COVER STORY
vendor accounts from the Your Mem- bership (YM) platform to the Fonteva application. After working with Orchid Connect, the Fraternity’s Fonteva implemen- tation vendor, and International Headquarters (IHQ) to ensure records were transferred accurately from YM to Fonteva, Williams initially focused on membership records. Duplicate Records: For decades, Kappa Alpha Psi membership records had errors, primarily duplicates. These numerous errors originated during an era when the Fraternity maintained paper-based membership rosters and documentation. In some cases, these errors in membership records predate the establishment of IHQ in 1953. These errors continued after the transition from paper to early com- puter-based systems. The errors were primarily typographical on the original membership record, and the IHQ administrative staff created a new second record for each member as a correction. Regardless of membership status (In Good Standing, Not in Good Standing, Suspended, Chapter Invis- ible, etc.), some members had more than one record in our membership database. Definition of duplicate records: More than one unique ID/ membership record for the same member. The Fonteva application inherited these duplicates from YM. Within the Fonteva platform, Williams reviewed thousands of mem- bership records to identify duplicates, totaling over 900 records. From Williams’s research, most duplicate
records centered on members with initiation dates primarily from the 1910s through the 1970s. He reviewed these duplicates to determine which record the Fraternity maintains and which record(s) to delete. Chapter Invisible: Williams reviewed all membership records containing initiation dates from January 5, 1911 to December 31, 1940, and did not display a member- ship status, Chapter Invisible. He iden- tified nearly 1900 membership records
SOURCE: GKOR End of Fiscal Year 2023-2024
from the designated time required a status update to Chapter Invisible. When these members passed away, no one (chapter, province, fraternity member, and/or family members) noti- fied the Grand Keeper of Records and Exchequer (pre-establishment of IHQ) or IHQ. Hence, a deceased member’s record did not reflect Chapter Invis- ible status. Williams consequently instructed Orchid Connect, to update these records in mass to Chapter Invisible. Going forward, the Grand Chapter and IHQ will benefit from improved reporting and analysis capabilities resulting from eliminating duplicate records and improving IHQ’s ability to categorize deceased members as Chapter Invisible.
Membership Profile: Williams imple- mented enhancements where members can customize their Member Profile: • Include professional, educational, and military service information • Add High School information • Support the Achievement Academy (AA) by selecting their AA cohort • Add LinkedIn information • Benefit from enhanced querying capabilities to search for members • View the obituary (if available) of a member in Chapter Invisible
Chapters: Williams implemented the following changes:
• Streamline chapter statuses Harmonizing chapter statuses in Fonteva benefits the Frater- nity and IHQ, with improved
24 THE JOURNAL ♦ SPRING 2024
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