Phone Appends: A Nonprofit’s Data Enrichment Guide

Calling your devoted supporters is one of the most effective ways to cultivate relationships with them and rally more support behind your cause. However, outdated or otherwise inaccurate phone numbers in your database can do more harm than good by wasting your staff’s time. While some supporters will regularly update their contact information with your team, many people won’t. That’s where phone appends come into play!

Phone appends are a reliable way to keep your CRM up-to-date. When you turn to a trusted data append provider with a comprehensive database of contact information, they’ll help you find any missing or old phone numbers for your supporters. In short, this is the easiest way to bring your database up to speed, so your marketing and development teams aren’t constantly sent to voicemail when they call the wrong numbers.

At NPOInfo, we strive to provide nonprofits with the data they need to create lasting relationships with those who make their missions possible. We offer data appends, including phone number appending services, so your team can successfully get in touch with its supporters and have meaningful conversations that drive value for your cause.

With this guide, we’ll answer any questions you might have about telephone appends before you start looking at providers. That way, you’ll be equipped to determine whether a phone append is a smart move for your organization and when you should get started cleaning up your database. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is a phone append?
• What types of information will a phone number append reveal?
• How do telephone appends work?
• What is reverse phone appending?
• How will a phone number append impact your organization?
• What information do you need for a phone append?
• How much does telephone appending cost?
• How can you get started with phone appending?

Phone appends pose tremendous value for your marketing and development answers. Better data means higher ROI for your marketing efforts and more engaged constituents, so if you’re ready to enrich your data, let’s dive in!

What is a phone append?

Phone appending is the process of updating or adding missing phone numbers to constituent profiles within an existing constituent relationship management (CRM) system. It involves taking the existing identifying information you have for individuals and cross-checking it with an external, comprehensive database of contact information.

Phone append software and service providers will match the name, email address, and postal address from the contact list you share with the information in the database. That way, you can be sure you have the most accurate phone number to get into contact with supporters. This process empowers you to stay connected with your current supporters, re-engage lapsed supporters, and drive engagement to generate revenue for your cause.

What types of information will a phone number append reveal?

There are a handful of different types of phones available today, and chances are, your supporters have likely shared numbers for all three kinds with your organization. These include:

• Cell phones: These probably make up the bulk phone numbers stored in your CRM. Being able to call supporters even when they’re on the go is ideal for contacting them whenever.
• Landlines: Though less common, landlines are still useful in specific situations. In fact, there are still plenty of people who only use landlines, making it the only way to contact them.
• Business phones: These numbers might be more useful for corporate sponsors or other socially-responsible businesspeople in your database.

The good news is that phone appending can help you verify existing numbers and fill in the missing pieces for you for all three types of phone numbers. Having all three numbers for each supporter will make it much easier to contact them.

Just consider the goal you want to achieve with the conversation to determine which numbers are appropriate to call on top of the contact preferences they’ve expressed to your organization.

How do telephone appends work?

Phone appending is incredibly straightforward, so long as you turn to a trusted provider to handle the work for you. You provide the data, and they’ll handle the rest.

Here’s what you can expect the process to look like when you work with a phone number appending service provider:

1. Share a list of names, addresses, and other identifying information with your services provider.
2. They’ll use batch processing to search for any missing or outdated information for all of your constituents using their comprehensive, reliable database of contact information.
3. They’ll remove any inactive or otherwise outdated phone numbers and replace them with the updated details.
4. In some cases, your phone number appending services provider will manually check the phone numbers for you to verify accuracy.
5. You’ll receive a list of contact information for everyone in your database.

If you’d like to update and verify other types of contact data (like email addresses or postal addresses), full-service data append providers like NPOInfo can handle that for you all at once!

Bear in mind that no matter which provider you use, results are typically returned fairly quickly, but the more constituents you share, the longer it will naturally take.

To run a phone append on your own, you’ll need access to your own database of phone numbers, which requires you to find software that will do the phone appending for you. However, this isn’t quite as reliable as having someone who can manually check the data returned to you.

That’s why we recommend turning to a trusted phone number appending services provider. They can manually check everything and ensure you’re only given accurate and working phone numbers.

What is reverse phone appending?

This is a specific type of phone appending. It’s when you supply only a phone number. Then, the services provider locates the name, postal address, and other supplemental information associated with that phone number.

Note that our team at NPOInfo doesn’t offer this type of appending. However, as an organization, this is likely something you won’t need to worry about since you’ll only want to append data for constituents who are already in your database.

How will a phone number append impact your organization?

Whether you’re a national advocacy organization or a local charity, phone appending can positively impact your organization in more ways than you might think.

For instance, you can expect these bonuses by successfully appending phone numbers stored in your organization’s CRM:

• Enhanced fundraising opportunities. Calling constituents plays into a wide array of developmental efforts. Call your major donors every once in a while to strengthen their commitment to the cause. You can even use phone numbers for specific fundraising campaigns. For instance, a phonathon and text fundraising are some of the best ways to request donations from supporters. If you reach out to people who have previously supported your cause, they’re much more likely to give than if you reach out to people who don’t already have a connection with your cause!
• Open lines of communication. Easily get into contact with your supporters by quickly calling them up. Having their cell phone numbers also opens up the opportunity for text outreach, so you can share the latest updates from your cause with anyone who prefers to hear from your team via SMS. In fact, fundraising research found that text message audiences grew by an incredible 26% last year, while text message volume grew by 14% for nonprofits.
• More effective advocacy efforts and political campaigns. Phone and text banking make it easy to reach out to supporters who live in areas affected by a particular advocacy movement or political campaign. That way, you can get them to rally behind your policies and vote for positive change.

Enriching your organization’s data is a powerful opportunity so long as you do so ethically and effectively. In any case, know that you should always adhere to their opt-out preferences. If someone opts out of your phone solicitation, make a note of it. Otherwise, if they keep getting texts and phone calls when they’ve indicated they don’t want to, this will negatively impact their relationship with your cause.

What information do you need for a phone append?

You’ll need to provide as much identifying information from your CRM as possible. The more information you can provide, the better!

Some of the information we recommend you provide includes:

• Name
• Postal address
• Phone numbers
• Email addresses
• College/university
• Last donation amount
• Last donation date

Don’t worry about extra data in your file. Your phone number append services provider will know exactly what to look for, and as we mentioned, the more data you can share, the better. This helps your phone number appending services provider more accurately identify your contacts and locate the correct contact information.

How much does telephone appending cost?

Just like timing, phone appending costs vary depending on the number of constituents you have. It also depends on the phone number append service you use.

While it can be tempting to go with the cheapest option you find, bear in mind that spending a little extra often means you’ll have access to a more comprehensive, reliable, and quality database of phone numbers.

To discuss pricing with our team, reach out for a free quote! We’ll ask you to provide basic information like the types of appends you’re interested in and how many records you’d like to append. From there, you can decide whether a phone append makes sense for your organization’s budget.

How can you get started with phone appending?

If you’ve decided a phone number append is a smart move, reach out to the data experts here at NPOInfo. Or, if you need more information, we’re happy to chat about how we can help!

At NPOInfo, we understand that nonprofits have different data management needs from other types of organizations like corporations. That’s why we’ve uniquely configured our data append services to cater to the nonprofit sector. We guarantee a quick turnaround and accurate results thanks to our thorough investigation of your constituents’ contact information.

Not to mention, we offer other types of data appends beyond just phone numbers! We’ve got you covered if you need appends for email addresses, employer information, birthdays, or postal addresses.

When you turn to our experts, you’ll receive exactly what you need to strengthen your outreach methods, grow your revenue, and drive meaningful supporter relationships. Here’s what to expect:

1. Select the services you want. Let us know which data you’d like us to find to fill the gaps in your database. Depending on what you need, we’ll search for phone numbers, emails, employers, birthdays, and postal addresses.
2. Get a quote. Our team will take a look at the types of data you requested along with your anticipated record count. From here, we’ll reach out with a fair and accurate quote.
3. Send us your records. Securely send your records with the information our team requests.
4. Wait as we conduct the phone append. Our team will implement a thorough checking and verification process as we append the phone numbers for any constituents you asked us to.
5. Receive your appends. We’ll send the appended phone numbers along with any other data you requested. We’ll let you know whether we found phone numbers, what those phone numbers are, and how accurate we think we found the right information. Plus, we’ll answer any questions about the reports and even help you import the information into your database if needed.

We make it easy to get started! Simply reach out to indicate your preferences and request a quote. We’ll contact you to discuss your needs further and get the ball rolling with your data enhancement efforts.

Additional Resources

Your constituents want to hear from you, but reaching out is challenging when you have inaccurate contact information for them! A phone append will clean up your database and ensure you’re calling the right numbers to contact donors, volunteers, sponsors, and any other constituents.

Our team at NPOInfo is happy to help whenever you’re ready to discuss your data enrichment needs! Just reach out to request a quote, and we’ll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible. That way, you can start successfully calling your constituents again rather than dialing the wrong number time and time again!

In the meantime, explore these educational resources if you’re still curious about effective nonprofit data management:

• What Data Should Nonprofits Collect? Overview & Top Tips. Your nonprofit likely collects a lot of data every day. Learn the types of data you should monitor and how to leverage them in your marketing and development efforts.
• Donor Data Management: A Quick Guide for Nonprofits. Your donors are the lifeblood of your organization. Beyond storing the right contact information for them, you need to know what drives them to give. This guide uncovers how you can connect with donors on deeper levels by leveraging the information they share with your team.
• The Fundraiser’s Guide to Improving Nonprofit Data Hygiene. A clean database will help you keep up with your active supporters and quickly identify who you need to reach out to. In this guide, we explore crucial steps that lead to good data hygiene, including data appends!