Think about {that a} month-to-month donor contributes a further donation to your group’s newest marketing campaign. After they signed up to your month-to-month giving program, they listed their deal with as “123 Smith Avenue.” Nonetheless, after they gave their extra contribution, they listed their deal with as “123 Smith St.”
Whereas each addresses are technically right, your constituent relationship administration platform (CRM) might register them as completely different and create a brand new profile. Since your system will deal with these entries as two separate individuals, you would overlook to thank the supporter or unintentionally solicit one other donation at an inappropriate time, probably harming your relationship with that donor.
Keep away from these conditions by maintaining your donor database clear and arranged. That manner, you make sure you’re reaching out to the correct individuals on the proper time to construct stronger relationships. Comply with the ideas on this information to develop a complete information hygiene routine.
Keep the data you accumulate commonly.
Create a schedule to commonly keep the data you accumulate and save in your donor database. That manner, you’ll have devoted time every day or week to make modifications and guarantee your information is as correct as potential. A few of these common upkeep actions embrace:
- Coming into new information. Report new info from donor interactions, assembly notes, survey information, and different engagement metrics in your CRM as quickly as potential. Bloomerang recommends utilizing a CRM that compiles this info in strong donor profiles and interprets this information into actionable engagement and generosity scores for finest outcomes.
- Updating current information. Information decays at a price of about 30% per 12 months, partly as a consequence of modifications in donors’ lives. For instance, if a donor strikes and will get a brand new cellphone quantity, you’ll need to replace this info in your CRM to energy textual content communications and text-to-give campaigns. Survey your donors commonly to acquire their most up-to-date contact info. Integrating your CRM and cost processor may enable you pull up to date info from donation transactions and incorporate it into your donor profiles.
- Backing up your database. To keep away from dropping vital supporter info, again up your database as ceaselessly as potential. Some donor database software program robotically updates your group’s information to the cloud or a tough drive, permitting you to deal with different areas of information hygiene.
Stop donor information entry errors or inconsistencies by creating guidelines that get your group on the identical web page. As an illustration, you might solely use deal with abbreviations like “St.” and “Rd.” and inform group members to edit entries that don’t use abbreviations to streamline your database.
Carry out larger-scale upkeep and evaluation actions month-to-month.
Along with the earlier upkeep actions, it is best to deal with a number of extra complicated duties month-to-month to maintain your database clear and equip group members with the most recent info about your group and its campaigns. These embrace:
- Figuring out and merging duplicate data. Establish duplicate data and decide whether or not you’d like your group to merge these data or just delete the extraneous entries. That manner, you guarantee all supporter info is in a single location, permitting you to succeed in out to them and construct relationships primarily based on probably the most correct information.
- Operating studies to replace your group members. Clear information is actionable information. When you’ve organized the data in your database, pull studies on related metrics and share them along with your group to replace them in your group’s present state. For instance, you might report on what number of new donors you receive every month to guage your donor acquisition efforts month-to-month. This train may enable you put together to your annual report because you’ll commonly summarize and analyze key information factors.
- Reviewing fundraising marketing campaign exercise. Along with extra basic studies, overview your fundraising exercise and inform your workers members about your progress. Whether or not you’re internet hosting a capital marketing campaign, push for main items, peer-to-peer fundraising marketing campaign, or a one-time occasion, this information will inspire and drive them to succeed in their fundraising objectives.
Take into account assigning a knowledge steward to preside over these actions every month. Alternatively, you might appoint a group member in every division to scrub and report on their very own information.
Cleanse your information.
With the assistance of exterior suppliers or assets, you may run extra intensive information cleanses that rid your database of unuseful or outdated info. Take the time to cleanse your information by:
- Operating an NCOA replace. On common, 12.6% of People transfer annually. Use the Nationwide Change of Tackle database to make certain you have got the most recent deal with info to your supporters. That manner, you may contact donors with fundraising and advertising and marketing supplies by way of junk mail and section them primarily based on location. Higher but, leverage a CRM that features automated nightly NCOA scans to take another process off your plate
- Leveraging suppression companies. Purging your donor record of those that can’t or don’t need to have interaction along with your trigger ensures you protect assets for these desperate to lend their assist. For instance, eradicating deceased people out of your mailing record prevents you from contacting their surviving spouses or family members with appeals. Moreover, you might suppress supporters on the “Do Not Mail” record so that you don’t ship them direct advertising and marketing messages.
You must also audit your complete database yearly to pinpoint probably the most evident downside areas and resolve them.
Append lacking info.
Cleansing your database might reveal that you simply’re lacking very important details about your supporters. On this case, conduct a knowledge append to fill in any gaps and spherical out your database.
The principle sorts of information your group can append embrace:
- Demographic information, equivalent to age and gender
- Contact info, equivalent to cellphone numbers and electronic mail addresses
- Geographic information to focus on supporters primarily based on location
- Monetary info, equivalent to revenue and web value
- Life-style information, equivalent to different causes your donors contribute to
Let’s say you’re operating an electronic mail advertising and marketing marketing campaign however discover that you simply solely have electronic mail addresses for 40% of your supporters. To rectify this concern, you may work with a knowledge supplier to supply supporter electronic mail addresses and add them to your database.
Search for a supplier with complete safety measures to guard delicate donor information. Inquire about your supplier’s personal information hygiene technique as effectively to make sure they supply correct, up to date info.
Information is just useful to your nonprofit if it’s clear and tidy. Use these finest practices to make certain your group successfully types, organizes, and updates supporter info. Then, you may leverage it for segmentation, personalization, and stewardship to construct stronger donor relationships.