Data cleansing

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Resolutions for the New Year. Your organisation should start by making some today

For many, 2021 could not have come soon enough. 2020 started with bushfires impacting the states of Victoria and New South Wales. COVID-19 caused havoc and sent most everyone to a working from home arrangement. Events, as we knew them, were cancelled. Face to face fundraising, particularly street canvassing, was diminished or wiped out. Fundraising revenue was dramatically impacted. 2021 is here! It’s the New Year. Start 2021 by making some resolutions.

New Year resolutions you might consider

Diversifying fundraising revenue

Many charities in Australia have faced significant pain of COVID-19 due to the fact they lack a balanced portfolio of funding. Instead of a balance across fundraising channels, the focus of many organisations has been on events and face to face fundraising. When COVID-19 hit, events were cancelled and the face to face solicitors were pulled from the streets. Charities had to scramble. 

Why not spend some time in the early months of the new year to develop a Fundraising Strategic Plan to diversify your revenue streams? 

2021
Documenting business processes

Staff of charitable organisations frequently change. Some staff positions change over every 18 months and this means a dramatic loss of institutional knowledge. When new staff come on board, organisations often reinvent the wheel rather than train staff against procedures that are documented.

Why not document every procedure across the organisation so these dynamic documents reflect the day to day business? Subject matter experts should be tasked with maintenance of the processes once they are developed. This ongoing maintenance ensures the procedures are kept up to date as your business grows or changes.

Cleansing data

Tired of all the Return to Sender mail? Cleansing your data, including matching your data against the Australia Post National Change of Address (NCOA) file will reduce the amount of wasted mail and will ensure your mail reaches destinations faster and in a more accurate fashion.

A CRM check up

Does your CRM feel a bit like a ship without a captain? Before it hits an iceberg, maybe it is in need of an independent examination and a bit of a tune up? A CRM Review is a way to get an external expert to review the state of affairs of your CRM and to offer you targeted ways in which you might improve its performance. This exercise is typically happens across several days and will result in a report and an action plan for you to follow.

Mystery shopping

Do you often wonder what it is like to be a donor of your organisation? Why not engage some mystery shoppers to serve as donors and to gain valuable insights to reinforce good behaviours and implement some needed changes? Mystery shopping involves the establishment of scenarios which are deployed by the shoppers. By shopping those scenarios, shoppers offer first-hand experiences. In the end, you will receive a report filled with learnings and recommendations for actions.

The first quarter of the year is the best time to action the resolutions you have waited to implement. Staff are coming back energised from the long Christmas and New Year’s break and you are well positioned to tackle big picture items. Put some of these on your list and consider how FundraisingForce may assist you.

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Data cleansing is task #1 when preparing for your Christmas Appeal

coding computer data depth of field
Photo by Kevin Ku on Pexels.com

There has been a lot of talk about upcoming Christmas Appeal. How will your supporters respond given the current pandemic and the economic environment? It may be August, but smart non-profit organisations are already preparing their data files and copy for what becomes the second most important campaign of the year for most charities. As part of those tasks, it’s not too late for non-profits to conduct data cleansing. Data hygiene is task #1 when preparing your Christmas Appeal.

Some non-profit organisations take the important step to cleanse their data, while many others do not. Those non-profit organisations who perform data cleansing, perform this task at least one time per year.

Data cleansing activities include, but are not limited to:

  • National Change of Address (NCOA).
  • De-duplication of constituent records.
  • Data enrichment, including:
    • Deceasing flags for records
    • Do not mail flag.
    • Do not call flag.
  • Other important mass data management practices.

Dirty data gets you nowhere…except broke. Proper data cleaning prior to dropping the all-important tax and Christmas appeals is a non-negotiable. Do you put this in the “too hard” basket? Hire an expert like FundraisingForce who will guide you through the process, management of suppliers, and develop a process for you to follow for years to come.

Don’t assume someone else will do this task – whether you are assuming the mail house does it or someone else on your internal team. Develop a process to get this task done and to ensure the cleansed data makes it was back to your organisations CRM. To merely cleanse the file for the appeal and to not load the clean data back to the CRM (a common mistake made by charitable organisations) is like cleaning your child and putting them back on the playground.

Get ready. Christmas will be here before you know it!

CRM

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Is a CRM replacement project really necessary? Conduct a CRM Review first

It’s a new year. Are you thinking of replacing your organisation’s constituent relationship management (CRM) solution? CRM replacement projects are plentiful with more universities and not for profits making the decision to replace their solution. But, is a CRM replacement project really necessary? In my experience, a CRM does not always require replacing, rather, an existing CRM simply requires the attention it deserves. A CRM review may be the best first step. It might just save you thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of dollars.

For example, a hospital foundation in Sydney had been to a conference and felt very “sold” on a new CRM by the CRM vendor (of course!), but on further investigation, they had the functionality they actually needed in their existing CRM – they just needed to upskill their team. Overall, they saved around $45,000 in direct costs, and possibly another $30,000 in indirect costs, by staying put. 

Before you decide to transition to a new CRM, you should first conduct a review of your existing solution. A review is a comprehensive analysis of your existing CRM. 

When conducting this analysis, you should consider the following five key areas:

  1. Challenges – What are the biggest challenges your team faces with your CRM?
  2. Functionality – What functionality is lacking from your CRM?
  3. Goals – Will the current CRM allow your organisation to achieve its KPIs?
  4. Relationship – How healthy is your relationship with your current CRM supplier and are there key focus areas which might make it healthier?
  5. Staffing – What is the level of your CRM staffing in terms of data management and oversight?

A review is often best conducted by an outside expert who has a 40,000 foot view of the CRM sector. This expert understands your organisation’s functional requirements inside and out and understands what is required to operate a CRM efficiently and effectively in an organisation. Additionally, the expert firm has in-depth knowledge of CRM solutions, functionality, and the associated suppliers.

A review will result in an analysis document, drawing conclusions on the above and other important factors. It will form a foundation to allow you to decide whether to move forward to an official CRM search or to “stay put” utilising the CRM you currently own. 

The analysis will also help you to identify an action plan containing activities your organisation must accomplish whether or not you transition to a new CRM. 

CRM Review activities, include:

  • identifying a data manager to oversee the CRM.
  • developing policies and procedures.
  • highlighting opportunities for automation.
  • establishing a training plan.
  • creating a data cleansing plan, including data enhancements.

Unless your organisation takes the time to review the existing landscape, you may find the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. 

In fact, your organisation may find itself in the same situation. CRM reviews often save time and effort, resulting in an improvement of the existing solution rather than a complete transition to a new CRM solution.A constituent relationship management (CRM) solution is your organisation’s number one asset. You want the latest and greatest technology, which will assist your organisation to reach your key performance indicators. 

The following are the top six reasons organisations typically choose to transition to a new CRM:

  1. Another CRM solution is preferred by a new head of fundraising.
  2. The existing CRM solution lacks functionality to deliver an organisation’s strategic plan.
  3. Functionality in the current CRM is clunky and not intuitive.
  4. The organisation lacks a healthy relationship with the CRM supplier.
  5. Staff do not utilise the existing CRM.
  6. The existing CRM is not well configured and lacks automation.

A robust CRM solution also assists fundraising leadership to:

  1. achieve fundraising goals;
  2. recruit and hire experienced and seasoned fundraising talent;
  3. measure and analyse fundraising performance; and
  4. automate and streamline business processes.

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Data cleansing – it’s now or never for your Tax Appeal

Data cleansingYou have just finished the Christmas Appeal and you are already thinking tax-time, right? There is no rest time for today’s active fundraising program. Preparations for the Tax Appeal mean more than just writing copy, designing creative, and thinking about data segmentation. You also need to be thinking about data cleansing – it’s now or never.

Data cleansing activities

An overwhelming majority of charities in Australia do not regularly perform national change of address on their data file prior to a major mail out such as the Christmas or Tax Appeal. In fact, some data administrators would rather have a root canal than think about data cleansing. Let’s take the pain out of data cleansing and list the tasks which out to be done:

National Change of Address (NCOA)

Taking your file and matching it against the Australia Post PAF file is easy. Extracting the data from your CRM and matching to the PAF file is, in fact, the easy part. It does require a relationship with a supplier who may access the PAF file. Gaining new contact details for donors and prospects who have moved is a key benefit of NCOA. Further, gaining a flag for anyone who has moved and who has not made their new contact details available in the commercial space is a further benefit. New addresses mean you are able to get the Tax Appeal delivered to those you’ve lost contact with and not mailing those who you’ve lost contact with and cannot gain their new details means you will not waste postage and materials.

Data Enhancement

While you are working with a supplier to perform NCOA, take the time to enhance your data. Think about additional data elements available in the market and action the following:

  • New telephone phone numbers.
  • Validation of email addresses.
  • Acquisition of deceased, do not mail, and do not call flags.
  • Addition of presence of children and grandchildren flags.
  • Enhancement of constituent records with wealth indicators, such as property values and other holdings available.

Acquiring these enhancements will help not just with Tax Appeal, but with other campaigns in the future.

Do not delay. Action data cleansing and data enhancement now before you commence preparation of the data file for the Tax Appeal. Data cleansing and data enhancement takes time and these activities deserve the same attention as preparation of the mail pack. The results of your Tax Appeal depend on good data.

 

 

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Data cleansing is everyone’s job in a non-profit organisation or university

MS QueenslandDo you think the dirty data in your CRM is the responsibility of one person or a team in your non-profit organisation or at your university? When there are data issues, it is easy to point the blame to a data manager or the supporter services team. Likewise, where there are data issues, you and your colleagues likely participated in created those issues. So, why not participate in fixing those data issues? In truth, data cleansing is everyone’s job in a non-profit organisation or university.

No one person or team is able to handle the volume of potential data issues across a non-profit organisation or university advancement office. In fact, each one of us touch records in our CRM each and every day. We ought to participate in the effort to clean them by taking the time to check the obvious in a record before we save or close out the record.

How to Participate

Each time you open a record in your CRM, you are in possession of that record. It might be for just a moment or it may be for an hour or more. Data elements such as contact details, email addresses, mobile phone numbers, and communication preferences can quickly be scanned and checked. If you are in contact with the individual or organisation, take the time to CEE (Confirm, Edit and Enhance) the record before you end the contact. Confirm their contact details are correct; if not, Edit the contact details; and, of course, see what is missing in the record, and Enhance the record by recording the missing items. Things like birthday, email address or mobile numbers are often times the most missed (and becoming the most important) data elements.

MS QueenslandMS Queensland

Recently, I received my annual survey from MS Queensland asking me my opinions about their Limited Edition Art Union. People love to be asked their opinions, which most non-profit organisations and universities would well understand and appreciate. After all, most non-profit organisations and universities conduct an annual survey in one way, shape, or form. However, MS Queensland is a unique organisation. MS Queensland not only seek opinions of their valued lottery ticket purchasers, but they also ask the supporter to CEE their own data. How do they get a high rate of responses? They offer a fantastic prize. This year – MS Queensland offered a brand new iPhone XS Max.

Offering a chance to win a luxury prize simply by giving your opinion makes a lot of sense for MS Queensland because the lottery is all about luxury prizes and the survey sought opinions about whether to expand the range of prizes offered. Offering such a prize may not be feasible and may also not be a good match for all non-profit organisations.

You have shared responsibilities for good data hygiene with your data manager/data team. Own it. Take the time to play your role and be a true partner to those who are ultimately responsible for the oversight of your CRM.

 

 

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Data cleansing is task #1 when preparing for your Christmas Appeal

Dirty DataThere has been a lot of talk about upcoming Christmas Appeal. It may be August, but non-profit organisations are already preparing their data files and copy for what becomes the second most important campaign of the year for most charities. As part of those tasks, it’s not too late for non-profits to conduct data cleansing. Data hygiene is task #1 when preparing your Christmas Appeal.

Some non-profit organisations take the important step to cleanse their data, while many others do not. Those non-profit organisations who perform data cleansing, perform this task at least one time per year.

Data cleansing includes, but is not limited to, high level activities such as:

  • National Change of Address (NCOA).
  • De-duplication of constituent records.
  • Data enrichment, including:
    • Deceasing flags for records
    • Do not mail flag.
    • Do not call flag.
  • Other important mass data management practices.

As suggested in prior FundraisingForce blog posts, dirty data gets you nowhere…except broke. Proper data cleaning prior to dropping the all-important tax and Christmas appeals is a non-negotiable. Do you put this in the “too hard” basket? Hire an expert like FundraisingForce who will guide you through the process, management of suppliers, and develop a process for you to follow for years to come.

Don’t assume someone else will do this task – whether you are assuming the mail house does it or someone else on your internal team. Develop a process to get this task done and to ensure the cleansed data makes it was back to your organisations CRM. To merely cleanse the file for the appeal and to not load the clean data back to the CRM (a common mistake made by charitable organisations) is like cleaning your child and putting them back on the playground.

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The right fundraising software? Should the focus be on data hygiene?

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 across the organisation. For some organisations, FundraisingForce conducts constituent relationship management (CRM) searches to find the right fit. Perhaps the conversation should first start with discussions about data hygiene.

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 (or across records) in the database/CRM. 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.

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  • 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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It’s not too late for non-profits to conduct data hygiene

DataEarlier this week, I wrote a blog post about the first Christmas Appeal received this year. It’s the only one received so far, which suggests others may still be navigating the many tasks they need to complete in order to drop their Christmas Appeal. As part of those tasks, it’s not too late for non-profits to conduct data hygiene!

Assuming some charitable organisations are behind with their Christmas appeal, perhaps the reason is data hygiene. One of the single most important steps prior to the Christmas appeal drop is the need to complete hygiene.

Some non-profit organisations take the important step to cleanse their data, while others do not. Those non-profit organisations who perform data hygiene, perform this task at least one time per year.

Data cleansing includes, but is not limited to, high level activities such as:

  • National Change of Address (NCOA).
  • De-duplication of constituent records.
  • Data enrichment, including:
    • Deceasing of records
    • Do not mail flag.
    • Do not call flag.
  • Other important mass data management practices.

As suggested in prior FundraisingForce blog posts, dirty data gets you nowhere…except broke. Proper data cleaning prior to dropping the all-important tax and Christmas appeals is not optional. Do you put this in the “too hard” basket? Hire an expert like FundraisingForce who will guide you through the process, management of suppliers, and develop a process for you to follow for years to come.

Don’t assume someone else will do this task – whether you are assuming the mail house does it or someone else on your internal team. Develop a process to get this task done and to ensure the cleansed data makes it was back to your organisations CRM. To merely cleanse the file for the appeal and to not load the clean data back to the CRM (a common mistake made by charitable organisations) is like cleaning your child and putting them back on the playground.

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Data cleansing before tax appeals drop

Snip20160508_43Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post suggesting tax appeals are a bit tardy this year. This may or may not be right. It is simply my opinion as a donor to more than 200 Australian charities.

Assuming some charitable organisations are behind with their tax appeal, perhaps the reason is data hygiene. One of the single most important steps prior to the tax appeal drop is the need to complete data cleansing.

Some nonprofit organisations take the important step to cleanse their data, while others do not. Data cleansing includes, but is not limited to, high level activities such as:

  • National Change of Address (NCOA).
  • De-duplication of constituent records.
  • Data enrichment, including:
    • Deceasing of records
    • Do not mail flag.
    • Do not call flag.
  • Other important mass data management practices.

As suggested in prior FundraisingForce blog posts, dirty data gets you nowhere…except broke. Proper data cleaning prior to dropping the all-important tax and Christmas appeals is not optional. Do you put this in the “too hard” basket? Hire an expert like FundraisingForce who will guide you through the process, management of suppliers, and develop a process for you to follow for years to come.

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Mailing to deceased? Your non profit organisation lacks best practices

Return to SenderThere is nothing worse than sending a deceased person mail. First, it stirs up emotions when a loved one receives a letter addressed to a person who has since passed. Second, it sends a message that your non-profit organisation lacks best practices. I recently posted, on LinkedIn, about the number of charities not taking the extra steps to remove deceased from their CRM/database – reactively or proactively. The post received a high number of comments. Perhaps it was a little too close to home for some.

This past month, I visited some people in the US in the state of Florida. The husband of the couple visited was the executor for an estate. Let’s call the deceased Mrs Bloggs. Mrs Bloggs has been deceased for more than five years. Yet, the household continues to receive charity mail in her name. Again, Mrs Bloggs has been deceased for more than five years.

IMG_0534What’s even worse is this household has notified the charities of her death. The couple have returned notices in the response envelopes with the response coupons. In some cases, charities have been notified 2-3 times. These same charities, and others, continue to mail to Mrs Bloggs.

The charities are risking offending the survivors, as well as their reputation through poor processes, wasted materials, and postage.

US charities have an even bigger advantage over Australian charities in that the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) exists, which is national register of deaths. When someone passes away in the US, it is a requirement the death is reported to the US government. The end result means all deaths are documented on the SSDI. US charities have access to this list to screen their database through a variety of suppliers.

In Australia, the Australian government does not yet have anything compared to the SSDI. Yet, Conexum has The Australian Bereavement Register (TABR), which is a strong product and increasing in capabilities each year. Additionally, suppliers will match your database against the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) list of deceased individuals. This list is developed via notifications sent to ADMA. Any person may document a death via the ADMA website or we may call or write ADMA direct.

Charities have a responsibility to do the following:

Reactive documentation:

  • Document notifications of death in their constituent relationship management (CRM)/database. When charities are notified of deaths from survivors:
    • Document date of notification, method of notification, and date of death.
  • Notify list brokers of deaths. Pass information to list brokers when charities are notified of deceased parties on various lists rented or received via exchange.
    • Notification to list brokers should include date charity notified by next of kin, method of notification, and date of death.

Proactive documentation:

  • Screen your non profit organisation’s CRM/database using SSDI, for US charities, or TABR, for Australian charities.
    • Screen at least one time per year. Better yet, screen prior to all major mailings.
      • Screen your CRM/database, plus any lists rented for acquisition purposes.

Acquisition Preparation

You would never rent thousands of names without deduping them against your database to ensure you were not marketing to existing donors. Take it a step further. Whenever your organisation rents or exchanges names via a list broker, ensure you de-duplicate all known deceased from your CRM/database. Save your organisation the embarrassment of mailing to known deceased people despite the fact the lists may be dirty from a broker or from a charity. Then, report deceased back to the broker to save your colleagues from embarrassment, as well.

Those of us who work for charities have been on the receiving end of the calls when people are upset because we have erroneously mailed to their deceased loved ones. If everyone takes an active role, in the New Year, in terms of deceased processing, we can vastly improve processes and ensure we decrease the number of times deceased persons are marketed.

Need help with your deceased processes? FundraisingForce assists charities globally to improve deceased processes and others. Contact us today.

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