Keeping Your Nonprofit’s Data Clean: A Guide to Better Fundraising and Donor Relationships
Data might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about nonprofit success, but it should be high on the list. Clean, organized, and up-to-date donor data is the foundation of strong relationships, effective fundraising, and meaningful impact measurement.
When your data is cluttered with duplicates, outdated addresses, and missing information, it can slow down your efforts, waste valuable resources, and even lead to lost donors.
The good news? Maintaining clean donor data doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By following a few best practices, and using the right tools, you can keep your nonprofit’s database clean, actionable, and ready to power your mission.
Downloadable Resource: Nonprofit Donor Data Cleanup Checklist – this step-by-step guide to organizing and maintaining a high-quality donor database.
1. Regularly Update and Validate Your Data
One of the biggest mistakes nonprofits make is failing to keep donor information current. Running National Change of Address (NCOA) updates at least quarterly ensures that your mailing lists are accurate, saving money on postage and ensuring donors receive communications at their correct address.
Additional data hygiene steps include:
Running email verification checks to remove invalid addresses.
Updating phone numbers through trusted data sources.
Checking donor records for outdated or incorrect information.
Quick Win: Run an email verification check today to remove invalid contacts and improve email deliverability rates.
🍃 How Julep Helps: Julep provides built-in address verification tools and pre-built reports to identify bad addresses and irregular donor names, helping you maintain a clean, accurate database.
2. Standardize Data Entry
With multiple team members handling donor records – from online forms to event registrations – inconsistent data entry can lead to errors and duplicate records. Standardization and setting clear guidelines ensure your data is uniform and easy to analyze.
Use consistent address formatting (e.g., "Street" vs. "ST").
Establish clear naming conventions (e.g., "Robert" vs. "Bob").
Standardize how apartment numbers and suite designations are recorded.
By training your team and implementing these standards, you’ll avoid mismatched data and improve the quality of reports and donor communications.
Quick Win: Create a standardized data entry guide for your team to improve consistency.
🍃 How Julep Helps: Julep’s automated data review tools flag inconsistencies in donor names, addresses, and contact details, allowing you to fix errors before they become a problem.
3. Eliminate Duplicate Donor Records
Duplicate donor records are a common issue in nonprofit databases that causes inefficient outreach, inaccurate reporting, and frustrated donors receiving multiple emails or letters. To prevent this:
Use automated de-duplication tools to merge duplicate records.
Regularly review donor lists for inconsistencies.
Set rules handling duplicate entries (e.g., deciding which record to keep).
However, be careful—automated systems can sometimes merge records incorrectly. A thoughtful approach to de-duplication ensures that donors are recognized as individuals, even if they go by different names or have multiple addresses.
Quick Win: Run Julep’s de-dupe tool today to streamline donor records and improve accuracy.
🍃 How Julep Helps: Julep’s De-duping tool identifies duplicate donors and lets you review and merge records easily. Pre-built reports also flag email duplicates, duplicate addresses, and duplicate households for fast cleanup.
4. Fill in Missing Data
Your donor records may be missing key details – like phone numbers, email addresses, or employer information. Data appending services can help fill in the gaps, providing more ways to connect with supporters. When using data append services, be sure to:
Choose reputable providers that ensure accuracy and compliance.
Verify new data before adding it to your system.
Use enhanced donor profiles to tailor communication and engagement strategies.
Quick Win: Identify your top 100 donors with missing contact info and prioritize updating their records.
🍃 How Julep Helps: Julep includes reports to find missing data, such as blank first names or potential spouse matches, helping you build fuller, more actionable donor profiles.
5. Use Seeding to Protect Data Integrity
Adding “seed” records (decoy names and addresses) to your database allows you to monitor how data is being used. This prevents unauthorized access or misuse of donor lists. This helps ensure that:
Mailings are being delivered correctly.
Your donor lists are not being accessed or shared improperly.
Data integrity is maintained across your organization.
Quick Win: Set up a seed record in your database and track how it moves through your system.
6. Streamline Data Practices with Automation
Many data tasks, such as cleaning up records, running reports, and updating donor lists, can be automated. Investing in tools, like Julep, will save time and reduce errors. Consider these standard features that Julep includes:
Automating donor thank-you emails and tax receipts with the Thank Yous Needed feature.
Setting up workflows for lapsed donor outreach with saved searches and Moves Management.
Quick Win: Set up an automated lapsed donor re-engagement email today.
7. Schedule Regular Data Audits
Even with the best practices in place, it’s important to periodically review your data. A full data audit helps:
Identify outdated or incorrect records.
Ensure compliance with reporting requirements.
Align data collection with fundraising strategic goals.
By regularly reviewing your data and making adjustments, you can keep your database clean and actionable.
Quick Win: Schedule quarterly data audits to maintain accuracy.
🍃 How Julep Helps: Julep includes pre-built data integrity reports to quickly spot errors, duplicates, and missing donor details.
8. Align Data Management with Organizational Goals
Ultimately, data management should support an organization’s mission. By focusing on strategic data collection, nonprofits can:
Identify key donor segments
Improve engagement strategies
Measure impact more effectively
The Bottom Line: Clean Data Means Better Fundraising
Your nonprofit’s success depends on strong relationships with donors, and those relationships are built on good data. Keeping your database clean ensures that your outreach is effective, your fundraising efforts are optimized, and your impact is clearly measured.
Taking proactive steps today to maintain data hygiene will pay off in
Stronger donor engagement
More successful campaigns
A more efficient, organized nonprofit.
Start small—update your records, set standard data entry rules, and automate key processes. Over time, these efforts will create a seamless, well-organized donor database that truly supports your mission.
🍃 Downloadable Resource: Nonprofit Donor Data Cleanup Checklist – A step-by-step guide to organizing and maintaining a high-quality donor database.
Want to put this checklist into action?
We’ve built an interactive Nonprofit Data Hygiene Tracker that helps you:
Assign tasks to your team
Automate due date tracking
Stay on top of donor data updates