record review

Every January I find myself looking at the same reports and data from summer and fall efforts and thinking the same thoughts - how come I have all of these records that gave in the last couple of years whom I can not reach.  Some are relocation based, some we still have parent addresses for, others never had a phone number or email address, limiting our contact.  In the modern communication methods, and I am seeing this more and more, all we really have is the parent address and phone number and the younger (may be 30, so no longer young) alum following us on social media and giving through text to give so we don't even know they are a donor.

My approach is to start off going old school - print out all of the information that you have for the prospect on a trifold self mailer and send it to them with a request for updates.  If you know that it is going to the parent address, or at least to the same address they used as a student, then add a note to the mailing explaining why it is important that we have updated information on the alum and asking that it either be returned with mailing information or forwarded along.  That typically returns 25-35%.

Follow up with an intensive research process, we use alumni finder and anywho.com for address location and phone number look ups.  If we are unable to find either, or only able to find an address, we send the data out for a cell number append.  Once we get the cell back we call and text it asking for an update.  This does irritate a small number of folks but we are prepared to manage that and feel that the long term benefits outweigh the short term issue.  It has yet to have a negative impact on giving overall and many of those who were upset initially, have given in the interim so clearly it passed as a concern.

This is the time of year to do this work - giving tends to be slower and you can gather a great deal of this in time to use on a fiscal year end push, adding some "new" prospects in as you push and prod the population toward the end of your year.