Rails - Mar 2005 - ActiveRecord Newbie

I''m working on a script to propagate the database for my Rails app, and
I''m
running into trouble with ''validates_uniqueness_of'' not
behaving the way I
want/expect.

I have a simple table of organizations ...

   class Organization < ActiveRecord::Base
     validates_presence_of :name
     validates_uniqueness_of :name
     ...
   end

I need to ensure that an organization exists in the DB, and be able to
retrieve its id, before I start assigning people to it.  So I tried:

   org = Organization.new( ''name'' => "Some
Organization", ... )
   org.save
   orgid = org.id

This does work, when "Some Organization" *doesn''t* exist, but
when it does,
orgid is nil.  I expected AR to create the org if it doesn''t exist, but
also
to SELECT the org if it already exists.  Since it appears not to work this
way, I need to resort to:

   org = Organization.find_by_name( "Some Organization" )
   if org.nil?
     org = Organization.new( ''name'' => "Some
Organization", ... )
     org.save
   end
   orgid = org.id

But I can''t shake the feeling that there has *got* to be a better way. 
Can
anyone throw some clue my way?

Thanks ..

-- Steve