Data Is Your Friend

As a nonprofit fundraiser you may avoid data like the plague, but it can and should be your friend.

If you fall into this category, there are some super simple things you can do to nurture and grow a friendship with your organization's donor data. Below are three you can start with here, today, now.

1. Know how to pull a list of your prospects. Lists can be called different things depending on the donor management system your organization uses. They may be called, among other things, a query, custom export, custom query, report, or just plain ole list. No matter the name, know how to pull it on your own. If you don't know how to do this, ask one of your more data savvy teammates to show you. It won't take too long and the return will be huge.
2. Be sure you know how to run a year-to-date fundraising progress report directly from the system on your own. This may be in the form of a traditional report, a dashboard, or other type of output. Again, if you don't know how to do this, ask for help. BONUS: If you have fundraising goals, create a version of the progress report filtered to the gifts you brought in.
3. Ask the person in charge of your database what you can do to help the data in your prospect portfolio be as clean and up-to-date as possible. Work with your organization's "data person" on a simple cleanup plan you can help implement.

These are three easy steps you can take today to help you become a more data-centered fundraiser, not to mention the good vibes it will create with your data team.