How Bad Data Costs Your Organization Money and Time

As always, this year’s NAYDO was a banner three days of important insight and useful information from Y leaders across North America. Even in a virtual format, NAYDO attracted nearly 1,200 participants to hundreds of sessions, workshops, networking opportunities, and product presentations centered around driving donations.

Daxko hosted five products sessions and contributed to numerous roundtables and workshops, in addition to delivering opening remarks to kick off the three-day event. One such event was a roundtable with Daxko Client Executive Rob Gilchrist leading a discussion about data cleansing. Here, we recap some of the high points from his session.

The Importance of Data Cleansing

The problem with spring cleaning is in its name. It implies there is a specific season for dusting off your organization and clearing out all the cobwebs. In reality, this approach means many organizations shut down for an entire week, or more, every year to do a full data sweep. But, what if your annual cleaning could happen year-round? And what if it happened in the background of your day-to-day operations? This is what data cleansing accomplishes.

The most often noted data annoyance is having repeated profiles. Outside of the benefits of having one complete and correct profile for a member, active profiles also provide  tons of other data points wthat can help save resources, as well as track and drive donations. For example, 11-14% of Americans move each year. Undeliverable mail costs an average of $3 per unit. Not breaking the bank, right? However, for Daxko Operations users, this results in $22.1 million wasted on paying for undeliverable mail. With greater account accuracy, you can save significantly. Data cleansing verifies mailing and email addresses automatically. Rather than making staff manually change user data, the system gives staff the chance to approve a suggested new address or email. All of this is tracked in individual member profile, providing even greater assurance of account accuracy.

Data to Clean

With this accuracy, it becomes even easier to take a step deeper with data. This type of data helps create tailored communication for potential donors. Consider these data points when generating campaigns:

• Payment Information
• Check-ins
• Program registration
• Wealth screening
• Donation history
• Email interaction
• Event attendance

Data cleansing ensures account accuracy for each and every member profile. This allows reliable communication between your organization and potential donors, saves money by reducing the number of undeliverable communications, and ultimately drives greater donations by using data to create tailored campaigns.