Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Time to Spring-Clean Fundraising Databases

Spring has officially arrived, and it's time to clear the cobwebs from your database, fundraisers. We ran across a timely reminder of this in a NonProfit Quarterly article. Here's a quick synopsis of the three steps to a clean and profitable database. Step 1: Assess the data you need to meet your fundraising goals and then the data you have and when it was last updated. Ideally, your database should be updated and scrubbed annually. Step 2: Verify the accuracy of your data to remove bad addresses, deceased, duplicates, and lapsed contacts. Remember that 15% of households move each year, and 70% of business data is out of date within a year. Step 3: Decide on the value of your names in terms of past and potential donations, and determine an appropriate contact strategy in terms of frequency and channels. If you rely on a broad base of small donors acquired through direct mail, your road to cost-effective fundraising can mean long-term value calculations and modeling, ranking-scoring for propensity to give. Overwhelmed by the task? AccuList USA is among the various third-party vendors that can help. The one thing you can't afford to do is let your database gather dust. As an apt quote from Shannon Duffy, vice president of marketing for Salesforce's Data.com, reminds: "Data is the DNA and the lifeblood of organizations." For the complete article go to http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/management/21985-spring-cleaning-time-for-your-organization-s-fundraising-database.html

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