I would like Populi to serve as our seminary directory, so I have entered into the system people like members of the Board of Regents, volunteers, and spouses of students. However, once activated as users, these people can only search and find others users who have active user roles (faculty, staff, or student). In other words, Board of Regents members can't see other BoR members, and wives can't search for other wives, etc. This has nothing to do with whether these other profiles are public or private, but is a result of their lack of a user role. I would envision a solution going in one of two ways:
1. Create a setting that would allow us to set a default visibility for various user roles or system tags. Thus, we could tick or untick roles or tags that we wish to hide from users who do not have the relevant staff privileges. We could then keep donors hidden but open up all other profiles in the system to all users so long as they are not specifically marked private--and only their public information would be displayed. Or ...
2. Create a new user role (e.g. "Community member") that would give such people an access level similar to that of an active student.
Of the two, it seems to me that the second option would be simpler, as it would entail a mere tweaking of the existing student role.
A further benefit of number two is that these "community members" could be given read-only access to course offerings and scheduling information, which helps them to know what's going on at any given time. In our seminary, for example, such community members have the right to audit courses for free--but they need to see what's happening before deciding whether to apply for an audit (and thus become a student).