List Management

Digital outreach is a crucial component of how nonprofits engage with potential donors. The importance and reach of a nonprofit’s digital efforts require a dedicated professional—or more—to maintain them...

Nonprofit charitable organizations are intended to operate for the public good. When a nonprofit charitable organization is qualified as tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), donors can generally deduct their contributions to the charity on their tax returns. Donors are thus more likely to support charitable organizations that have an…

Not all email lists are the same. You may have an e-newsletter list that includes all donors and supporters, another list specifically for repeat donors, and another list for supporters who have not yet donated. Your ability to segment your email lists will depend on your CRM and your email communications software, but having multiple lists can help your nonprofit better craft your messages and fundraising requests...

What could you do with a bigger email list? More donations? Volunteers? Capacity? Impact? Probably all of the above. After all, according to a recent M+R Benchmarks report: In 2015, on average, nonprofits received $44 in donations for every 1,000 fundraising emails sent. Nonprofit email revenue grew by 25 percent, faster than the overall rate of…

By definition, a constituent relationship management (CRM) system helps you better understand supporters’ habits and preferences by tracking and collecting data. But when multiple team members are entering information into the same system, your data is subject to the risk of human error. Whether it’s a typo or that half of your staff enters “Street”…

I’ll never forget the first time I came across an organization using Excel as a database. I’d taken on a part-time position as grant writer for a mid-sized agency working with women and children. Although I’d been hired to write grants, within weeks, the organization engaged me to write its annual Mother’s Day appeal...

When you convert from another donor database you will have a lot of questions: How long is the process? Who will I be working with? How can I clean up my data? Will I be trained? Can I apply filters? The most common question asked during a conversion is “what do other organizations do?” in…

At this time of year, many major gift officers (MGO) are evaluating their caseloads. Great MGOs understand the donors on their caseloads are really not theirs. They understand that in order to grow the major gift program, sometimes they have to “sacrifice” some of the donors they have been cultivating and “give” them away to another MGO who is building their caseload...

Datacards offer a wealth of information. These examples just scratch the surface. Digging in to the data can take you way beyond what you learn from glancing at surface demographics and assuming you know your prospects.

Datacards are the one- or two-page crib sheets your account executive and list broker use to determine which lists to test. And they are your friends.