Privately discussed info in a CRM seems like an invasion of privacy.
Iâve seen non-EA college groups do this kind of thing and it seems quite normal. Greek organizations track which people come to which pledge events, publications track whether students have hit their article quota to join staff, and so on.
Doesnât seem like an invasion of privacy for an orgâs leaders to have conversations like âthis person needs to write one more article to join staffâ or âthis person was hanging out alone for most of the last event, we should try and help them feel more comfortable next timeâ.
My first reaction was âthis is just basic best practice for any people-/ârelationship-focused role, obviously community builders should have CRMsâ.
Then I realised none of the leaders of the student group I was most active in had CRMs (to my knowledge) and I would have been maybe a bit creeped out if they had, which updated me in the other direction.
Then I thought about it more and realised that group was very far in the direction of âfriends with a common interest hang outâ, and that for student groups that were less like that Iâm still basically pro CRMs. This feels obviously true for âadvocacyâ groups (anything explicitly religious or political, but also e.g. environmentalist groups, sustainability groups, help-your-local-community groups, anything do-goody). But I think Iâd be in favour of even relatively neutral groups (e.g. student science club, student orchestras, etc) doing this.
Given how hard it is to keep any student group alive across multiple generations of leadership, not having a CRM is starting to seem very foolhardy to me.
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 donât ask âcan we put you in our database?â; we phrase it as âhey, Iâd 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?â But we take pretty seriously the importance of consent and privacy in the work that weâre 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 donât call them CRMs; we call them âPotential New Member Sheetâ 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 weâre worried about.
Iâve seen non-EA college groups do this kind of thing and it seems quite normal. Greek organizations track which people come to which pledge events, publications track whether students have hit their article quota to join staff, and so on.
Doesnât seem like an invasion of privacy for an orgâs leaders to have conversations like âthis person needs to write one more article to join staffâ or âthis person was hanging out alone for most of the last event, we should try and help them feel more comfortable next timeâ.
I keep going back and forth on this.
My first reaction was âthis is just basic best practice for any people-/ârelationship-focused role, obviously community builders should have CRMsâ.
Then I realised none of the leaders of the student group I was most active in had CRMs (to my knowledge) and I would have been maybe a bit creeped out if they had, which updated me in the other direction.
Then I thought about it more and realised that group was very far in the direction of âfriends with a common interest hang outâ, and that for student groups that were less like that Iâm still basically pro CRMs. This feels obviously true for âadvocacyâ groups (anything explicitly religious or political, but also e.g. environmentalist groups, sustainability groups, help-your-local-community groups, anything do-goody). But I think Iâd be in favour of even relatively neutral groups (e.g. student science club, student orchestras, etc) doing this.
Given how hard it is to keep any student group alive across multiple generations of leadership, not having a CRM is starting to seem very foolhardy to me.
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 donât ask âcan we put you in our database?â; we phrase it as âhey, Iâd 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?â But we take pretty seriously the importance of consent and privacy in the work that weâre 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 donât call them CRMs; we call them âPotential New Member Sheetâ 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 weâre worried about.