Prospects are the lifeblood of fundraisers, which you probably already know full well. For many organizations, there is a strong inclination to import and gather as much information on prospects as possible. Am I right? Then, you’re faced with the question – how do you organize mounds of prospect data while keeping it all clean? Data hygiene also needs to be a top priority, so you’ll want to avoid dumping EVERYTHING into your database at the drop of a hat. Even more important is developing a plan for organizing and cultivating those prospects accordingly.
All of these factors can have your head spinning, but this is where List Management comes in to help you save the day!
List Management is a complement to ImportOmatic® (IOM) that acts as a “holding tank” for non-constituent records. It allows you to import and manage non-constituents with all of the IOM features that you know and love – dictionaries, duplicate criteria settings, virtual fields, etc. With List Management, you also get the added advantage of additional data management tools. For example, you can assign solicitor groups or apply task sets to all or some of your list members. Then, the non-constituents in your list can be promoted to full constituents using whatever criteria you decide. Criteria may include broad categories like giving capacity or address location, or it may be a specific action such as completing a survey or receipt of a gift in response to a mailing.
You may be asking yourself: What is the benefit to importing hundreds or thousands of non-constituents into Raiser’s Edge™ (RE)? Fair question.
The obvious benefit to having non-constituents in RE is that you aren’t needlessly importing tons of prospects into RE as FULL constituents when they may not ever support your mission. This immediately helps keep your database more manageable.
The other HUGE benefit that cascades from this is that you keep your total constituent record count in RE where it should be. Subscription levels in RE NXT™, for example, will be based on the number of constituents (as opposed to number of users) and non-constituents will not count towards that total. Therefore, managing your constituents wisely in RE is not just important now, but could be even more important in the future as both RE and your organization evolve. Both ImportOmatic and List Management are available to you now whether your RE database is hosted or on premise.
While we are still on the subject of benefits, List Management has lots of useful features to help you better manage non-constituent records. In turn, this leads to more efficient cultivation efforts. For instance, you could separate your list into three different groups – major giving prospects, mid-level prospects, and low-level prospects. Then, you can choose to immediately promote the major giving prospects and assign a solicitor for further action. Next, you can assign an appeal and send the mid-level prospects an acquisition piece. Finally, you can create an email campaign for low-level prospects or simply set them aside for future action.
You may be wondering how you can implement List Management into your importing practice. See 4 Specific Data Scenarios for Managing Lists in Raiser’s Edge in Part 2 of this blog!
Raiser’s Edge ™ is a registered trademark of Blackbaud, Inc.
