I do community building with a (non-student, non-religious, non-EA) group that talks a lot about pretty sensitive topics, and we explicitly ask for permission to record things in the CRM. We don’t ask “can we put you in our database?”; we phrase it as “hey, I’d love to connect you with XYZ folks in the chapter who have ABC in common with you, would you mind if I take some notes on what we talked about today, so I can share with them later?” But we take pretty seriously the importance of consent and privacy in the work that we’re doing.
Also, as someone who was in charge of recruitment at a sorority in college where ~half the student body was Greek-affiliated… yeah, community builders should have CRMs. We just don’t call them CRMs; we call them “Potential New Member Sheet” or something.
It does feel a bit slimy, but I think this is pretty normal, and if done well, not likely to put off the folks we’re worried about.
I do community building with a (non-student, non-religious, non-EA) group that talks a lot about pretty sensitive topics, and we explicitly ask for permission to record things in the CRM. We don’t ask “can we put you in our database?”; we phrase it as “hey, I’d love to connect you with XYZ folks in the chapter who have ABC in common with you, would you mind if I take some notes on what we talked about today, so I can share with them later?” But we take pretty seriously the importance of consent and privacy in the work that we’re doing.
Also, as someone who was in charge of recruitment at a sorority in college where ~half the student body was Greek-affiliated… yeah, community builders should have CRMs. We just don’t call them CRMs; we call them “Potential New Member Sheet” or something.
It does feel a bit slimy, but I think this is pretty normal, and if done well, not likely to put off the folks we’re worried about.