By: Jayme Klein, Senior Consultant

Fundraising is difficult. What makes it even harder is a database with outdated, inaccurate, and/or inconsistent information. Overhauling months or years of donor data is an overwhelming task, but it doesn’t have to be. What are some steps that can be taken to have your donor information shine as clean as new coins (and bring in a few as well)?

Focus your efforts

First things first, clear away the dust. The American Fundraising Foundation recommends several steps, including starting with an audit. A big picture approach to what is needed can be extremely helpful for what  can feel like a daunting project. Starting with the most obvious queries can help to uncover what else is needed. What’s missing? Look for the glaring omissions in your database and work on filling them over time.

• Birth dates: Constituent birth dates not only facilitate a personal outreach opportunity, but also allows your organization to target particular demographics for campaigns, such as planned giving asks.
• Phone numbers and emails: Make sure that you have a way to contact your constituents and that they are properly coded (personal/business) and formatted (parentheses around the area code or dashes).
• Spouse or significant others: Are these individuals’ names known but not recorded in the database?

Investigative reporting

Some longer-term projects can have a big payoff.

• Contact reports: Is there useful information added to contact reports but not the appropriate field in your database, such as family names or contact information?
• Titles: Are these spelled out or abbreviated? Examples: doctor versus Dr. or chief executive officer versus CEO.
• Unlinked connections: Does your organization engage with multiple members of the same family or business? Are they connected in the relationship section of your database?
• Subsidiaries: Larger corporations often have subsidiaries or local offices that donate to the same cause. Creating an umbrella structure in relationships to show these connections (and having one fundraiser to manage them) can go a long way towards decluttering your database.
• Do not disturb: Are those who want no contact with your organization (or perhaps no email) coded as such?
• Deceased constituents: Are you sending mailings to those who have passed away? If you are sending mailings to their survivors, make sure it is addressed appropriately.

Consistency is key

What are your organization’s rules for data entry? As you approach your data hygiene project, follow the letter of the law of your organization. If rules haven’t been decided, it is a great opportunity to work with your team to create a data entry process that will save much time and many headaches in the future.

Some red flags that I’ve seen throughout my research career include:

• Putting a constituent’s nickname in the first name field.
• Do you use “apartment,” “unit” or “#?” A five digit zip code or “zip+ four?” Make sure that your organization chooses an option and uses it regularly. Standardizing addresses to USPS rules (including capitalization of street names and cities) ensure that your mailings will be properly delivered.
• Duplicate records: Many CRMs offer a de-duping feature to prevent multiple mailings to the same person, skewed data, and general clutter. While this may be an extra charge, some may be included in your subscription.
• Addresses that are marked as out of date or incomplete.

What’s useful to your team? What’s not? Is there a contact field that hasn’t been used in years (ahem, fax numbers)? Alternatively, are the fields that your team uses marked correctly? Business emails should be marked as such, just like cell and home phones (when known).

Tools of the trade

One of the most important tools at our disposal is to purchase a data append. As Double the Donation so thoroughly described, “a data append is the process of adding missing or updating existing data points in an organization’s database. The process involves comparing the information in the nonprofit’s current database to that stored in a larger, more comprehensive data source.” Data appends can help to identify new mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers as well as constituents in your database that are deceased. Additionally, appends can identify those on the national Do Not Call and Do Not Mail lists. Appends, such as the ones offered by AlumniFinder, can even find demographic information, such as education, employment, interests and family structure. As always, the information should always be manually confirmed.

Moving forward

Now that you’ve done the hard work of cleaning up your CRM, your team has lots of options about where it can go from here. Most importantly, implementing the policies and procedures regarding data entry and gift processing will prevent this from happening in the future, or at least make it easier to clean up. Having new, exciting constituent data can assist with:

• Geographic appeals and fundraiser visits
• Age-related appeals, such as young alumni or planned giving outreach
• Corporate giving strategies, such as foundation or multi-location gifts
• Searches based on employment, such as c-level employees

How has cleaning up your CRM’s data helped your organization? What were your most successful strategies? What were some unexpected results for your organization? Let us know!