Read the Article - Bentz Whaley Flessner

September 2015
Taking Out
the Garbage
Why Clean Data is Important to Your Fundraising Efforts
By Jason Boley, Senior Associate
Options for marketing and communicating to
fundraising constituencies have greatly increased
in complexity over the past few years. From a
systems and operations perspective, trying to
juggle multiple phone numbers, multiple email
addresses, and vacation address preferences has
always been a struggle that can lead to increasingly
complicated business processes. Additionally,
constituencies now expect all of an organization’s
database systems to interact with each other. A
donor who updates his or her physical address with
one department has the (not unrealistic) expectation
that the update will propagate to every system in
the organization. Those who work in large and/or
complex organizations know this is not always the
case and may be left from time to time explaining to
a donor why a piece of mail was sent to an outdated
address that the donor previously updated.
The problem of inaccurate data is not new, but
it is getting worse. A 2015 data benchmarking
reporting by Experian Data Quality indicates that
92% of organizations surveyed felt their data may
be inaccurate. Additionally, 23% of respondents
who indicated that their contact data is essential to
marketing success reported that they believe that
Copyright © 2015 Bentz Whaley Flessner
data to be faulty. These percentages have risen
steadily over the past few years.
One of the largest database-related threats to
effective communication can be duplicate records.
Duplicate records for the same constituent can
cause threats such as:
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Duplicate messages sent to the same person.
Conveying
the wrong cumulative giving history
to a donor.
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Incorrectly
addressing a donor because of
conflicting preferred salutations.
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Internal
staff not seeing a complete history of
donor interactions because it is spread across
multiple records.
Systemic duplicate records pose a growing problem
as systems increasingly interact with each other;
and in the worst case scenarios, it is not uncommon
to see three, four, five, (or beyond!) records for a
constituent. The problem can be multi-faceted:
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System interaction. As data collection channels
increase and database systems increasingly
interact, many older databases are incapable
or incorrectly configured to recognize and resolve duplicate records. This
scenario will be discussed in more detail below.
Alexis P. Barber
Joshua M. Birkholz
Jason E. Boley
Anna N. Burgason
Janet B. Cady
Christopher A. Clark
James P. Daniel
Bruce W. Flessner
Jamie L. Hunte
Judith M. Jobbitt
Judy Y. Kirk
Katrina A. Klaproth
Bond T. Lammey
Jenny S. Lappegaard
Mark J. Marshall
John S. McConnell
Jennifer A. McDonough
Chelsey D. Megli
Merrell A. Milano
Marisa E. Ontko
Dennis A. Prescott
Andrew C. Schultz
Justin J. Ware
Bruce J. Wenger
Michael J. Worley
7251 Ohms Lane
Minneapolis, MN 55439
(952) 921-0111
2461 South Clark Street
Suite 910
Arlington, VA 22202
(703) 413-5505
www.bwf.com
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Poor business processes. Organizations that are understaffed, have
poorly trained staff, or have incomplete or incorrect procedures can be
inadvertently entering duplicate records into their database. If staff are
under time constraints to get information entered into the database or
confused about how to correctly enter records, an attitude of “just-get-it-in”
can take hold. Proper cross referencing for existing records does not take
place, and duplicates are created. In these cases, the old database mantra of
“garbage-in, garbage out” holds true for future communication efforts.
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Dirty legacy or conversion data. Duplicate data problems can be years old,
stemming from historic data conversions. In many cases this was done with
the best of intentions to clean up the data at a later time, but that later time
never arrived.
Many databases contain tools that help identify duplicates in databases and
provide merge/purge solutions. However, the primary problem with duplicate
records lies in the identification of the matching record sets. In cases where
hundreds, or thousands, of duplicates exist, identifying duplicate records by
hand is not practical. But matching duplicate records programmatically is
deceptively difficult.
Take this common donor example: Bob Smith makes a $50 donation online. He
chooses to use his personal email when filling out the donation form. Bob is not
a new donor to the organization, but his record is listed as Robert Smith in the
database, and his primary email is listed as his business email address.
In the above example the ability of the database to correctly match Bob’s
online donation to his existing record depends on the sophistication of the
database’s matching tools. Some databases use phonetic matching, linearbased algorithms or other ‘fuzzy’ algorithms to identify ‘Bob’ as a derivative
of ‘Robert’. If the two records match other indicators such as geographic
proximity, the online donation may be attributed to the correct existing donor
record. But unfortunately, it is not uncommon in fundraising databases to see
unsophisticated matching algorithms that only match on exact pieces of data,
such as email address. In this case, Bob’s online donation using a different email
address would most certainly result in a duplicate donor record being created.
Despite the challenges, there is hope for even the dirtiest of databases that can
help organizations improve data hygiene and future communication efforts.
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You have to start somewhere! Data problems can be daunting. An internal
assessment is important to document all sources of data flow and points of
origin for duplicate records.
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Reevaluate your business processes. This is a time to review your data
entry staff’s strength and weaknesses. Perhaps existing staff can be
reallocated to fill existing gaps, or perhaps additional staff are needed.
Policies and procedures should be reviewed to identify problems. Training
needs should be assessed.
BENTZ WHALEY FLESSNER
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Hire great people. The number one source of dirty data is still human error.
Hiring employees with the talent and temperament for data entry tasks can
be key to reducing errors.
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Can your existing database be tweaked to help with the problem? Deduplication tools may exist in your current software but are underutilized.
Additionally, configuration tweaks may be available to help identify
duplicates before they are entered into the system.
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Third-party duplicate identification tools can help. There are a number of
services that can be utilized to clean data, including identifying duplicates.
Additionally, many database vendors provide services that can help with the
technical aspects of merging duplicate records.
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Additional vendor tools may be available. Overlay tools may be available to
help standardize the data entry process before the data enters your database.
These tools capture the data, check for duplicates, and standardize the data
before it is committed to your database.
Is all this effort worth it? Almost certainly, yes. And you can easily attribute a
financial number to the investment. The most important area of data quality
for your organization is in online marketing, where email is still critical. In the
previously mentioned benchmarking data, 90% of companies indicated that they
conduct email marketing campaigns from their database. Assessing the value of
this data can be as simple as dividing a couple of numbers:
Annual
Email
Marketing
Revenue
Number of
Deliverable
Subscribers
Jason S. Boley is a senior
associate at Bentz Whaley
Flessner specializing in
systems and operations.
Jason brings a unique
blend of fundraising
expertise and information
technology skills developed
over two decades of
working with private
colleges, public research
institutions, healthcare
foundations, and libraries.
He is a recognized leader in
fundraising operations and
data analysis.
Revenue
Per
Subscriber
Using this example, an organization that attributed $100,000 in revenue to email
during a year with a subscriber base of 10,000 deliverable addresses would
indicate that every deliverable email in their database would have a value
of $10. This is an example of a very simplified calculation, but it provides a
starting point for assigning value to your demographic data. Additionally, more
sophisticated email return-on-investment calculators are available online that
take into account additional variables such as clicks and conversion rates.
Quantifying the value of your data is an excellent first step to kick start
your process if there is any doubt at the organization regarding the need to
maintain data quality. Organization-wide initiatives such as data integrity
will often warrant buy-in, and at a base level, everyone can appreciate lost
revenue opportunities.
Bentz Whaley Flessner’s systems and operations division can help with
your data hygiene issues. Our staff partners with organizations to advise
how you can begin to tackle complicated problems in your organization and
help you find a solution that fits your needs. Contact us at (800) 921-0111 for
more information.
BENTZ WHALEY FLESSNER
3
7251 Ohms Lane
Minneapolis, MN 55439
(952) 921-0111
INSIDE: Taking Out the
Garbage—Why Clean
Data is Important to Your
Fundraising Efforts
Meet the Systems
and Operations Team
Bentz Whaley Flessner’s team of experts
provide comprehensive advancement services
counsel. Draw on our expertise and advice
to meet your fundraising goals. Systems and
How clean is your fundraising data? Good
data quality lies at the heart of any successful
fundraising organization. BWF Senior Associate
Jason Boley looks at why data hygiene should be
a serious consideration at your organization and
where to begin if your data is problematic.
operations services include:
Katrina Klaproth
Systems Practice Leader
Jason Boley
Senior Associate
www.bwf.com
(800) 921-0111
Merrell Milano
Associate
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Conversion Readiness and Planning
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Software and Technology Selection and
Alignment
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Business Process Development and
Re-engineering
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Gift Administration and Business
Data Management
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Grateful Patient Program Infrastructure
Management
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Staffing Resources, Alignment
and Training
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Efficiency Reviews
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Pipeline Development, Prospect
Assignments, and Solicitation Planning
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Prospect Research and Verification
Deliverables
1-800-921-0111
www.bwf.com