Data hygiene

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Expired mail redirection service

Snip20150706_32You have seen me write many times about the importance of good data hygiene and the fact that most charities do not perform good data hygiene – even once per year.

In 2014 I moved from Sydney to Brisbane. One year later I moved from Brisbane to Sydney. I have a mail redirection with Australia Post for the old Brisbane to current Sydney address. However, I have recently allowed my address forwarding from Sydney to Brisbane to expire because the result was too many mail redirection orders in with Australia Post.

What does this matter to charities? My charity mail has virtually dried up, with the exception of a couple of charities who appear to have performed data hygiene and who have matched their file with the Australia Post PAF file. This matching allowed the charities to learn of various moves where the mover opted into commercial organisations (including charities) to learn about their new address.

How many people on your file are similar to me? How many donors have you lost touch with simply because they did not share their new address with you and because your organisation does not have a best practice data cleansing process in place? You may have a stellar donor acquisition program in place, but if you do not take the time to ensure those donors stick with you (or at least you keep current with their whereabouts), the acquisition program is not worth bragging about.

Read more about data hygiene here.

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Call from University of Queensland hits all the marks

Call center operator at work

I received a call from a University of Queensland student on Monday night.

I am a sucker for these calls. It reminded me of the type of calls I receive from my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin. This call from University of Queensland was superb.

The student, a female, thanked me repeatedly for my generous support of the university. She asked me why I give to the university, noting I am not a graduate of the university. Again, she thanked me for my support. She then confirmed, edited, and enhanced my contact details. Finally, she told me about an emergency fund, “Greatest Needs”, to help students in financial crisis and discussed the ways in which this fund helps students to remain in school rather than exit, before graduation, due to financial crisis.

She asked me to support the university once more by making a gift that night. I gave.

I gave because of the quality of the call and because this caller convinced me University of Queensland cared about my support, cared enough about me to check the data in their database and to keep it up to date, and cared enough to educate me about the emergency fund. I was convinced I needed to open my wallet and commit to giving again. Further, the call was not just about the next gift. The call was about stewardship, about data quality and, then, about fundraising. This multifaceted call proved to be a good use of University of Queensland resources and of my time. The call from University of Queensland hit all the marks.

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Australian university performs data cleansing calls

Computer aufrumenI received a call from an Australian university last week. The caller said she and her teammates were contacting alumni of university X to update their contact details. I told her I was not a member of the alumni community of university X. This response puzzled her. After a major pause, she said “you aren’t?”. When I responded that indeed I had not attended their university. She said, with a quick recovery, “oh, well do you still live at…”.

You know I applaud calls like this one from occurring in the first place. I have written about the need to confirm, edit, and enhance (CEE) a record. Kudos to this university for taking the time to contact donors (including non alumni!) to confirm their details and to update them when they are incorrect. Data cleansing calls are always welcome. Perhaps my record was coded as “alumni”. Perhaps not. Yet, an opening script, which is inclusive of alumni and non- alumni, donors and non donors, would have saved this particular caller that moment of embarrassment.

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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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Finding the ‘perfect’ CRM is only half the battle for your non-profit organisation

 

Customer Relationship Management System CRM in word tag cloud

Has your non-profit acquired a new constituent relationship management (CRM) or supporter relationship management (SRM)? Did the process seem difficult? I hate to tell you, but that was the easy part. Now comes the hard part – implementing the CRM/SRM.

Most organisations do not realise they will need to review their business processes inside and out. Why? Some processes will need to be reshaped simply because they will not “fit” inside the new CRM/SRM. Other processes are antiquated and need a “remodel”. And, others have not even been invented yet within your organisation.

Most CRM/SRM suppliers will work with organisations to implement the new software in a sequential order, such as:

  • Security
  • Data conversion
  • Supporter management
  • Gift management
  • Event management
  • Other

It is best practice for organisations to develop a policies and procedures document in parallel with anyProcedures Folders Meaning Correct Process And Best Practice CRM/SRM implementation. The supplier may provide some documentation, which you will enhance for this added purpose. The policies and procedures document should be a living document, which you will make available to your end users in electronic format. This is a document you will maintain moving forward. The manual should never be “put on a shelf” and left unattended. Instead, your subject matter experts should keep the policies and procedures manual up to date any time a new procedure is developed or an existing procedure is enhanced. It is like cleaning a room in your home. Once it is clean it is easier to keep it clean than it is to start from scratch again.

Implementing a new CRM/SRM does not happen overnight and, in fact, the process from start to finish takes months. The length of time the process takes depends on a number of factors:

  • How well organised is your organisation going into the process?
  • How well developed and established are your existing processes?
  • How clean is your data?

Is your organisation in a transitional or maintenance frame of mind?

The CRM/SRM implementation is ripe with opportunity. Use the process as a renaissance for your organisation. Do not leave any stone unturned. Push the process, the supplier, and your team to truly transform your organisation.

Purchasing a CRM/SRM may be the single largest investment your organisation makes. Maximise the investment by doing it right.

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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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“CEE “ every record

data-hygieneIf any of you have heard me present at conferences or you have hired me as a consultant, you will have heard me preach “CEE” every record. No, that is not a typo. I do not mean to “SEE” every record. I truly do mean you should CEE each and every record.

What does this mean?

CEE is a term I coined and it stands for Confirm, Edit, and Enhance:

  • Confirm contact details each and every opportunity you have for contact with a supporter – whether on the telephone, via Email or in person. Take the extra step and ask the supporter whether they still live at the address contained in your supporter relationship management (SRM) database. Chances are, if they are like millions of other Australians, they moved in the last 12 – 18 months.
  • Edit the contact details, which are erroneous in your database. Be sure to maintain a record of the old contact details with an end date. And, add the new contact details with a start date.
  • Enhance details missing. Take a moment and ask the supporter for things like an Email address, mobile phone number, or date of birth.

Sound easier than said? We share a responsibility to create a culture where every staff member (from the top down) realises the supporter record is the heartbeat of everything we do. This is done by:

  • Educating staff.
    • Educate staff so they understand data cleanliness and accuracy is not someone else’s job.
    • Staff often believes someone else takes care of record cleanliness and this thinking, in my opinion is insane. I ask – how can someone else be in charge of records?; when do you believe that someone else is going to take the time to clean the record?; and, how is that information getting passed along?
  • Creating a sense of urgency.
    • Staff needs to learn there is no time like the present and, in fact, while they have possession of the record, they are responsible for the record.
    • Waiting to change a record often means staff forget all the things learned about the donor. Do it now.
  • Training staff how to perform these tasks, correctly.
    • Staff often times fear doing something wrong, so they would rather send a note to someone else to make the changes required. The buck stops with you. Train everyone how to create new records and to edit and enhance existing records.
  • Distributing written procedures.
    • Distribute written procedures to ensure people have reference materials after the training.
    • Monitor your team to ensure procedures are followed.
    • Coach those who miss steps, perform tasks incorrectly, or do not follow the procedures.
    • Offer rewards to team members who perform the tasks with 100% accuracy.
  • Leading by example.
    • When the next call comes in, be sure to CEE the supporter’s record. And, let others hear you. Staff likes to follow a manager’s lead. Set an example for the staff to follow.

When staff CEE various records throughout a day, staff perform the first step in good data hygiene. Watch this blog for other important components of data hygiene as well as tips and tricks about good database maintenance.

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New Year – time to cleanse your data

Data-Analytics-and-Dirty-DataAs someone who has mystery shopped hundreds of charities over the past five years, I find it frustrating (and inexcusable) that few charities in Asia Pacific appear to cleanse their data in any meaningful aspect.

In fact, none of the charities in my mystery shopping study appear to have performed national change of address (NCOA) on their data set over the last year since I moved from Sydney to Brisbane in April 2014. If it was not for the mail redirection service from the Australia Post (including a renewal of the service), I would not be receiving any of this charity mail. Instead. Australia Post includes the forwarding of charity mail in the mail redirection service. Nonetheless, charities cannot depend on mail redirection for people like me to receive their mail.

When I have mentioned this situation to many charities (including those in the mystery shopping study), staff ask “why don’t you tell each charity”? My response: It is up to the charity to find me and, especially, those in the study!

It’s the new year and it is time to get your data house in order and to prepare for upcoming appeals. What is stopping your organisation from performing NCOA and other data hygiene services on your data set? Often times I hear the following reasons (and I give the following responses!):

  • No budget/What’s the return on investment
    • Your organisation invests tens of thousands (or more) in donor acquisition. Why would you want to throw that money away by not keeping track of your donors when they move. The cost to acquire a new donor is expensive. Losing contact with that new donor after, or during, the first year is even more expensive than it costs to cleans the data and to acquire a new address for the donor.
  • I’m not sure it will have a big impact on our organisation.
    • Most services, including one FundraisingForce will provide to your organisation, offer a report to educate you about the health of your data file prior to launching into any actual changes. This allows you to learn, first-hand, the healthiness fo the data, learn about changes that should be made, and determine which changes to then engage the firm in the actual changes.
  • I do not understand how this works.
    • Most staff do not understand the process let alone the simplicity of how it works. That’s why you engage an outside professional to take you through the process and someone who has performed the process thousands of times.
  • No one in my organisation is responsible for data hygiene.
    • Why not let the owner be you? You have the opportunity to be a hero in your organisation by taking ownership of the data and helping those responsible for donor retention to increase their percentage.
  • We do not have the time to even take care of the Return to Sender (RTS) mail in-house.
    • Let’s perform data hygiene on your entire file and then the RTS mail will become far less.

It pains me when I see stacks (or bins) of RTS mail in an organisation. To visualise this, replace the stack of mail with stacks of money. Wasted material, postage and staff time = stacks of money. Invest a little of that money into some internal processes when RTS mail arrives and then in data hygiene at least one time per year to see this trend reverse for your next appeal. You will not look back in regret. It’s nearly the end of January. What are you waiting for? Someone else to do it?

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