Scrub. Sort. Standardize.

Have you ever made a call to a major donor who had spoken to the Executive Director about a gift the previous week? Have you ever sent out an annual appeal and had a significant number of letters returned in the mail? Have you ever called on a prospect, asked about the person’s spouse and learned he had passed away the year prior? If you have, you know the frustration of relying on a messy, out-of-date database.

In this day and age of speedy and reasonably priced technology, there’s no excuse for nonprofits to ignore or procrastinate the important task of database clean ups.

Here are some basics:

Scrub. Did you know that the average person today will hold 11 jobs from ages 18 to 44? Make sure to update your donors’ employment information, as well as their contact numbers. Purge duplicated data and delete inactive information. With so much information available online, this is not difficult to do – particularly for your major donors’ list.

Sort. Segment your data, so you can run reports on high-potential supporters including volunteers, corporate supporters, etc. Make sure giving records are up to date and uniform. Ensure that all the values – tabs for information – have been entered for insider information such as interests, concerns, the last date a person was solicited for a gift, etc. That way, fundraisers will be less at risk of walking into awkward donor situations.

Standardize. Do you have database policies in place? Are there standards established for data entry? For example, if one person enters GA and another enters Ga. – or US versus U.S. versus USA – it will make sorting and running clean reports nearly impossible.

Often, when trying to establish standards for database entry and clean up, organizations will get stuck. Those at the top won’t have the time required to make a million decisions, but they may hesitate to delegate the task of decision-making. Because of this, it never gets done. One tip is to understand there’s no perfect standard for data entry other than consistency. Once you realize the endgame is consistency, it’s easier to delegate this task and achieve the goal: a clean, updated and uniform database.

Jason Wood, Senior Vice President, jwood@kineticfundraising.com

Join Us on the Growing Philanthropy Tour

Next stops on the road to achieving Kinetic’s mission of growing philanthropy by 25 percent in the next 20 years:

Inverness-shire, Scotland
February 4-6, 2019
The Great Fundraising Masterclass
Adrian Sargeant

London
February 7-8, 2019
LSE Annual Behavioural Public Policy Lecture
Grantham Centre
John List

San Diego
February 12, 2019
2019 NSFA National Conference
Demystifying the Major Gift Campaign
Karin Cox

Inverness-shire, Scotland
March 4-6, 2019
Think Double! Fundraising Masterclass
Adrian Sargeant

Past Stops on the Tour

Resources for Smart Fundraising Available on Kindle

Keep up to date on the latest fundraising trends with the Kindle ASR Media collection:

Fundraising Leadership – The definitive source for empowering board members to become pro-active fundraising leaders by Karin L. Cox
Performance-Driven Fundraising – Handy, yet entertaining reference tool for new and seasoned fundraisers by Matthew J. Beem

Book of the Month

Fundraising Leadership: The Essential Guide for Nonprofit Board Members Who Want to Make a Lasting Difference (ASR Media) – an exciting book by Karin L. Cox – is the definitive source for empowering board members to become pro-active fundraising leaders.

On the Web

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Visit the Kinetic website for:
– Educational opportunities
– Books/reference articles
– Conference/workshop speakers

Strategies for Success explores smart ideas, connecting with thousands of fundraising professionals. We welcome your best practices contributions or comments. Send to Strategies for Success editor Karin Cox, kcox@kineticfundraising.com. If you’d like a free subscription to Strategies for Success or its monthly companion, Philanthropy Success, contact info@kineticfundraising.com.