The Relationships module is ThirdSectorBee’s CRM. It stores three core kinds of record and lets you connect them in any combination.

The three core entities

Contacts are individual people — supporters, donors, volunteers, trustees, staff. Anything that fundamentally is a human.

Organisations are institutional bodies — charities, companies, grant-making foundations, local authorities, churches, schools. Anything that is not a person but is an actor in the world.

Things are physical items involved in the work of the charity — for example a collection tin or a contactless payment terminal.

Any contact, organisation, or thing can be linked to any other. The most common patterns:

  • Contact → Organisation — a contact who works for, volunteers at, or is a trustee of an organisation
  • Contact → Contact — a typed relationship: “colleague of”, “manages”, “trustee of”, “family of”
  • Contact → Thing — a contact associated with a fund, programme, or project

Links are typed where it matters (Contact → Contact carries a relationship type) and untyped where it doesn’t.

Why three entity types, not one?

You could in theory store everything as a single “node” with a type field. ThirdSectorBee splits them because each type has different fields, different access rules, and different conventions in fundraising practice. Keeping them separate makes lists, segments, and reports clearer.

Things cover the physical items your charity uses or manages — when you need to record a piece of equipment or a payment terminal, reach for a Thing rather than bending a Contact or Organisation out of shape.