Ops Insights #003: Quality Data
April 21, 2023 | Read Time: 2 minutes | Written by Jenny Kleintop
There must be quality data. As without quality data, nothing of substance can or will happen.
If it has been a while, now is a good time to do a sweep through all the data you have and see what kind of shape it is in.
Then enlist resources (internal and external) to help improve it. Data integrity is an ongoing effort and those who keep up with it propel their fundraising efforts forward faster.
You can perform a data feed audit to ensure you know all the sources and frequency of data you are currently receiving.
Is it still beneficial for you to be receiving that data. How are you receiving it, cleaning it, and preparing it for use and entry into your CRM/database? What data are you not receiving that you need in order to get to the next level in your fundraising efforts?
Improve data so you can engage with more individuals.
Here’s one way you can improve your data:
How many total living individuals do you have in your database? Let’s say you have 150,000 living individuals in your database.
How many from #1 do not have an opt out (as in individuals who told you not to solicit them, remove these)?
Let’s say you have 148,000 (meaning 2,000 opted out).
How many from #2 have a valid address, email, or phone number? Let’s say 82,000.
Divide #3 by #2.
82,000/148,000 X 100 = 55%. You can say 55% of your individuals can be actively solicited.
Then, make a case to do a data append on the remaining 45%.
For example, if we do a data append, it will cost us $7,500. On average we can get 40% better data from a data append. We would gain about 26,400 more individuals that we can solicit and if 1/3 of those individuals make a $25 gift (8,800), that would be $220,000.
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