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  • 1.  Managing fundraising initiatives that you don't want in your donor database

    Posted 09-13-2024 11:57 AM

    Hi all, we're wondering how other organizations manage their fundraising initiatives and raffles, particularly for those where the people purchasing aren't institutionally related and we don't necessarily want them in our donor base. Do you use a separate system to manage, or do you put them in your donor database?

    Example: A department chair wants to sell discount cards to local businesses to raise money for their department. The people buying these cards aren't related to our institution and will not donate in the future. We don't want them in our donor database, but that's the only way we currently have to process credit card payments. How would your organization process these payments?



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    Sarah Petty
    Director of Development Operations
    LSU Health Foundation
    spetty@lsuhealthfoundation.org
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  • 2.  RE: Managing fundraising initiatives that you don't want in your donor database

    Posted 09-13-2024 12:11 PM
    First off, you likely need a Third-Party Fundraising Policy. We do not want external entities conducting fundraising activities without our "permission." This is especially true regarding games of chance that require (usually) registration with the state.

    Furthermore, you do not know these efforts aren't impacting current donors. I bet a good percentage of these donors are in your database. It would help if you had this policy to ensure these external fundraisers do not conflict with official appeals. Individuals can easily get confused-or frustrated-if they receive multiple requests from different areas in a short time span.

    Secondly, why don't you want these donors in your database (if they aren't already there)? You do not know they won't donate in the future (unless you try!), and some may have already donated in the past. Having them in your database allows YOU to screen those individuals for larger gift potential - or develop a segmented campaign to approach the local businesses for things like sponsorships and named scholarships.

    I vote to run these through your database. I also vote for using an institutional crowdfunding platform integrated with your CRM for all of these efforts to avoid having to reenter donor information.

    John

    John H. Taylor, Principal
    John H. Taylor Consulting, LLC
    2604 Sevier Street
    Durham, NC     27705

    919.816.5903 (cell/text)

    Serving the Advancement Community Since 1987




    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Managing fundraising initiatives that you don't want in your donor database

    Posted 09-13-2024 12:56 PM
    Sarah, you're raising a difficult issue. The conventional practice has been to keep these donors in the donor database, for the reasons John articulated. But the underlying assumption of that practice is that keeping folks in the database is a low-cost, no-harm option. Increasingly, we're recognizing that there are substantial costs, including:
    • Per-record costs from CRM vendors, data storage and transit costs for backups, and other per-record costs for ancillary services, appends,  and data hygiene 
    • Potential for donor harm and organizational reputational harm in case of breach, and environmental harm from all that electricity we use and rarely think about in this context
    • Data privacy regulations in more jurisdictions that increasingly restrict data collection and storage, and that create rights for data subjects to request the data we store about them
    • Operationally, we need more sophisticated querying and data management capabilities to filter, suppress, and segment the ever-increasing number of records in our donor databases - at a cost in time, training, salaries, and specialized tools
    Bill Conor and I will be speaking at AASP about these issues, trying to convene a conversation to explore how to adapt our practices to balance the harms and the benefits.

    I think for a start, it makes sense to develop lead qualification rules to try to filter down donors from the kinds of events and fundraisers that rarely yield repeat donors. 


    Thank you,
    Isaac Shalev
    Data Strategy Expert
    Sage70, Inc.
    (917) 859-0151
    isaac@sage70.com

    Schedule a 30-minute consultation now:




    Original Message


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