Is Your Nonprofit’s Donor Database Accurate? – 4 Ways To Make Sure!
Good donor data is essential to effective fundraising. From contact information such as physical addresses and phone numbers to email addresses and social media accounts, more types of donor data are available to organizations than ever before. Organizations that use one or more software platforms for managing engagement, fundraising and other aspects of operations should do regular donor database audits. Here are four assessments to help stakeholders determine whether nonprofit data integration software should be implemented or fine-tuned to connect nonprofit databases.
How to Test the Accuracy of Your Donor Data
A donor database audit is the best way to check whether donor data is correct. The finding from the four data quality assessments that follow can provide a clearer sense of the strengths and weaknesses of a data strategy and point the way toward optimizing organizational funding and impact.
The first way to assess the accuracy of donor data involves selecting a small number of records for quality checks. Staff or stakeholders should select anywhere from 10 to 50 records, depending on the size of a database. Confirm contact information through an address verification or National Change of Address service.
The second donor data assessment involves checking the consistency and quality of the same set of records across relevant software platforms. The consistency of data contained in the same small batch of records will show whether operational, donor relations and financial management platforms are properly connected.
The third approach to assessing donor data accuracy enables stakeholders to hone in on specific issues with donor data.Access to the most complete information about each donor can be helpful for making asks through traditional fundraising channels such as direct mail or phone calls or when running an online campaign. It is particularly helpful to check records for addressee and salutation field information along with pertinent household data. This information has the potential to enhance the outcome of giving appeals and may be improved through appending or verification utilities in a nonprofit integration platform.
The fourth assessment that may prove effective is comparing other dimensions of donor records such as donor coding and tracking giving histories across platforms. Any of these tests can be useful for determining whether an organization should implement or fine-tune integration software with support for automated import management for ease of access and data health.
Why Accurate Donor Data Is Crucial to Your Nonprofits Success
Rates of accuracy and completeness across a small sampling of records can offer stakeholders a sense of the overall quality of a donor database. Scoring a system makes it possible to take measures to optimize the flow of data across platforms, update records and take a more informed approach to targeting giving appeals through the use of a data integration platform designed for nonprofits.
Successful implementation of integration software can improve the quality of donor records and fundraising outcomes. A cloud-based platform that has the capacity to automate data entry and transfer tasks promotes higher levels of data health to set an organization on track toward meeting short-term goals in service of its mission.
Author Bio:
Rohan Biswas is a Writer and a Blogger I love to write any kind of category but my Favorite is Lifestyle, founder, and CEO at Solvingbee.com, Where you can find any type of how-to post.
