How clean data can supercharge fundraising

It’s been another difficult year for the charity sector. The cost-of-living crisis, along with other economic and geo-political crises, has led to a drop in donations, forcing charities to look for new ways to raise funds. Charities need to meet the demands of the moment and explore new ways to boost their fundraising to increase income and find a sense of stability.

 

Donor data – one of a charity’s greatest assets – is a great place to start. If used correctly, such data can help your organisation to prevent donor churn, drive revenue, streamline your analytics, and thrive in a difficult economic environment. In this article, we explore how cleaning your data can make a huge difference and drastically increase future donations.

 

 

Make a difference org-wide with clean data

 

Clean data helps you to avoid expensive mistakes such as marketing campaigns that do not land, products that do not sell, or even events that do not meet expectations. Failed marketing campaigns are not only financially costly, but also costly in terms of donor experience.

 

Targeted, personalised marketing comms and speedy delivery of fundraising packs and products can ensure charities maintain a positive experience for their supporters, which is vital since acquiring a new donor can cost five times more than retaining one.

 

Supporter contact data collected accurately at the onboarding stage, and when it’s regularly cleaned and standardised when held in batch, empowers the gathering of accurate, valuable donor insight, such as a single customer view (SCV), which can be leveraged to improve communications. Sound decision-making relies on this type of high quality, reliable supporter data.

 

Larger charities should encourage consistency of donor data between departments – consolidating how it is collected, stored, and shared. For example, to obtain an effective SCV. That will lead not only to business process efficiencies, but it will also enable an accurate SCV, delivering insight to help reduce supporter churn.

 

 

Prevent data decay with seamless operations

 

Acquiring and maintaining clean donor data is an ongoing challenge and one that many non-profit organisations need to make a priority. Indeed, 91% of organisations have data quality issues, with donor data degrading at roughly 2% per month. Without regular intervention, as much as 25% of donor data goes bad over the course of a year.

 

Fortunately, the most common data issues can be repaired, for example by changing incorrect data such as a donor name, address, email, or telephone number. This can be delivered in batch against data in existing databases and in real-time as contact information is collected.

 

A few simple, cost-effective changes to data quality routines can ensure data accuracy, as well as provide a smooth onboarding experience for new supporters.

 

 

Streamline checkouts with address autocomplete

 

An address autocomplete or lookup service gathers accurate address data in real-time at the onboarding stage, by providing a properly formatted, correct address when the prospective donor starts to input theirs.

 

It’s a vital convenience – particularly in an age when people complete contact forms on small screens, opening them up to mistakes. Approximately 20% of addresses entered online contain errors including spelling mistakes, incorrect property numbers, or inaccurate postcodes.

 

An address autocomplete service also helps charities to deliver a standout experience to prospective supporters by reducing the number of keystrokes required — by up to 81% — when typing an address. This drives a speedy, convenient checkout process and reduces the probability of a potential donor logging off prior to reaching the payment page.

 

First point of contact verification can also be extended to email and phone, so that these important contact data channels can be verified in real-time. This ensures those in the charity sector communicate effectively with donors, not just on the first occasion, but on an ongoing basis. 

 

 

Ensure smart data operations with suppression techniques

 

Data suppression strategies help non-profits highlight those who have moved or are otherwise no longer at the address on file.

 

In addition to removing bad addresses, data suppression strategies include deceased flagging – an important feature that ensures mail is not sent to donors who have passed away, which can upset friends and relatives, and potentially tarnish the brand image of the non-profit.

 

This is critical when those in the older age brackets are more likely to be regular and generous donors to third sector organisations.

 

 

Stop wasting resources with data deduplication

 

Duplicate data is a common result when donor contact data is collected incorrectly at different touchpoints – a growing problem for charities in the digital age. Also, deduplication is of the utmost importance to those larger organisations that may have accumulated many different databases over time - for example those who have merged with other charities.

 

Most databases contain 8-10% duplicate records, each of which takes effort to identify and remove. Not only can duplicate data be costly in terms of time and money when communicating with supporters, but it can also adversely affect reputation.

 

If a donor receives two mailings in their name, with one spelled incorrectly, it can demonstrate that you lack an understanding of them – who they are and the value they bring – damaging the image of your brand in their eyes. It may even communicate to the donor that you are happy to waste their contribution and your tight budget on duplicate mailings.

 

To rectify this, charities can deploy an advanced fuzzy matching tool to seamlessly and effectively merge and purge the most difficult records. Some deduplication services can also recognise and group criteria that matches, such as several donors belonging to the same household, to better understand customer relationships, lifecycle, and needs.

 

This insight can also be used to eliminate unnecessary multiple mailings to the same household to cut down on print and postage costs.

 

 

Take data quality further with artificial intelligence

 

Now that you’ve deployed the basics to ensure accurate customer data artificial intelligence (AI) can add even greater value to the data you hold. For example, a type of machine learning called semantic technology can readily deliver high value, in-depth intelligence on donors.

 

Semantic technology, or semtech, associates words with meanings and recognises the relationships between them. It works by delivering powerful real-time connections between donor records, combining the missing pieces of data to support an informed decision about the content of a communication to a supporter – one that encourages them to donate more.

 

While it is not possible to control the external forces – such as the cost-of-living crisis, for example – charities can control their destinies when it comes to improving data-driven business practices to fuel greater revenue. It is time to perfect donor databases for long-term value, which requires cleansing, suppression, deduplication, and integrating AI solutions.

 

By taking such an approach, charities are in the best position to reduce churn and drive donations, while delivering a standout experience for donors.