Glossary
Sponsor Genealogy
Sponsor genealogy is the record of who personally recruited each distributor into the company, forming a tree based on real world recruiting relationships. This tree usually stays fixed once a distributor joins, and it is the genealogy most compensation plans use to calculate personal sponsor bonuses.
Also called: sponsor tree, recruiting tree, enroller tree
Why it matters
Sponsor genealogy can differ from placement genealogy, since a plan may allow a distributor to place a newly recruited person under someone else in the organization for volume or matrix purposes, even though the recruiter remains the recorded sponsor. Knowing which genealogy a bonus is based on is necessary to understand who actually gets paid for a new recruit.
Example
A distributor personally recruits her neighbor, so the neighbor's sponsor genealogy always shows that distributor as the sponsor, even if the company's placement rules later position the neighbor elsewhere in the organizational structure.