Finding the Gold in Your Database

1. Finding the Gold in Your Database Baird Straughan, LeadGreen baird@leadgreen.org With Kevin Kasowski, River Network River Rally 2011

2. Goals: Decide if your list needs to be cleaned up, and how you’ll do that. Decide how to segment your list, identifying potential major donors. Decide how to replenish your list. Decide whether to reduce mailing costs by limiting mailings to recent donors.

3. How much gold is in a mailing list, anyway?

4. Group A: Established Dollars from individuals (dues, donations, major donations)

5. How Group A’s income breaks down Size of gifts

6. B: Sporadic major donor work Dollars from individuals (dues, donations, major donations)

7. C: Neglecting and restarting Dollars from individuals (dues, donations, major donations)

8. Group C’s revenue distribution Size of gifts

9. How much gold do you get from your mailing list now? Annual income from dues: $__________ from donations: $__________ from major donations: $ ___________ How many people donated in the last year? __________ Average income per donor: $__________ Average donation size: $__________

10. How much could you get? Annual income from dues: $__________ X renewal rate: __% Total from dues: ____________ Average donation: $ _____________ X response rate: __% X number of appeals __ Total from appeals: $__________ Number of major donors: __________ Average gift: ___________ Total from major donors: $________ Total Income from the people in your list: $ ___________

11. 3 minutes: Estimate your current income from your mailing list, andyour potential.5 minutes: Form groups of 5 and share.

12. Take-aways: - Set a target for individual revenue income.- … and

13. Just One List One list to rule them all, One list to find them …

14. Cleaning Up Your List

15. Roll up your sleeves and clean it up in your database or spreadsheet. Send out a mailing and see how many duplicates you have and bad addresses are returned. Two approaches

16. Approach #1:Run reports and sort by Last Name

17. Sort by Email

18. If you have a CRM, get Dupe-Blocker An example of DupeBlocker, a program free to nonprofits who use the Salesforce database or customizations of it, like Watergrass.

19. Send out a mailing.

20. Clean up the database as you get returns.

21. How much work is that? I asked Shanda Minney, ED at West Virginia Rivers Coalition and a WaterGrass user, what had led to the improvement in their mail responses. She replied: “To answer your question about what we did differently, I would have to say that I think these results are the product of a year long effort to do better at our overall supporter servicing.  Amanda has done a tremendous amount of work cleaning up our database, removing duplicates, chasing down correct details and amending previous errors.  In addition, our appeals are firmly incorporated within our overall outreach strategy - newsletters, thank you acknowledgments, personal contact, major donor development, rapid problem solving etc.”

22. But there’s really no way around it … About 30% of all email addresses become defunct each year. About 16% of the population moves, so their addresses change. CHURN YOUR MAILING LIST

23. 1 minute: If necessary, what steps would you take to clean up your mailing list?5 minutes: Form groups of 5, share and discuss.

24. Segmenting Your List

25. By Giving Potential

26. By Check-ing in NOZA

27. By Interest

28. By Partic-ipation

29. By email opens

30. Begin email reinforcement Begin thank-you calls

31. Example: MD Sierra Club

32. More touches Reminder calls to our list of top donors

33. March Mail Appeal

34. March Email Appeal

35. By Partic-ipation

36. 1 minute: How do you want to segment your list and reach out to special groups in order to improve your response rate?10 minutes: Form groups of 5, share and discuss.

37. Replenishing Your List

38. Acquisition Mailings Mailings to Lapsed Members Enter your participant lists!

39. Acquisitions

40. 1 minute: How do you want to replenish your list?