July 2009
CONTENTS:
1. Summertime is a Good Time
2. Dealing with Dirty Donor Data
3. Resource Spotlight: Three New Tools
4. Focus on Aspire Research: Nadace Via in Prague
Greetings!
I hope this newsletter finds you enjoying your summer! This time of year lots of people do things like clean out the garage or make the kids wash the car. Turns out that a number of my clients have been working on cleaning their donor data - not always intentionally. They have come to me with data analytics projects looking to boost the annual fund or identify major gift prospects only to find that they could not deliver a coherent data file for analysis.
So I thought a quick refresher on the subject might be helpful. I also thought it might be fun to share with you how a foundation in Prague, Nadace Via, decided to get their database in order.
Jen Filla
President,
Aspire Research Group LLC
P.S. If you have stories and hot tips on how you keep your data clean, please share! Email at jen at aspireresearchgroup.com or call me at 610-566-5113. I would like to start a "Reader's Advice" section!
You have been hard at work adding donors to your database. You have acquired them at events, through mailing lists, from board members and some have self-identified through your website. Maybe you are even reaching out through social networking sites. Proudly, you have watched your donor data grow!
It was a lot of work, but now you find yourself asking questions:
- Is it really the recession or should I be doing something different to boost annual giving?
- Should I start segmenting our database so that each person receives the right message? How?
- Are there people in our database able and willing to give larger gifts? How do I find them?
You can answer these questions by analyzing your data. However, dirty data brings false results. Before you pursue data analytics to improve giving, consider a quick review. Make sure all aspects of your data entry are consistent and that you regularly clean your data. Here are few basic tips:
- A search for a donor name should be made before creating a new gift record to avoid duplicates
- Mark each record that receives a mailing and link the responding gifts to the mailing
- When emails, snail mail or telephone numbers are undeliverable, update the record
- Run regular reports to check for duplicate records and address errors
Regular data maintenance frequently seems obvious, but ensuring it actually happens often means documenting the process, creating a task schedule and assigning staff.
Is your data ready for data analytics?
Resource Spotlight: Three New Tools
A Letter to Board Members - Privacy and Prospect Research
At your request we have added an article on privacy and prospect research that is written as a letter to your board members. Please let us know if this letter is helpful!
http://www.aspireresearchgroup.com/Documents/LetterOnPrivacy.pdf
Prospect Research: A Beginner's Search and Find Workshop
Jen Filla will be teaching this workshop for the Rollins College Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership Center on August 6, 2009 from 9am-Noon. The price is $60 Members and $110 Non-members. To register, click here and scroll down.
http://www.pnlc.rollins.edu/areas/fund_develop.shtml
Resource Partners webpage added
At Aspire Research Group we like to make friends and we wanted to share some of our best friends with you. "It takes a village" and the Resource Partners webpage tells you about the people and companies in our village who help us help you.
Focus on Aspire Research: Nadace Via in Prague
Nadace Via is a grantmaker whose mission is to support and strengthen public participation in the development of a democratic society in the Czech Republic. During my visit in Prague this year, we discussed their goal to raise more individual funds.
We talked about the importance of the database in recording and tracking their strategy to engage and convert friends to donors. It turns out that they use DonorPerfect for their database, but needed to adjust some fields to accommodate the Czech language as well as data entry and data cleaning.
How did they do it? Ever resourceful, Jitka Nesrstová, the Development Director, read the database documentation, made adjustments and hired an intern for the data entry. Before summer is over she expects the database to be trim, fit and ready for action!
Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.
Roger Miller, musician (1936-1992)
Aspire Research Group helps organizations use research to create and maintain meaningful relationships with donor prospects. We provide profiles on people, companies and foundations.
Contact Aspire Research Group and ask how we can help you find and get to know your major gift donors better. Call 610.566.5113 or email jen@aspireresearchgroup.com