Can you use all the donor data in your database?
Is your nonprofit’s database accessible, relevant and clean?
Why not?
If youโre like a lot of development professionals, the state of your data quality isnโt your fault. You inherited a database of donor information from the people who came before you, who might have followed donor database management best practices…or might not have.
Perhaps you can trace the generations of development staff like the rings in a tree, as you observe different data-entry practices from the past. โAh, yes,โ you might say, โThereโs Carol, with the abbreviation system she made up, and then that guy who only worked here for six months and his note-taking style, and there, in a couple of ancient entries, are notes from our founder, who quickly abandoned using the database at all.โ
Or maybe your data isnโt working for you, because itโs not all the data you actually need. If itโs limited to contact information and giving history, thereโs a lot missing that could help you get to know your donors.
Itโs very easy for data to get messy. Running an annual NCOA is not going to solve most of these problems, because all it does is update address details. โHas correct addressesโ is really the bare minimum you can ask of your donor database.
What does solve donor data problems? Approaching your database with several important questions:
- Why?
- What?
- How?
- What now?
Why Are We Collecting This Donor Data?
Every piece of data should have an intended purpose. This purpose can be simple, as in, โWe need donorsโ names so we can address them correctly. We need their contact information so we can send them communications.โ It can also be more complex, like, โWe need to know a donorโs giving history in order to create an appropriate ask,โ or โWe need our donorsโ communication preferences so we donโt alienate them.โ
Make sure you know why youโre collecting information, aligning with nonprofit organizations’ data management best practices. And the reason โbecause thatโs what weโve always doneโ cannot be the why. Make sure that the information youโre listening for directly impacts an initiative, program or engagement strategy. This will ensure that your database is built to be useful, instead of as a collection bin.
What Do We Want To Know?
Your database came with fields to fill out, but those arenโt the be-all and end-all of data collection. Think about what youโd like to know about the human beings who give to you. What would be useful?
In addition to all the standard contact info and giving history, if I were running a development department, Iโd want to know things like:
- Which programs are most significant to this donor?
- Does the donor have a personal connection to the cause or organization?
- What are the donorโs relationships within our community?
- Has this donor made any complaints or expressed any concerns?
- Does the donor have a particular passion or interest?
You can add these things to your recordsโ notes, of course, but if your nonprofit CRM allows you to customize fields, like Virtuous does, collecting and accessing the information you actually want is simple.
Letโs pretend Iโm running a cancer charity, and Iโm getting ready to send out an appeal. If I have customized my data, I can quickly run a search to see if any of my donors have a personal connection to the cause. Suppose I discover that a group of donors attended my organizationโs family support groups. When I check out those individual records, I find in the notes that six of them have recently lost the family member that connected them with the organization.
Now, I can be a responsive human being, instead of treating my donors like one mass group. Instead of sending bereaved donors the same message as the general donor community, which would probably make them feel both bad and anonymous, I can remove them from the appeal. Instead of sending a message that tells them theyโre not an individual and the organization doesnโt know them, I can make sure Iโve sent a condolence note. Like a person, instead of a faceless institution, I can offer a connection.
Adding this kind of information to your database helps you offer a one-on-one, personalized donor journey to everyone in your database. It makes targeting communications easier and prevents unfortunate oversights. It makes your supporters into human beings, instead of a collection of data fields.
How Are We Going to Manage Donor Data?
Your data is like your house. While spring cleaning will probably always be necessary, day-to-day you can avoid a lot of work just by not letting the mess get too big to begin with. If you establish best practices and rules for your donor database, there will ultimately be fewer messes to clean up.
Who Enters Data?
Limiting the number of people who enter data into the database simplifies the process automatically. Itโs fine to allow access to your database on a need-to-use basis. However, I recommend allowing anyone with direct donor contact at least some access, simply to avoid redundancy and bottlenecks. Itโs easier if everyone can log their own donor communications and interactions, as long as theyโre all following the same rules.
What are the Rules?
If you establish rules for data entry, your data will be tidier, more usable, and wonโt lead you to send me an annual appeal addressed to me, except with my spouseโs last name.
Calling all โType Aโ process-geeks, this is the stuff you live for! Decide and document how you want names, titles, addresses, and details entered. Standardize all abbreviations, like those used in addresses. Do you want โApt. #313,โ or โ#313,โ or โApartment 313?โ As long as youโre following basic grammar and common sense, thereโs no wrong answer, just make sure itโs the same across your database. Your mail merges are going to be so much easier this way.
When Do We Update?
That contact information may be basic, but it still has to be correct. That annual NCOA isnโt glamorous, but it is necessary. Sadly, some donors will drift away from your organization and stop giving, and others will die. After a certain point, thereโs no reason to keep departed donors in your database. Decide on a schedule for updating and purging old records. Some experts recommend purging records if the donor hasnโt given in two years, others five โ a dilemma that robust data management software like Virtuous can aid in resolving Decide on what makes you most comfortable, but donโt let decades of donor data clutter up your nonprofitโs database.
What Now? Return To Your Donor Data
Ultimately, you use your donor database to make decisions. Thatโs why itโs so important that itโs up-to-date and accurate. The point of having all that donor data is to give you a picture of each donor. Knowing those details helps you to be responsive to their needs and interests.
The saying, โdata beats opinionโ isnโt 100% true (your intuition is worth something), but it points to a greater truth: Without data, itโs very easy to believe wrong things. Believing wrong things causes you to take the wrong actions, with bad results for your nonprofit. You might assume that donors care about your cause for the same reason you do, so base your fundraising offers on that. Data would show you that connect with something completely different. You might even think that one method of donor acquisition is more successful than it is when data would show how things are really performing. This isnโt because youโre not smart, itโs because our brains are fantastic at showing us only what we want to see. Data prevents rose-colored glasses from taking over your marketing and fundraising.
Your donors arenโt staticโpeople evolve over time. This means that no matter what you think you know about your donors, you have to return to the data for insights. Something may have changed, and itโs important to stay tuned into those changes.
7 Tips For Good Nonprofit Data Management
Collect Donor Data with INTENT
Every piece of donor data should serve a specific purpose, aligning with nonprofit data management best practices.
Avoid collecting data just for the sake of it; ensure each piece directly impacts an initiative, program, or engagement strategy.
Identify Desired Donor Information
Beyond standard contact details and giving history, consider capturing details like donors’ program preferences, personal connections to the cause, community relationships, complaints or concerns, passions, and interests.
Customizable fields in nonprofit CRMs like Virtuous facilitate easy collection and access to relevant information.
Integrate Personalized Engagement
Tailor donor communications and interactions based on personalized data to offer a one-on-one donor journey.
Prevent oversights and ensure donors feel valued as individuals rather than just data points.
Create a Data Management Process
Limit the number of individuals entering data to simplify the process and maintain consistency.
Establish and document rules for data entry to ensure tidiness, usability, and accuracy.
Regularly update and purge old records to keep the database current and clutter-free.
Use Your Data to Make Decisions
Utilize donor data to inform decision-making processes.
Data helps in understanding donors’ needs and interests, guiding responsive actions.
Avoid relying solely on intuition; data provides insights that prevent misconceptions and improve outcomes.
Promote Continuous Learning and Adaptation
Donors evolve over time, necessitating continuous monitoring and analysis of data for insights.
Leveraging Donor Data
Utilize clean donor data to enhance fundraising efforts and maximize organizational impact.
Virtuousโ webinar offers guidance on leveraging nonprofit CRM for creating personalized donor journeys and improving fundraising outcomes.
Learn How to Leverage Donor Data
Ready to make your squeaky-clean donor data work for you, helping your organization raise more money and do more good? Virtuousโ webinar, Creating a Personalized Donor Journey with Virtuous will show you how to use your nonprofit CRM to create scalable personalized giving experiences to each of your donors.
