Charity data

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Stop blaming the CRM

Snip20160315_1Your customer relationship management (CRM) system is often the victim – unfairly blamed because of other poor practices across the charitable organisation. “Salesforce is a mess” or “that data is wrong in The Raiser’s Edge”. CRM searches often cause an organisation to realise a need to improve internal processes and, sometimes, prove the database is not the issue at all – it is the fault of bad data entry, little or no oversight, and, often times, lack of standardisation across the nonprofit organisation.

When a charity acquires a new CRM, it is an opportune time to “fix” your poor data practices. At this stage, your organisation ought to:

  • Cleanse the data prior to a data conversion.
    • Clean up poorly maintained pick lists/drop down tables.
      • Get rid of duplicate table entries.
      • Ensure proper meaning for communications preferences and opt out coding.
    • Cleanse duplicate records.
    • Create split record for spouses.
      • Complete linkages for the spouses.
    • Establish data policies and procedures.
    • Create roles within the organisation specifically to oversee the data and your CRM.
    • Perform address standardisation and address hygiene to capture new addresses for constituents your organisation may have lost.
    • Acquire deceased and other opt out codes for your data set.

When I discuss moving from one CRM to another, I offer the analogy of moving house from one city to another. Most would never pack everything owned and move things as is – only to open the door of the new home and have it look exactly as your old home in the old city. Instead, most would purge items no longer wanted, organise belongings before they are packed, and acquire new items when you move into the new home. Moving a database is the same process. Purge your organisation of unwanted items, organise the data in a systematic manner, and acquire new, meaningful data elements for the new “home”.

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The Wilderness Society asks for change of address

I received an email from The Wilderness Society (TWS) this morning. The Email from TWS suggested they had a piece of returned mail sent to me at my Brisbane address and they sought my new contact details.Snip20150724_12

Impressive. TWS is the first charity to ask for my new address! Their business process must be to send this automated email to anyone for whom they receive a piece of returned mail. I took immediate action, applauded them in my response, and sent my new address details.

Kudos to TWS for best practice.

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Three steps to better data hygiene

This last week I was fortunate to be part of a talented panel of speakers talking about data at the Australian Event Manager’s Forum. This Forum meets once a quarter to talk about case studies and issues relating to the NFP sector and to event management.

I shared with 60 people in attendance the fact I receive a call each week from a non-profit organisation asking for help in finding the “right fundraising software” for the organisation. The charity wants to find software that will deliver not only in the event space, but across the organisation. For some organisations, FundraisingForce conducts constituent relationship management (CRM) searches to find the right fit.

Conversations can be had about the requirements of the organisation in order to find the right fit. But, put aside the software for a second and think about the practices that exist (or are likely absent) across the organisation.

Too few in the charity space focus on the detail in a single supporter record in the database. We are too busy worrying whether the software we own does this task or that task. We are too busy completing transactions and tasks (i.e. booking a donation, getting the tax appeal out) that we do not take the time, while in possession of a supporter record, to do what I have called CEE a record.

Change of Focus – Day to Day/Hour by Hour Data CleansingAlarm, beruf, berufsfeuerwehr, brand, brennen, brennt, einsatz, feuer, feueralarm, feuerlöscher, feuerwehr, feuerwehrmann, feuerwehrschlauch, feuerwehrübung, flamme, feuerwehr, gefahr, helfen, helm, hilfe, retten; männchen, katastrophe, löschen, not, notfall, notruf, rettung, schlauch, schutz, schutzhelm, sicherheit, Daten, Strichmännchen, verbrennen Wohnungsbrand, wasser, wasser marsch, sos, unfall, Wasserschlauch, Löschzug, Löschteich

  • C – When in possession of a supporter’s record, no matter who you are in the organisation, Confirm the contact details with the supporter or Confirm the record is complete when you simply open a record to view information.
  • E – Edit anything in the record the supporter tells you or you view as incorrect.
  • E – Enhance anything in the record you see missing. Mobile phone numbers and email addresses are missing from about 70% of most charities supporter records.

Do the above day to day, hour by hour.

Monthly Data Cleansing

Once you have the day-to-day practices in place, you must focus on the masses. First, at the close of each month, someone on your team must troll the data base to look for known issues – incomplete records – addresses missing a post code, addresses missing a suburb, state, titles missing, etc. Make this one person’s job.

Cleaning up the house once a month makes it a lot easier for major clean-ups.

Annual Data Cleansing

Your organisation needs to perform Data Hygiene at least once per year before a big mailing or event.

Data Hygiene is the practice of cleansing the data, using a service provider who will access the Australia Post National Change of Address, NCOA, file on your organisation’s behalf. The service will also use other data sources and may enhance the data to offer you dates of birth, phone numbers or other enhanced information valuable for major gift and bequest efforts.

Why do annual Data Hygiene? I have over 300 charities in my direct marketing mystery shopping study. I have lived in three apartments during the time the study has been underway. Some charities are mailing me at my address 3 apartments ago. I only receive the mail because I continue to renew my mail redirection service with Australia Post. Most Australians only renew their mail redirection once at best, if at all.

Of the 300 charities in the study, only 3 have found me at my correct address.

What do the other 297 charities do when a person does not file a mail redirection service? What do the other 297 charities do when a person does not continue to renew the mail redirection?

Why don’t charities conduct an annual Data Hygiene process? They put it in the “too hard” bucket. They put it in the “too expensive” bucket.

Too Hard

It is “too hard” if you do not understand the process. If you tried it once and it was “too hard”, find a supplier in the market to conduct the process and document it for you once. We can then transfer the knowledge to you to make it easy and allow you to be self-sufficient each time thereafter.

Expensive

I don’t buy this argument. It is very expensive to acquire a new donor. Sure Data Hygiene costs NFPs. But, it is less expensive to run a data hygiene process than it is to acquire a new donor. It is less expensive to do the Data Hygiene process annually than it is to continue to mail pieces, which do not reach their intended recipients.

Unless you practice good Data Hygiene, the work done in terms of event fundraising, donor acquisition fundraising, and other areas do not matter.

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Donor care gone wrong

Doubletree-1I checked into a Doubletree hotel last week and I found a box of chocolates and a note written to…not me, but Ms Jensen. I have been called a lot of names in my lifetime, but never Ms Jensen.Doubletree

When I received this note and the chocolates (which were placed in front of a television with the words “Doubletree welcomes Stephen Mally” on the screen), it made me think about the importance of accuracy in donor care.

It made me think about the first thing someone does when they receive your non-profit organisation’s annual report or when they walk into the lobby of your building. The donor looks for their name on your donor honour wall/honour roll.

Things can go very wrong at this point. We have all lived this nightmare – wrong spelling, wrong person, incorrect dollar category, or…a missing name altogether.

I receive calls from people this time of year as they prepare donor listings for annual reports, donor walls, and other forums. “How do I accurately get lists out of The Raiser’s Edge?”, “Why are my anonymous donors coming out in a variety of ways”, “How do you track the way the donor actually wants to be listed on the donor wall?’.

Make a new year’s resolution. Ask donor’s how they want to be listed in public forums. Create a place in your donor database to track donor listings. In The Raiser’s Edge, this place will be an Additional Addressee on the Addressees and Salutations Tab. Asking the donor for their preference, in advance, will save you the headache at end of financial year. Additionally, set a policy and a procedure for tracking anonymous gifts from donors.

Taking the time now to determine the processes for thee types of donor care activities will save you headaches on New Year’s Day!

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Confirm, edit and enhance – MS Queensland follows best practice

Data searchI’ve written before about the need for Nonprofit organisation staff to confirm, edit, and enhance (CEE) whenever in possession of any supporter’s data record. I’ve suggested staff out to confirm contact details, edit anything erroneous, and enhance anything that is missing.

In a mail out received from MS Queensland last week, I received a piece offering me the chance to win two Apple watches if I take the time to update my contact record. This is a creative way for people to see the importance MS Queensland place on its data and, also, a nice way to incentivise me to participate in their effort to CEE.

Congrats to MS Queensland!

MSQLD

 

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A stack of mail in the United States

MailI have not lived with my parents since 1983. I last lived with them in the US state of Wisconsin before I went away to university. My parents now live in New Mexico and have since ~1987. I visit them twice a year since moving to Australia – usually in May and December.

Each time I have visited them over the last 7 years, my mother has told me that I have “mail waiting” for me. It started with a piece or two, but it amounted to more that 20 pieces of mail this month.

The interesting part of the May mail stack is there were only two pieces of mail from charity. Those pieces came from a conservation group and they were premium packs – address labels! If I want to, I could send lots of letters out with my parents return address! The remainder of the mail was for mobile phone offers (3 pieces), catalogues for clothing (3 pieces), replacement windows (3 pieces), life insurance (5 pieces), and blank cheques from my United Airlines credit card encouraging me to transfer balances from other cards (6 pieces).

You might suggest 20 pieces of mail in ~4 months is not a lot. You are right. Nonetheless, 20 pieces at an address I never lived, in a state I have only spent short holidays in, is quite puzzling.

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The Joys of Moving

to moveI am moving house. Where am I moving? I do not know.

Sounds unsettling? It is!

I have simply not had time to find a new home and I needed to vacate my current place due to a pending sale of the unit. The removalists showed on Saturday, packed my belongings, and loaded them onto a truck…to storage.

But, there is so much more to a move. Because I do not know where I am moving to, I had to complete a Mail Hold Service with Australia Post. When I determine where I am moving to, I will complete a Mail Redirection. As you know from my previous posts and articles in F&P Magazine, no charity I support has performed data hygiene since my last move and I know this because Australia Post continues to forward my mail sent to my former Sydney address. It will be interesting to see if charities find me now!

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Communication preferences tailored to supporter and organisation

Sign MailboxIs the person who lives here on your list? I walk by this home a couple of times per weekend because the house is on the same street as my Brisbane apartment.

I chuckle each time I walk by the house. I am not making fun of the owner. It is within his or her right to post such a sign on their own property and on their letterbox. I simply wonder how many charities have this person on their database and I wonder if the person has ever alerted charities he/she wishes to be on a do not contact list, a do not solicit list, or some other alert.

When someone notifies you they do not wish to be contacted or wishes to opt out of certain communications, what action does your charity take? Do you mark the record “Do Not Contact”? Or, do you ask the supporter exactly what types of communications he or she does not wish to receive? Are you able to mark the supporter record to specify the exact types of communication rather than to code the record in your CRM to “Do Not Contact”, “Do Not Solicit”, “No Solicitations”, “No Mail”, “No Phone”, No Email”, “No SMS”? Would’t it be far better for you to be able use codes to document the supporter’s true communication preferences rather than blanket codes, which may prevent them to no receive communications they actually enjoyed? Codes such as:

  • Tax Appeal
  • Christmas Appeal
    • The above examples allow your organisation to include all other supporters in all appeals and only include supporters marked “Tax Appeal” or “Christmas Appeal” if they have such a code in their record in the CRM.
  • Newsletter – Electronic
  • Newsletter – Post
    • The above examples allow your organisation to include supporters with these codes when doing an email newsletter or when doing  post newsletter, but to exclude them when doing one or the other if they have the opposite code in their record in the CRM.
  • No solicitation – phone
    • The above example allows your organisation to exclude anyone with this code from a telemarketing campaign when their is a solicitation involved. If the campaign involved a thank you call or some other purpose, your organisation might include the supporter in the calling program.

Communication preferences are vital. Organisations over-engineer and other organisations under-engineer the tracking of this critical data. Doing so means your organisation is short-chaning the donor and your organisation. Don’t cheat your supporter out of communications he or she may value. And, don’t cut the supporter off from communications, which will cause you to ultimately lose the support of the donor as a result.

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Finding the ‘perfect’ database for a non-profit

content‘Tis the season for non-profit organisations searching for the ‘perfect’ database.

There are countless organisations in Asia-Pacific searching for a new constituent relationship management (CRM) or Supporter Relationship Management (SRM) solution. All of these non-profit organisations are attempting to find the right fit, which will accelerate their organisations productivity.

Available Product

There are about 8 CRM/SRM key products or platforms in the Australian marketplace. Those products or platforms have many things in common, but there are some key differences across the systems as well. Additionally, a single supplier may have a variety of solutions to offer non-profit organisations.

Do your research before you approach these companies.

It’s About the Relationship

Non-profit organisations thrive on relationships staff create with donors, volunteers, and others. When a non-profit selects a new CRM/SRM, the suppliers are often very focused on the relationship. Ask current customers whether the relationship continued after the point of sale. Has the supplier continued to develop the relationship 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5+ years down the road or do they only contact customers when there is a sale to be had?

Remember, a relationships with a the CRM/SRM supplier goes beyond customer support. The relationship is about customer service.

Business Requirements

Are you really confident of your non-profit organisation’s business requirements? Are you able to articulate those business requirements to the market? Being able to communicate the requirements of each department in your organisation is essential in order to allow suppliers the opportunity to determine the best fit within their own product set.

While there are many products in the Australian market and they have many attributes in common, there are some key differences in the systems as well. It troubles me when I hear an organisation is signing a contract with a supplier simply because the supplier was “very nice” and “very professional” in the sales process. It further troubles me when an organisation is signing a contract with a supplier without having done their due diligence and conducted a search beyond that one supplier.

Dump your current CRM/SRM?

Moving away from your organisation’s current CRM/SRM may very well be the right decision, but it is not always a wise decision for every organisation. First you need to identify reasons you are looking to move away from the CRM/SRM. What are the reasons you feel the current system does not meet your organisation’s needs? Often times those reasons are not about functionality, but about internal factors such as business processes, training, and change management. No matter what CRM/SRM you adopt, your organisation may face the same internal issues again unless these issues are addressed.

Does the perfect non-profit CRM or SRM really exist? The answer is not a yes. But, it is also not a no. The answer to that question depends on whether your organisation runs a thorough process to search for the CRM/SRM, which is the best fit for your organisation based on the following:

  • Size of your organisation.
  • Business requirements identified for your organisation.
  • Future growth plans and strategies.

The Process

FundraisingForce is working with three non-profit organisations presently searching for systems. FundraisingForce suggests the following process when searching for the right CRM/SRM fit:

  • Examine the current CRM/SRM to determine its strengths and weaknesses. Be sure to examine what impact your organisation has had on the determined weaknesses. Sometimes this is the most difficult task to own.
  • Conduct a requirements gathering exercise and confirm the requirements with subject matter experts (SMEs) to be sure of accuracy.
  • Write a request for proposals document asking suppliers to respond to specific areas of interest to your organisation. You will seek information about functionality of the product, information about the supplier, and responses to questions. All of these will study the supplier’s strengths, weaknesses, stability and other critical factors.
  • Conduct a meeting with suppliers to review your process documents and to be available to answer any questions.
  • Create an internal selection committee.
  • Review proposals and answers to your requirements documentation.
  • Conduct demonstrations by suppliers about proposed product lines. Include an expanded audience (beyond your selection committee) to gain buy-in from staff across the organisation.
  • Check references offered by suppliers. Also, check references not provided by suppliers. You would not hire a candidate for a position simply based on what the references they provide say about their past. Simply calling the references a supplier puts forward is limiting.
  • Negotiate price. Whatever price the supplier puts forward is not the price that will be agreed to in the end. The fact is the supplier will want to know more information about your organisation, your business requirements, and other factors before the supplier is able to quote a more exact price. Remember price is only one piece of the overall process. Be sure to think through costs you will incur internally, as well, such as staffing and other variables.

Selecting a CRM/SRM may well be the biggest decision and the largest investment your organisation makes. Investing in the process and ensuring your organisation makes the right decision is critical. Once you select the CRM/SRM, the fun part starts – the implementation! I will write more about the implementation in a future post.

Does all of the above seem a bit daunting? Hiring experts, like FundraisingForce, who have worked on the supplier side to help you to navigate the process.

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A Halloween “trick” or “treat” for our donors is up to you

Haunted HouseWith tomorrow being Halloween, it’s likely a few parents will be helping their children dress up in costume, be it Star Wars, a superhero, or a princess, and taking them around the neighbourhood knocking on doors for the annual tradition of “trick or treat”.

In a way, every day is Halloween for charities. Where potential donors walk up to our doors, ring the bell, and when we answer the door instead of us handing out a “treat”, they hand us a donation. But it’s not as easy as sitting and waiting for that knock on the door. We have to work to get the donors to walk up, ring our bell and give their philanthropic support. Are we doing enough to get them to knock on our door or are they just walking by and going to the next place?

One year I was at home in my unit with a huge bowl of lollies waiting for the bell to ring. About 3 children came just as the sun was setting, but that was it. Not one more knock the entire night. When I investigated by going outside, I realised my neighbour was not home and had all their lights turned off, including up the walkway to both our units. It looked like no one was home at either place. A dark house is not too inviting to children on Halloween. And I was left with masses of leftover candy. It was very disappointing.

The following year, I did all I could to get as many children as I could to walk up and knock on the door. I made sure all the lights were on, I included coloured light bulbs, I played spooky music out the window and used a flashing strand of lights in an upper window. And sure enough, the number of families and children who stopped at my house went way up. But I also had great chocolates and candy to give away because I wanted the people who stopped at my house to tell other people “go there, it looks spooky and he’s giving away the best stuff.”

What can we do to make our charities look inviting to potential donors and not look like dark houses? We have great “goodies” to give them – stories of our great work and success!

First, what if a potential donor does physically walk through the door of our organisation? What do they see? Can they tell it’s our non-profit? Do we have appropriate signage? Is our logo visible? Is it neat and clean?

Are we ready to give them a tour of our organisation? Also, do we have printed material to give to them?

And are we ready to accept a donation from them if they want to give us a “treat”? Do you have a donation form ready to hand them?

Second, what if a potential donor walks through a ‘virtual’ door, by calling or clicking on our website? Does the person answering the phone know where to direct a potential donor? Does our organisation have a mission or purpose statement that is easy for all staff to repeat to potential donors? Or know examples of those success stories?

On our website, is it easy to make a donation? Is there only one ‘door’ for them? Imagine if children were “trick or treating” and they had to keep knocking on door after door to get their candy? They would leave and go to the next house with only the one door.

Third, we can make sure we have a coordinated effort with our direct mail and our electronic direct mail. Do we have all the elements we need to get that donor to walk up and ring the bell? I had inviting walkway lights, spooking house lighting, and eerie music together as a package. Not just one or the other.

Do we have the right content and message; layout and design; reply device with all the information we need to collect?

When we think about it, it’s scary how unprepared some of us may be for potential donors or how many donors just walk by our organisation because it’s too ‘dark’ and not inviting. Or we don’t have all the elements working together to make them want to stop and donate. Or the ‘treats’ are not good, so they tell others “skip that place”.

This year, let’s have “treats” for our potential donors and they have “treats” for us, too.

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