them when the organization or place provides useful context for the people you work with.

The key idea

The Org Directory helps you represent the network around your Contacts.

Contacts are the people. Org Directory records are the organizations and places connected to those people. Connections tie them together.

Create an organization once, keep its information in one place, and connect the appropriate Contacts to it as your network grows.