Nonprofit Data Hygiene: Take Time Now, Save Time Later

Written By: Molly Riordan and Allie Tabberer

Does your nonprofit practice good data hygiene? Just like brushing your teeth every day is a good way to prevent dental problems down the road, establishing good habits around data will help keep your technology systems healthy and functional. While overlooking good data hygiene might not cause cavities, it does pose its own real risks:

• If you have a lot of duplicate contact records, you risk wasting money on printing & postage for your appeals.
• If you don’t carefully track deceased donors you risk your relationship with their surviving spouse.
• If you don’t capture key preference/targeting information for your constituents, you risk overpaying for your email marketing (if your provider charges by the number of contacts you send to.
• If you have multiple fields or forms for entering similar information, you risk losing the ability to run accurate, comprehensive reports.
• If you’re not managing and merging potential duplicates, you risk working off false assumptions and missing important facts! (Imagine receiving two $500 donations that appear to be from two different contacts, but are really just one person with two different email addresses. If someone had noticed and merged those records, your development team would have found a new $1000 donor to follow up with! But if no one noticed the two different names, that opportunity would be missed.)

It’s worth the time and energy to create data hygiene habits.

You might have an Admin who is in the system every day, fixing bugs, managing changes, updates, and other pieces of the software…but have they dedicated time specifically to cleaning and fixing data? Spot checking your data every now and then isn’t the same as making a habit of hygiene in your nonprofit – you need to be intentional.

Who is building the habit of data oversight in your organization?

Good data hygiene in a nonprofit requires someone to build the habit of consistent monitoring. Most systems have dedicated tools for this, that are generally easy for someone in your organization to run, as long as it’s made a priority (just like building the habit of brushing and flossing your teeth)!

• Is someone in your organization assigned to run a deduping tool on a regular basis?
• Are they in the habit of merging duplicates that were found?

Expand the habit to organizational processes.

Human beings are unique and special, but they shouldn’t be entering data in different ways! The best way to fix data hygiene issues is to prevent them as much as possible, with structures and processes to help humans be consistent.

Is the person assigned to manage duplicates also adjusting data collection processes to minimize duplicates based on what they learn from the deduping tool?

Avoid overwhelm.

When your organization first starts a regular hygiene schedule, it can become overwhelming. Upfront investment to get some help to make it more manageable will help get it done so it doesn’t wait too long. If it’s a manageable amount, it’s best to set bite sized goals, such as working on 3 goals a month. Then monitor going forward. Build reports on a dashboard to help you quickly find what needs to be fixed each time you check-in. When you find a problem, determine if there is something you can do to prevent that issue in the future. Set that process in place. By starting small and adding in more with each check-in, the habit will eventually be built up and save time in the long run.

Bake the process into organizational governance.

Your staff, leadership, and board, know the data points, processes, and strategic plan for the organization. That’s why it’s important to make sure you include data hygiene in your overall governance policies. This ensures longevity for the hygiene habit, an awareness of its importance, and the exchange of information to keep it in alignment with overall organizational goals.

We frequently are asked to help with a clean-up when data hygiene has not been a habit. It’s the same as going between dentist visits without flossing and having to do some extra periodontal work to make up for it. You have the skills to floss and could do it, just like there are people in your organization who can set up hygiene tools, run them and keep your system healthy. The upfront investment will pay off when you come away with a clean bill of health!

We’re always here to provide best practices and help minimize the workload as you go through this process. Just send a support email or contact us and let us know how we can help.