You can build as many committees as you wish. Since each Member you add to a committee has dates associated with his/her membership, you don't necessarily need to create a new committee for each year - for example instead of creating committees called 'Gala Planning <%= Year(Date() %>' and 'Gala Planning <%= Year(Date()+1 %>' you could simply have a single committee called 'Gala Planning' and it's members each have terms that fall within the fiscal year when they were on the committee.

Everyone who is ever a Member of a regular committee will have a corresponding Master Flag added to their Household or Organization to denote them as a Current or Former Committee Member.

By default, you will have 2 special committees already in Donor Mine™
A committee called 'Board of Directors' - this should be your primary committee for listing all of your duly elected Board Members. Everyone who is ever a Member of this specific committee will have a corresponding Master Flag added to their Household or Organization to denote them as a Current or Former Board Member.

A committee called 'Staff' - this should be your primary committee for listing all of your staff members (and consultants if you have long-standing relationships with them). Everyone who is ever a Member of this specific 'committee' will have a corresponding Master Flag added to their Household or Organization to denote them as a Current or Former Staff Member. While 'Staff' isn't truly a committee, it is a useful way to organize records in your database.

You can use the Committee structure to organize other groups that aren't technically committees - if you present a stage play, you could create a 'committee' of your cast and crew with the start and end dates of their 'terms' being the beginning and end of the play's production period.


On several of the Board Module pages you will see a grid listing the committees in your system. Each view of this grid contains some or all of these fields:

• Commitee - the name of this committee. Click to edit information about the committee name and purpose.


• # Current Members - this shows you how many members are currently on this committee. Click on the number to view current and former members.


• Start and End dates - What are the dates of this committee - when did it begin and when will it end it's purpose? Only current committees will show up on most of your Committee Grids.


• Purpose/Notes - these are notes that have been entered about the purpose and function of this committee.


• Order - What order should this appear on the Committee Grid List? There are 3 levels of order: 1 - Permanent committees that should appear at the top of any list, such as 'Board of Directors' or 'Trustees.' There will probably only be one or two at this level. 2 - Long-term, your big long term committees such as the 'Executive Committee of the Board of Directors' or the 'Finance Committee.' There will probably be a few at this level. 3 - Short Term / General committees - everything else.
  
• Roster - listed here are 2 different roster views that you can use to print a roster of this committee.

When you add or edit a Committee, these are the fields you will see:

• Commitee - Give each committee a unique Name. If similar committees will exist in the future, use similar names so they alphabetize correctly.


• Start and End dates - What are the dates of this committee - when did it begin and when will it end it's purpose? Only current committees will show up on most of your Committee Grids.


• Purpose - What is the purpose of this committee. Have a defined purpose for each committee helps members tay focused and on track. Use this field to explain why a committee existed for future database users.


• General Schedule - Does this committee meet monthly, weekly, yearly? Leave a note here to explain this to other users.


• Staff Note - Any staff note to add to this committee?


• Order - What order should this appear on the Committee Grid List? There are 3 levels of order: 1 - Permanent committees that should appear at the top of any list, such as 'Board of Directors' or 'Trustees.' There will probably only be one or two at this level. 2 - Long-term, your big long term committees such as the 'Executive Committee of the Board of Directors' or the 'Finance Committee.' There will probably be a few at this level. 3 - Short Term / General committees - everything else.