Learn everything you need to know about wealth screening for nonprofits.

Wealth Screening for Nonprofits: The Definitive Guide

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As a nonprofit marketer, you strive to create meaningful, lasting supporter relationships, and data is a big part of that. Data-driven strategies can inform your cultivation strategies by letting you know who your donors are. In particular, wealth screening can help you determine how much someone can afford to give and how likely they are to donate to your cause based on past giving behaviors.

In a world driven by technology, donor data is more accessible and helpful than ever. You just need to know what information to collect, use the right tools to gather it, and then fold your results into your outreach strategies.

Whether you’re looking to fund a capital campaign with major gifts or level up your low- and mid-tier donors, wealth screening is a smart option. At the same time, it might seem daunting if you’re unfamiliar with the basics. This guide is here to help! So that you can tap into wealth screening, we’ll dive into these topics:

At NPOInfo, we work with all sorts of nonprofits to build robust donor profiles. With our data enrichment services, we can help you send more targeted fundraising asks and subsequently deepen donor relationships. By sharing what we know, we’re confident you’ll be equipped to leverage wealth screening at your nonprofit. Let’s get started!

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Let's break down what donor wealth screening is.

What is wealth screening?

Wealth screening is the process of appending financial data and other wealth indicators for individuals. This process helps nonprofits identify and target prospective and existing donors with the greatest capacity to give.

Nonprofits using this service must share identifying information for individual supporters, such as their names and contact information. Then, their chosen nonprofit wealth screening service leverages public record data and propriety philanthropy databases to pull this information. When their file is returned, nonprofits can use the data to segment supporters into groups based on giving capacity and send targeted fundraising appeals.

Here's a definition of donor wealth screening.

Donor wealth screening can help you improve your fundraising efforts.

How do nonprofits use wealth screening?

Guessing who your wealthiest donors are based on hunches or inaccurate data is a risky game. Wealth screening will guarantee that you’re working with accurate data, so you can make informed decisions when planning your fundraising campaigns.

With accurate wealth data, you’ll be able to focus your efforts on the right donors, honing in on those who are likely to make a big impact on your cause. So let’s take a look at four key ways you can fold this process into your everyday marketing and fundraising.

Wealth screening helps you accomplish goals such as tapping into corporate giving and locating major donors.

1. Create realistic fundraising goals.

At its core, donor wealth screening will let you know how much your donors can give. Based on this data, you can set realistic (yet still aspirational) fundraising goals to drive your campaigns to new heights.

Otherwise, you risk underestimating your team and setting goals that are too low. Then, when you reach your campaign’s goal, support may taper off as donors won’t feel as motivated to give if they don’t think you still need donations.

On the other hand, you also risk overestimating your team if you don’t have sufficient wealth data. You may set objectives that are too far-fetched, causing your team to feel deterred when you fall short.

2. Send targeted fundraising appeals.

A well-crafted fundraising appeal is comprised of four primary components:

  • Who you’ll ask to donate
  • When you’ll ask for a donation
  • How you’ll ask for it
  • The amount you’ll ask the donor to give

Data appending allows you to address each of these areas, resulting in a higher return on your investment. Alongside other donor data, wealth screening will help you understand the individual’s giving capacity. Then, you can pair that with their communication preferences and frequency, resulting in a well-timed ask completed with a reasonable amount.

That way, you don’t risk leaving money on the table by asking for too little or much. And as we’ll explore later, you can streamline your outreach further by grouping donors with similar giving capacities, saving even more time.

3. Locate major donors.

Your organization’s major donors are the life source of your work. They’re fully invested in your cause and devote a considerable amount of their hard-earned money to keep your doors open. Donorly’s guide to major donors explains that these individuals provide your cause with its largest, most impactful gifts.

About 80% of individual donor fundraising revenue comes from just 20% of your donors.

That being said, finding these donors and cultivating relationships with them should be a top priority for your team. Wealth screening gives you the information you need to uncover them and create outreach that resonates with them.

By uncovering donors’ current assets and past giving to similar organizations, you won’t waste your time trying to level up donors who aren’t likely to give any more to your cause than they already do.

4. Tap into matching gift opportunities.

Appending financial data can provide valuable employer data, letting you know where your donors work. From here, you can research their companies, flag any that offer matching gift programs, and follow up with anyone who might be eligible.

Around 26 million individuals work for companies with matching gift programs, but only 1.31% of individual contributions made to the average nonprofit are matched, according to Double the Donation’s fundraising statistics.

Knowing this, you likely have a few matching gift opportunities within your own CRM. By finding these opportunities, you’ll double (maybe even triple!) individuals’ contributions, multiplying their impact on your cause.

There are several types of data you can gather from wealth screening for nonprofits.

What data can you receive through wealth screening?

The type of data you’ll receive depends on your nonprofit wealth screening services provider. Pinpoint the type of information you need and then find a provider who can append that data for you. To maximize results, we recommend pairing philanthropic and wealth data, helping you find donors who can give and actually want to give to your cause.

Of course, there’s no limit on how much data you can collect, but there is a limit on how much you should collect! Several factors can point to a donor’s capacity for charitable giving, and some are more valuable than others. Let’s break down the most valuable types of data you might collect. That way, you won’t get buried under unnecessary data!

This chart shows how we can break down wealth screening data into categories.

Wealth markers

When appending financial data, focus on these wealth indicators:

  • Business affiliations. A donor’s business affiliations hint at their net worth and give insight into potential professional connections you can use for networking opportunities. This type of data includes business partnerships, a role on a board, and other types of corporate connections.
  • Profession. Someone’s profession, along with other employer data, can help you estimate their salary and disposable income, which is especially useful if they’re in a high-paying field. You’ll need to know information like their city, job title, and company, so you can research average salaries in their career field and location.
  • Stock ownership. Although these are typically liquid assets, stocks are a reliable wealth indicator that can be used to estimate prospects’ financial capacity. Start researching stock ownership by consulting portals like the one provided by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which maintains records on publicly traded companies.
  • Real estate investment. The amount of money someone invests in real estate can point to their net worth and signal that they value opportunities to spend their money wisely. In fact, major giving research has found that individuals who own at least $2 million in real estate are 17 times more likely to donate to charity than the average person.

Donor wealth screening research has found that those who own more real estate are more likely to donate to charity.

These wealth indicators will give you a solid foundation to launch your prospect research forward. While they’re not surefire proof of donors’ wealth, they can give you a pretty solid idea of it. Always use your best judgment when analyzing any wealth data and formulating it into your outreach strategies.

Philanthropic markers

While wealth indicators are certainly valuable, they’re not the only indicators of a donor’s giving capacity. Philanthropic indicators that can also point to giving capacity include:

  • Political giving. Political donations can be both a philanthropic and a wealth indicator. You’ll gain insight into their beliefs by determining their political affiliations, allowing you to promote relevant opportunities that align with their values.
  • Previous giving habits. Take a look at each donor’s RFM — the recency of their last gift, the frequency of their donations, and the average monetary value of their gifts. Look at the specific projects and programs they’ve funded to see which resonated with them. While a donor’s past giving to your specific nonprofit is crucial, you’ll also want to know if they’ve given to other nonprofits. This can help you identify what drives them to give and pinpoint other philanthropic-minded donors who share similar values.
  • Past engagement history. Beyond donations, look at other areas of your cause where donors are involved. Perhaps they’ve volunteered, served on your board, participated in advocacy efforts, or joined a peer-to-peer fundraiser. Extra involvement may point to a deeper commitment to your cause and therefore a higher chance of donating.

Determining philanthropic indicators is a vital part of the wealth screening process. Pairing wealth and philanthropic markers will help you determine whether someone’s willing and able to give to your cause. From there, you can craft appeals that feature the appropriate ask amounts and point to areas they’d be interested in supporting.

Follow these tips to get more out of your wealth screening results.

Tips to Get More Out of Financial Data Appending

As you can see, wealth screening is a valuable opportunity for any organization. However, your data is only as valuable as what you do with it. So before you start collecting donor data, have some solid data management strategies in place. In turn, you’ll wind up with organized data that drives greater results for your cause.

1. Clean your database.

Your CRM can quickly become cluttered with data if you’re not careful. That’s why we suggest cleaning your database before employing wealth screening services!

To organize your donor database, we recommend taking a couple of steps, including:

  • Remove duplicate information. Otherwise, you may accidentally screen donors more than once.
  • Purge lapsed and deceased donors. Don’t spend time or money pulling data for donors who haven’t given to your cause in years or who have passed away.
  • Standardize your entries. If each constituent’s data is entered differently, it’ll be difficult to append financial data and provide results in a standardized format. Take some time upfront to put everything in a consistent format.
  • Update outdated or missing contact information. To correctly identify donors during wealth screening, make sure you have as much identifying information as possible. We recommend conducting data appends to fill in outdated or missing contact details, such as donors’ phone numbers, email addresses, and postal addresses.

You want your prospect research to start off on the right foot, and cleaner records will yield more accurate results. This is a solid first step for any nonprofit that wants to append financial data for its constituents.

2. Follow up with new business connections.

After performing a wealth screening, you’ll likely uncover insights about the individual’s business connections. Leverage these findings to form valuable partnerships with companies and expand your donor network.

Let’s look at a few opportunities your organization can use to further your mission and drive revenue:

  • Corporate sponsorship or partnership opportunities. As you complete wealth screenings, perhaps you notice several donors work for the same company—this might point to a potential partnership or sponsorship opportunity. To follow up on this opportunity, reach out to introduce yourself to the company’s leadership. Share that several of your donors work for the business when chatting about a potential partnership, indicating alignment between your values.
  • Matching gift opportunities. Some employers offer matching gift programs where they match their employees’ donations to charitable causes. Research each employer’s guidelines to pinpoint eligible donors. If your development team has enough time on its hands, you might even start conversations with companies that don’t have a program in place already.
  • New workplace giving programs. Once you’ve sparked a relationship with donors’ employers, you can recommend that they start (or improve) a workplace giving program. To make your proposal as effective as possible,  you should share research on how workplace giving correlates with higher employee engagement, improves their reputation in their local community, and helps attract new top talent. Additionally, pinpoint specific corporate social responsibility software and best practices that will make launching the program easier for them.

In addition to wealth screening findings, pay attention to the employer data of your top volunteers. Some companies offer volunteer grants to the organizations their employees volunteer with. Similar to matching gifts, making your organization and the volunteer aware of these programs can earn your mission more financial support at no cost to your supporters.

3. Segment your donors.

While certainly helpful, wealth screening is an extensive process. Segmenting your donors before conducting your financial data append can ease the workload and break down your expansive donor base into bite-sized pieces. For instance, you might segment your donors into categories such as:

  • Recurring donors
  • New donors
  • Event attendees

Screening by group will help your nonprofit focus on specific areas of your fundraising. Then, after you receive your results, you can segment your donors even further to send highly-relevant appeals. For instance, you can group donors based on their giving capacities and specific interests in your programs, making sure they receive the appeals most relevant to their needs.

4. Screen before events.

Leading up to an event, you can perform a wealth screening to increase registrations and create a memorable experience for attendees. For instance, you can leverage the data you gather to:

  • Know who to invite. Before you send out invitations, screen your donors to discover who will enjoy your event the most. For example, you might specifically invite major donors and major giving prospects to an auction where prizes start at high initial bids. Then, you may also invite major giving prospects to a more casual, family-friendly event to form connections with them in a less formal setting.
  • Create better seating charts. Managing guest lists and seating donors can be a logistical nightmare. You can group donors and put like-minded people together so that they can form meaningful connections at the event.
  • Know who to interact with the most at the event. Events are known for their networking opportunities. Make sure your team prioritizes cultivating relationships with those most likely to give to your cause again.

By folding wealth screening into your event management strategies, you’ll create positive environments for your donors, inspiring them to stay connected with your cause long after the event ends.

Carefully choose a financial data appending company with these tips.

Choosing Wealth Screening Services

When it comes to choosing a provider, finding the right one can make a world of difference. Going with an untrustworthy one may result in inaccurate data, which will cause misinformed fundraising strategies and may negatively impact your donor relationships.

First and foremost, you want a provider who works in your industry, so go with one that works in the nonprofit sector. These providers bring a unique understanding to the table that generic data management companies can’t.

In addition to providing the wealth screening services you’ll need, you’ll want to look for these key advantages:

Look for these key aspects in a financial data appending company.

  • Manual verification processes
  • High-quality customer service
  • Standardized formatting for results
  • Accuracy scores to let you know how reliable the data is

NPOInfo offers these benefits, so you can trust you’re receiving the most dependable information out there. Plus, we work exclusively with nonprofits, providing an unparalleled understanding of your organization’s fundraising needs. We’ll help you find the most impactful data points for your cause from publicly and privately available sources, helping you create robust donor profiles with all the donor data you need.

Between appending contact data and employer data, we’ll help you launch your donor relationships forward with our data enrichment services. Reach out to get started!

Get a free quote!

Continue learning about donor wealth screening and other strategies with these resources.

Additional Data Enrichment Resources

It’s time to stop expending your time and energy cultivating prospects who are unlikely to give to your cause. Wealth screening will illuminate high-net-worth people who are eager to support your work. That way, you can focus your efforts on groups most likely to contribute.

This ultimate guide should give you everything you need to get started, but don’t venture into the donor wealth screening world alone! NPOInfo is here to support all your data enrichment needs. Partner with us, build out your donor profiles, and cultivate more valuable supporter relationships with the right data.

In the meantime, keep exploring the vast world of data management with these resources from the NPOInfo team and other trustworthy sources:

Get a quote from NPOInfo and let our team handle your financial data appending.

Learn everything you need to know about social media appends with this guide.

Social Media Appends: Locating Your Supporters’ Profiles

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In today’s fast-paced world, social media is one of the most direct and effective ways to reach out to constituents. In fact, around 22% of social media users spend their time online to be a part of a community that values the causes and interests they care about. The vast online space allows them to connect with global, like-minded communities and interest groups by simply joining a Facebook group or following different Twitter profiles and topics.

If you want to take advantage of the social media world for nonprofits, social media appending can help you tap into those tight-knit communities!

Collecting data through accurate social profile appending empowers you to get to know your supporters, their ever-changing interests, and what drives them to support your cause. In turn, you can form deeper, more meaningful relationships that help donors, volunteers, and other supporters feel more fulfilled in their philanthropic lives by pushing your mission forward.

To help you start reaching prospects where they already are, we’ve put together this ultimate guide to social media appending. Here’s what we’ll cover:

Here at NPOInfo, we value effective data management. While our main focus is on other types of appends, we recognize that social media is an incredible resource when it comes to getting to know your supporters. When paired with other appends like those for email and postal addresses, it’ll help your marketing ROI skyrocket!

Let’s dive in so you can learn how to take advantage of the wonderful world of social media appends!

Get started with our social media appending services.

What is a social media append?

Social profile appending is the process of updating outdated social media information and pulling new details for contacts in your CRM. This allows your marketing team to do the following

  • Invite existing supporters to join your nonprofit’s groups
  • Encourage them to follow your pages
  • Dive into their profiles to learn more about their interests

Especially when stewarding deeper supporter relationships, being able to find them online will be incredibly helpful. Constituents’ interests constantly change, so you can’t rely on the same information they provided you at the start of their relationship with your cause!

Further, turning to a professional services provider will ensure you receive accurate social profile append results. They can extract the information for you, removing the time commitment for your marketing team.

All you have to do is provide them with identifying information, such as your supporters’ names, past social media profiles, postal addresses, contact information, and any other details they’ve shared with your team. They’ll locate as many supporters on different platforms for you and share that information with your team!

Why use social media appending for your nonprofit?

Social media is a powerful fundraising tool with 32% of donors being inspired to give by social media. Plus, knowing where to find your supporters online has other obvious benefits, such as seeing what attracts them to your cause and forming connections. However, it may not be clear which social media platforms your nonprofit’s audience uses. 

That’s why we recommend turning to social media appending services. This allows you to pull supporters’ profiles in bulk by matching their data against a comprehensive database of social media profile information.

Once you have your supporters’ information from your append, you can launch your social media strategy to amplify your mission and forge deeper connections. As a result, your nonprofit will experience the following benefits:

These are the benefits of social media appends.

1. Tap into a global network.

There are more than 4.6 billion social media users worldwide, meaning your nonprofit’s content has the potential to be exposed to a massive audience. While not everyone who sees your posts will convert, social media can put you into contact with mission-oriented individuals who feel strongly about your cause. Plus, in addition to attracting a new audience, you’ll be able to connect with your current supporters to leverage peer-to-peer marketing.

Peer-to-peer advocacy is one of the most effective marketing strategies available to both nonprofits and businesses with 84% of consumers stating they trust the recommendations of their friends, family, and colleagues. Logically, this makes sense. After all, if a trusted friend vouches for a nonprofit’s work, it’s easy to extend the faith you have in that friend to the nonprofit they’re advocating for, especially when compared to cold outreach where you have to take an unknown organization at their word.  

Social media outreach creates this same level of social proof, as supporters see their friends talk about their own giving habits. When supporters follow your pages, share your content, or comment on your posts, this information will pop up in their followers’ newsfeeds or notification centers. This spreads awareness of your cause and presents your nonprofit as an organization new supporters can trust.

2. Send targeted appeals and create tailored program offerings.

Social media users curate the content shown to them based on who they follow, what topics they state they are interested in, and the posts they regularly interact with. By analyzing your supporters’ social media profiles, you can get a strong sense of your target audience’s likes, dislikes, and overall preferences. 

By having your marketing team explore your committed supporters’ posts and likes, you can:

  • Create tailored outreach that speaks to their unique interests
  • Adjust your product offerings to fall in line with their values
  • Create prospect profiles to guide who your team reaches out to 

This data can also be used for marketing outside of social media. Assuming your audience as a whole shares the general values of those with active social media presences, you can incorporate what you learned from your supporters’ profiles into your email and direct email strategy.

3. Create an open line of communication.

Social media differs from other digital marketing platforms by opening the door for two-way communication. Not only can supporters like, comment, and share your nonprofit’s posts, but your nonprofit can do the same!

Through your nonprofit’s profiles, you’ll be able to do the following:

  • Respond to and like their comments on your organization’s posts. Appoint a social media manager to post on your account and interact with anyone who engages with your content. This might involve answering questions, thanking supporters who shared that they donated, or empathizing with individuals who share personal stories about how your cause relates to their lives. These little interactions make your nonprofit more memorable and can lead to future support. 
  • Like, share, or comment on anything they post about your cause. If a supporter takes the initiative to promote your nonprofit, let them know you see their posts and appreciate them. Comment to thank supporters for the shout-out and provide additional context to their posts if necessary, such as sharing specific statistics about your work or linking to your website.
  • Direct message them when relevant. Social media is a form of indirect marketing where your posts are for a broad audience rather than a specific individual. However, platforms with messaging tools let you practice direct messaging, as well. This can be useful for answering highly specific questions, listening to and resolving supporters’ complaints, and forming connections with supporters who want to share their personal stories in a more private manner. 

Putting a friendly face on your nonprofit can be a challenge, but with social media, you can establish a positive brand reputation and build connections far more easily than through other platforms. After all, while supporters may not remember every digital ad they see, the nonprofit that responded to their comment personally is likely to stick in their minds.

4. Guide your omnichannel marketing strategy.

A social media append gives you another outlet to communicate with supporters, allowing you to expand your omnichannel marketing strategy. Omnichannel marketing is an approach to nonprofit outreach that uses multiple channels to guide a supporter through their donor journey. 

While multi-channel marketing delivers the same message on multiple platforms, omnichannel takes each supporter’s specific relationship with your nonprofit into account to customize the next message they receive. 

For example, let’s say you make a post on social media about a new program you’re launching, and a supporter comments on it. You then follow up with that supporter by emailing them more information about the initiative and inviting them to volunteer. Then, after they sign up to volunteer, you send a letter in the mail thanking them for joining your volunteer program. Finally, when they show up to volunteer, your volunteer manager may mention in person how volunteers can also help out by donating.

This approach helps push donor relationships forward while also building brand recognition. With a social media append, you can add social media engagement as one more link in your omnichannel approach.

5. Re-engage lapsed supporters.

A person’s social media profile gives you insight into who they are and how their values have changed over time.

If your marketing team wants to learn why someone stopped donating or volunteering with your nonprofit, take a look at their posts and the pages they engage with online. You might be able to pinpoint why they lapsed and find opportunities to connect with them based on their current interests.

Types of Social Media Appends

Here's an overview of different platforms for which you might append social media information.

You might have an idea of which platforms are most important to your cause, but if not, it’s worth considering early on alongside your marketing team.

Depending on the social media appending services you turn to, there are different sites you might pull supporters’ information from, such as:

  • Facebook: Considering this is the most widely-used platform, you’ll likely want to append social media profiles for Facebook. Great for connecting with your boomer and millennial audiences, this platform lends itself well to local marketing and relationship building. You’ll be able to easily share photos, post links to your nonprofit’s website, post long-form posts, and livestream to your supporters.
  • Instagram: Particularly popular among Gen Z and Millennials, Instagram is a fantastic place to share photos with supporters, conduct polls on your Story, and tap into both eCommerce and organic engagement.
  • Twitter: Great for connecting with people between the ages of 25 and 49, you might want to append social media profiles for Twitter if your nonprofit often has news stories to share, wants to engage in discussions with supporters, or has a more playful voice.
  • LinkedIn: If you want to tap into more of a professional audience, consider social media appends for LinkedIn. This platform is great for learning about supporters’ professional backgrounds, identifying corporate giving opportunities, and sharing long-form content about your nonprofit’s work.
  • TikTok: Most popular among Gen Z, TikTok is great for nonprofits that want to entertain their audiences, share inspirational stories, and call attention to pressing issues that require a community to get behind.
  • Snapchat: This platform is most popular among teenagers and younger millennials. If you have a younger audience, consider social media appends for Snapchat! However, bear in mind that this platform lends itself more to paid and location-based advertising rather than organic engagement.

Before you start locating supporters online, you’ll want to determine which platforms are most important to your cause based on your target audiences. Then, find a services provider that will append profiles on those sites for you!

For instance, you may online want to append data for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In that case, you won’t have a bunch of extraneous information since that’ll only clutter your CRM. You’ll instead only append and only pay for the data you need, helping to maintain good data hygiene.

How Social Media Appending Services Work

When it comes to finding your supporters on social media, your best bet is to turn to professional social media appending services. Expert services are much more reliable than appending the data yourself or using a generic database you find online!

A professional team will help you identify only relevant accounts for your contacts and remove the ones that aren’t useful or are fake.

When you partner with a data append team, here’s how you can expect the process to go:

This graphic outlines the social profile appending process.

  1. You provide the existing data you have to your social media append team. This might include full names, email addresses, past social media usernames, or any other information that will help them identify the correct people’s profiles.
  2. They search their database of consumer and business contacts for your constituents. Often, this can be done by simply entering people’s names or email addresses. This helps them find profiles associated with that information.
  3. They return the appended social media profiles to your team. They’ll let you know whether they found a profile associated with each constituent and what their username is. They may even import the data into your nonprofit’s CRM for you.

It’s that simple! While NPOInfo doesn’t offer social media appends, we’re happy to match you with one of our partners in the data enrichment space.

As we mentioned, we also offer plenty of other data append services that will pair well with your social media strategies. Whether you’re looking to append email addresses, postal addresses, dates of birth, or phone numbers, we offer services that can take your multichannel marketing strategies to the next level!

Reach out to chat about our data enrichment services and how we can help you strengthen your customer profiles with insightful data.

Additional Data Enrichment Resources

Social media is an incredibly powerful resource for learning about who your supporters are, why they support your cause, and how you can re-engage anyone who’s losing interest in your work.

If you want to more intentionally incorporate social media into your nonprofit’s marketing, social media appends will help you do exactly that! Turn to professional services to find your supporters online and reel them into your cause.

If you want to keep learning about data-driven strategies, the NPOInfo team is here to teach you all about effective data management! Get started by checking out these educational guides:

Get a free quote for NPOInfo's social media appending services.

Learn about demographic appends with this ultimate guide.

Demographic Appends: Stewarding Relationships Through Data

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When it comes to marketing, you need to know who your prospects are and what inspires them to support your cause, so you can send tailored outreach that encourages them to get and stay involved. Demographic appends can help you do exactly that!

Demographic information is a powerful way to learn about your supporters’ backgrounds, especially when paired with other details.

From filling out donation forms to registering to volunteer, supporters share information at every corner. While you’ll naturally gather supporter data throughout their relationship with your organization, there’s much more you can do to ensure you have the complete picture just by appending demographic data.

With the right provider, a demographic append is the most reliable way to fill in any gaps in supporters’ profiles. That way, you can send targeted asks and promote the right opportunities at the right time to maximize their support. This guide will cover everything you need to know to append demographic data for your nonprofit, including:

At NPOInfo, we believe that having the correct data will help you communicate using your organization’s unique voice and truly connect with your audience. We help nonprofits accomplish this through data appending, so we’re equipped and excited to teach nonprofit marketers like yourself how to leverage the opportunity.

If you’re ready to go beyond generic appeals, let’s dive in and explore the wonderful world of demographic appends!

Get a free quote for NPOInfo's demographic appending services.

Let's answer some frequently asked questions about demographic appends.

Demographic Appends FAQ

Before you consider using demographic append services, you should understand the basics of the process. If data appends are a new subject for you, let’s answer some common questions you might have before finding the right data enrichment service.

What is a demographic append?

Demographic appending is a service that pulls essential background information on your supporters, so you can build successful and highly-targeted marketing campaigns. You provide basic information like each supporter’s name, address, phone number, and other defining elements. Then, your service provider will use this information to identify the individual in their database and fill in any missing details in your CRM.

Standard demographic data you can append includes:

  • Age and Date of Birth
  • Gender
  • Income
  • Ethnicity
  • Marital Status
  • Familial Information
  • Education Information

Demographic appending pulls essential background information on supporters.
Combined with other data, a demographic append helps you create a highly-detailed profile for each constituent, allowing you to customize their experience in ways that other nonprofits won’t be able to replicate.

How much does it cost to append demographic data?

The price of demographic append services depends on the provider you use and the number of constituents for whom you’re appending data. Prices vary considerably between providers, but you’ll likely have to spend slightly more for better-quality data.

While it can be tempting to go with the cheapest option available, it’s worth spending a little extra for access to a more comprehensive and reliable database of demographic information.

To chat about pricing for our demographic append services, contact our team for a free quote! We’ll ask you to provide some information like the types of data appends you’re interested in and how many constituent records you’d like us to append. From there, you can decide whether your custom quote makes sense for your nonprofit’s budget!

Get a free quote!

How long does a demographic append take?

Similar to pricing, the time it takes to append demographic data depends on your service provider and the number of records you’re appending. You’ll usually receive results pretty quickly, but your turnaround time will also depend on how thorough the provider’s checking process is.

How can I increase the accuracy of my demographic append results?

Provide as much identifying information about your supporters as possible. This data might include full names, postal addresses, contact information, and education level. The more details you provide, the easier it’ll be to verify that you’ve found the correct individual’s information.

Moreover, you’ll also want to consider the quality of the demographic append services provider you choose. Those with a more reliable and complete database will increase the accuracy of your results.

What types of demographic data can you append?

You can pull a wide range of demographic information for each of your constituents. We gave a brief overview earlier, but there are plenty of other background details you can pull for your supporters.

To give you a sense of how they might play into your strategies, here are just some demographics that you can pull:

  • Net worth
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Ethnicity and race
  • Income
  • Marital Status
  • Presence of Children
  • Religion
  • Lifestyle attributes such as hobbies, interests, and occupations
  • Buying behaviors such as online product purchases and online gift registries

These are the most common demographics that nonprofits append.

Remember that the data points your team will find most useful depend on your organization’s needs and strategies.

For instance, advocacy organizations may want to verify that people are of voting age or have particular political views to ensure they’re sending the right advocacy opportunities. On the other hand, an organization that wants to expand its fundraising may want to group donors based on their income levels to send more targeted asks.

Appending demographic data offers plenty of benefits for nonprofits.

Why You Should Append Demographic Data

Demographic appends can help enhance your constituent data, tailor your marketing capabilities, and take your relationships with supporters and prospects to the next level.

If you’re considering appending demographic data but aren’t sure whether it will truly benefit your organization, here’s how the process can impact your organization beyond simply filling in missing fields in your CRM:

  • Create detailed buyer personas: Create a holistic picture of each supporter and identify common trends between groups. That way, you can create buyer personas based on different types of supporters to understand what drives people with specific attributes to get involved in your cause.
  • Shape content strategy: Knowing specific characteristics allows you to deliver relevant content and appeals to supporters, rather than sending generic outreach to your entire constituent database. For instance, donors who have lower incomes likely wouldn’t be good candidates for major giving. Or, if you have a volunteer opportunity that benefits a particular area in your community, you might target former residents.
  • Increase marketing ROI: When you have the necessary information to create targeted marketing opportunities, your marketing team will spend fewer resources creating generic appeals that don’t yield results. Instead, they’ll be able to create highly targeted outreach based on specific characteristics of different constituent segments.
  • Identify intent opportunities: Based on the buyer personas you create using appended demographic data, you can see if anyone in your database might be an excellent fit to upgrade their support. For instance, maybe family-oriented individuals commonly participate in 5Ks and other events that welcome younger audiences. Predicting this behavior will allow your team to nudge the right opportunities to the right supporters.

A demographic append can be incredibly impactful for your cause. Best of all, the right service provider can ensure you receive the most accurate, complete data in a timely manner, so you can start experiencing these benefits as soon as possible.

The demographic append process is straightforward.

The Demographic Append Process

Like any data append, appending demographic data is incredibly straightforward. You just need a knowledgeable provider who leverages a comprehensive database and has a reasonable turnaround time.

After finding a reliable demographic append services provider, here’s what you can expect from the process:

This chart outlines the process for a demographic append.

  1. You share a list of constituents’ names, postal addresses, emails, and other identifying characteristics with your service provider.
  2. The service provider searches their database for any missing demographic details for supporters.
  3. They’ll add missing demographic information and replace any inaccurate data.
  4. After a thorough verification process, they’ll return your constituents’ data with the appended demographic information.

If you turn to a full-service data appends provider like NPOInfo, they may also offer other services like phone numbers, postal addresses, and employer appends. That way, you can verify all existing details and fill in any missing gaps all at once, rather than turning to different providers for different services.

To run an append without a demographic append services provider, you’ll need to pay for access to your own database of demographics. You’ll need to find software that will extract the information for you. However, this isn’t as reliable as having an experienced provider who can manually verify each constituent’s demographic information and deliver the details you need.

Getting started with demographic append services is easy.

How to Get Started with Demographic Append Services

The experts here at NPOInfo strive to make demographic appends (along with other data appends) as seamless as possible for organizations!

Plus, we work exclusively with nonprofit organizations, so we understand the specific data types you need to push your mission forward. That way, the appended data won’t clutter your CRM with unnecessary details.

When you rely on NPOInfo for your demographic append needs, here’s what you can expect:

Here's an overview of NPOInfo's demographic append services.

  1. Select the data append services you need. To help you make the most of your marketing efforts, we offer a range of data appends beyond demographic appends. Let us know which data you’d like appended: phone number, emails, employer information, or postal addresses.
  2. Receive a custom quote. We’ll tell you how much our data append services will cost based on the number of records you’d like appended and the types of data you’d like us to append.
  3. Send us your constituent records. We’ll let you know what information we need, like constituents’ names, contact information, and so on. Ideally, the more details you can provide us, the better. That way, we can verify that we’re pulling information on the right individual.
  4. Wait while we conduct the data append. Our experts will conduct a thorough verification process to ensure we provide you with the correct demographic information.
  5. Receive your appended demographic data. We’ll return your information to you in an easily understandable format. We’ll let you know if we found any additional demographic information, what those details are, and how confident we are that we found the correct information. If you have any questions, our experts will be happy to answer them. We can even help you import the information into your CRM.

That’s all there is to it! We’ll set you up with all the correct demographic information. That way, you can drive deeper connections with supporters and boost your marketing ROI in no time.

Ready to get to know your supporters better so you can launch your mission forward? Reach out for a free custom quote! All you need to do is share a few details, such as how many profiles you’d like to append and whether you’d like us to append any other data for you!

Get a free quote!

Check out these great additional resources for data management beyond demographic appending.

Additional Data Enrichment Resources

Your constituents are unique, and to cultivate genuine relationships with them, you need to treat them as individuals. That means going beyond speaking to them using the same generic voice. A demographic append is a reliable way to understand what messages they actually want to receive from your team.

Knowing everything from constituents’ ages to their income levels allows you to send relevant appeals and keep everyone connected to your work. Remember, NPOInfo is here to help fulfill your demographic appending needs! Reach out for a free quote to start gathering meaningful information that will take your cause to the next level.

If you’re striving to continue improving your data management strategies, there are plenty of helpful resources out there. To help, check out this list of helpful resources we’ve put together:

Get a free quote and elevate your nonprofit marketing with demographic append services.

Explore this guide to learn everything you need to know about phone appends.

Phone Appends: A Nonprofit’s Data Enrichment Guide

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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:

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!

Get a free quote for our phone number appending services.

This section covers what phone appends are.

What is a phone append?

Phone appending is the process of updating or adding missing phone numbers to constituent profiles using existing identifying information.

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.

A phone append will pull a few types of phone numbers.

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.

The phone append process is easy to understand.

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.

This graphic outlines the telephone append process.

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.

This section describes the concept of reverse phone appending.

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.

Phone appends offer plenty of benefits for nonprofits.

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:

These are the key benefits you can expect from a phone append.

  • 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.

These are the data points you'll need to share with your phone number appending services provider.

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.

The price of phone appending depends on a few factors.

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.

Get a free quote!


Get started with NPOInfo's phone number appending services.

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:

Here's how NPOInfo's phone number appending services work.

  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.

Get a free quote!

Check out these great additional resources to learn about phone appends and other data enrichment practices.

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:

Get a quote for NPOInfo's phone number appending services.

Learn all about email appends in this comprehensive guide for nonprofits.

Email Appends: The Complete Q&A Guide for Organizations

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Email marketing provides an unparalleled ROI when compared to other channels. Digital marketing research estimates that for every dollar spent, you can expect an average return of $36. That’s a higher return than any other form of marketing. However, inaccurate or outdated data can negatively impact your outreach, making it challenging to get in contact with the correct recipients. That’s where email appends can come in handy.

Email addresses are only valuable to an organization if they offer a reliable communication channel. Email appending is one of the quickest and most accurate ways to verify existing information and expand your marketing lists to include missing contact information. Doing so will empower you to increase your ROI even more for your organization since you can more effectively connect with your constituents.

Even though data append services have been around for quite some time, many organizations still don’t leverage them to strengthen their marketing. To help clarify any of the confusion you have about email appends, we’ll answer these core questions:

Here at NPOInfo, we empower nonprofits to take control of their data with our data appending services. We conduct email appends for our clients and fully understand what it takes to produce accurate results. We’ll make sure you’re well-versed on everything you need to know about email appends, so you can supercharge your marketing efforts in no time!

Get a free quote for NPOInfo's email append services.

What is an email append? This section answers that question!

What is an email append?

Email appending is a near-real-time marketing strategy organizations use to verify that existing constituents’ email addresses are the most current ones. It’s also leveraged to fill gaps by acquiring missing emails based on constituents’ existing details, such as their first names, last names, phone numbers, and postal addresses. Its purpose is to provide you with the most up-to-date email addresses for your contacts and grow your email subscriber list.

Organizations that want to leverage this strategy typically outsource the work to a service provider, like our data append experts at NPOInfo. Professional data append providers have an expansive database of email addresses. You provide your list of constituent information, and your data append provider will match it against their comprehensive, updated database to make sure you have the most accurate and complete information possible.

An email append will help your organization in several ways.

Why should you use email appending?

Appending email addresses reduces your marketing costs, boosts ROI, and helps you reach your audience more effectively. It supplies you with the freshest email address for each contact, so you can be sure you’re connecting with as many donors, volunteers, sponsors, and other stakeholders as possible.

Some of the most crucial factors that make email appending services a resolution for better nonprofit marketing include:

  • Data becomes outdated. HubSpot’s marketing research estimates that email marketing databases naturally degrade by about 22.5% each year. People change their email addresses, unsubscribe from newsletters, make typos when submitting forms, and submit fake email addresses in addition to a host of other things that negatively impact your subscriber list. Email appending resolves that by finding the most valid emails for your donors, volunteers, and other constituents!
  • Improved lines of communication. Quality constituent data means that your email outreach will make it to customers’ inboxes, directly improving deliverability and engagement rates. By cleaning up your supporters’ data, you’ll see higher engagement and open rates for your emails.
  • Highly segmented campaigns at lower costs. Reduce your marketing team’s expenses by supplying them with the data they need to create targeted campaigns. Email appending allows you to fill in missing contact information based on the other information you already have. This makes it much easier to create multichannel campaigns that reach your different supporters across different channels.

These are the benefits that email appends offer.

While email address appending is incredibly beneficial, doing so yourself can eat into your already-limited time. You might have hundreds or even thousands of outdated email addresses in your CRM. Cleaning all that up by hand could take an unimaginable amount of time! Not to mention, it might not be as accurate as a professional email append services’ information.

Instead of wasting staff time by having someone update your database manually, turn to an email append services provider like our professional data appending team at NPOInfo to experience all of the benefits of clean data!

The email append process is incredibly straightforward.

How does an email append work?

One of the best parts of email append services is how straightforward the process is on your end when you turn to a professional provider. You provide relevant identifying information for each of your nonprofit’s constituent profiles, such as:

  • Name
  • Postal address
  • Region (state, city, and country)
  • Phone numbers
  • Last email address on file
  • College or university
  • Class year and major
  • Last gift amount and date
  • A unique ID number

Here are some of the identifying details you'll need for an email append.

Even if you’re missing some of the information listed above, it’s important to provide as much information as possible to increase identification efficiency and accuracy. Your email append services provider will then cross-check it against their premium database of emails. Here at NPOInfo, our team will involve automated scans and manual checks to ensure we’re only providing active, deliverable email addresses to you.

After validating the data, your provider will send the appended email addresses back to you, letting you know if they found an updated or missing email address and what that email address is. Our team will even provide you with an accuracy rating for each email address we appended. From here, all you have to do is update your CRM, and you’ll have a clean database!

Email appending helps different types of organizations in different ways.

How do email appends help different types of organizations?

Email appending can empower a wide range of organizations to pursue their different marketing goals more efficiently. While turning to a generic provider can be helpful, your best bet is to go with a data append service that targets your unique industry.

For example, our team at NPOInfo focuses on fundraising organizations. That way, you’ll receive the targeted information your team needs to push your development efforts forward.

Here are a few ways different fundraising organizations might improve their marketing using an email address append:

  • Associations. Member-based organizations like associations are often comprised of geographically-diverse members. Email is a much more efficient way to stay connected with supporters and ensure members don’t lapse.
  • Green nonprofits. What better way to communicate your mission than by exemplifying it yourself? Email outreach eliminates the need for paper and communicates to donors that you take your mission seriously. Make sure you have accurate email addresses to reduce direct mail outreach as much as possible.
  • Schools. After students graduate, it’s easy to lose touch with them. They stop checking their institutional email addresses, and their postal addresses change after they move to start the next chapter of their lives. An email append will help you stay in touch with them wherever they are.
  • Cultural organizations. Zoos, aquariums, museums, and other cultural organizations must maintain membership renewal rates by offering valuable perks such as events. Otherwise, people may let their membership expire. Accurate email addresses will ensure you can send membership renewal letters, promote perks, and share upcoming events with all past visitors.

Email appending can transform your digital marketing, strengthen your supporters’ commitment to the cause, and much more. Take a look at the exact benefits for your type of organization, and you’ll see why it’s such a widespread practice!

Email address appends are incredibly accurate with the right services provider.

How accurate is an email append?

The accuracy of your email append results entirely depends on the quality of your provider’s email address database and the data you provide them. Look for a reputable provider and share as much data with them as possible. This will make your results more accurate.

Our team at NPOInfo strives to provide accurate results, which is why we have a very thorough cross-check examination process. As we mentioned, we employ a series of automated scans and manual checks to ensure we’re providing you with the best information possible.

When returning your appended email addresses, we’ll provide an accuracy rating, demonstrating how confident we are that we correctly identified the right person and their email address based on the data you originally provided us. That way, you can confidently build your fundraising initiatives on data you trust!

These are some of the factors that play into calculate the price of email append services.

How much does an email address append cost?

Generally speaking, the price of email address appending services varies based on your number of constituent records and your provider’s rates.

Bear in mind that you’re also paying for the quality of data your provider shares, so while one service provider may offer an incredibly low rate, that doesn’t mean you’ll receive the best (or most accurate) information. Accurate and up-to-date contact information most often comes at a slightly higher append rate.

If you’re curious how much this practice would cost your team, request a quote from our experts! We’ll ask you to provide some information about your organization, the type of data you’d like to append, and how many records you’re interested in appending.

Get a free quote!

These best practices will help you make the most of email address appends.

What are some best practices for email appending?

While email appending seems like a very straightforward concept, a lot goes into doing it correctly. Between picking a reputable provider and getting your timing right, you’ll need a well-thought-out strategy before moving forward.

If you’re considering using email appending to strengthen your marketing, here’s how you can set yourself up for success:

  • Start with your active supporters who haven’t shared an email address. From here, start moving through your older records.
  • Append email addresses regularly. Whether you append monthly, quarterly, or bi-annually, regular updates ensure your nonprofit’s CRM is the most accurate and complete it can possibly be at all times.
  • Append during the off-season. If you’re launching a big fundraising initiative or project, append email addresses in advance. We recommend wrapping up your ramp-up at least one month before your organization’s peak season.
  • Only append existing and past supporter emails. You should only ever append email addresses for people who have previously connected with your organization. Whether they donated, signed up for your newsletter, or registered to volunteer, you want to make sure you’re leveraging email appending ethically.
  • Research to find the right data enhancement partner. Above all, make sure you use a reputable email append service. Get a sense of their match rate and data append process, and if possible, ask the provider to run a test batch to see how many emails they accurately append for you.
  • Follow opt-in rules and anti-spam laws. For example, if you send emails to anyone who’s previously opted out of communications, you may run into some legal trouble. Make sure to only append email addresses for those who have opted in. As a bonus tip, keeping clear records of when and how supporters opted into communications will help you steer clear of trouble.

When done properly, email appending can promote positive supporter relationships and amplify your cause. These best practices will put you on the right path toward more effective outreach in no time!

Here are the next steps you'll need to take to use email append services.

How can you get started with email append services?

Getting started with email append services is incredibly easy. First and foremost, you’ll need to research and find a provider you’re confident will deliver the results you need without overspending.

The experts here at NPOInfo are more than happy to help transform your marketing through email appending. Plus, we specialize in data appends specifically for fundraising organizations like schools, cultural organizations, and other nonprofits.

Here’s what to expect when working with our email appending team:

Here's how NPOInfo's email append services work.

  1. You’ll need to send us any data that you have. As we mentioned, this includes information like names, mailing addresses, current email addresses, educational institutions, fundraising data, and anything else.
  2. We’ll conduct a thorough email appending process. Our process involves automated scans and manual checks by our team. That way, you’ll only receive accurate and deliverable email addresses for your supporters.
  3. We’ll return the email addresses along with some supplemental information. We’ll primarily flag three things: (1) whether a new email address was found, (2) the email addresses themselves, and (3) an accuracy rating. Our accuracy rating system indicates how confident we are that we correctly identified the correct contact details.

From here, you’ll need to update your CRM, let your marketing team know, and start pushing forward with any new fundraising opportunities you see!

Note that we don’t supply reverse email appends at this time, but we’re happy to connect you with one of our reputable partners in the space! We also provide plenty of other data appends, including employer, phone number, date of birth, and postal address appends.

If you’re ready to transform your marketing and boost your ROI, get started with our email append services for fundraising organizations!

Get a free quote!

If you're looking to look more about email appends and data enrichment, check out these resources.

Wrapping Up

Email marketing has the power to produce incredible results for your cause but only if you’re sending messages to deliverable email addresses. So take the time to clean up your email marketing list with email appending, so you can reach your audiences using one of the most effective forms of communication.

If you’re looking to learn more about data appends before getting started, check out some of these great educational resources:

Reach out to NPOInfo to get started with our email append services.

Learn everything you need to know about employer appends for your nonprofit.

Your Ultimate Guide to Employer Appends for Nonprofits

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Increasing fundraising revenue is a goal for all nonprofits. What if we told you this was possible with data you already have? Appending employer data is one way to maximize your fundraising efforts and prevent potential losses.

Employer appends add data about your donors’ employers to your database. This information provides a variety of valuable insights, including but not limited to whether their employer offers a matching gift program. Information like this can help you capitalize on these fundraising opportunities by educating your donors.

This guide will walk you through the employer appends basics and offer some helpful tips on receiving the best results. We’ll cover the following points:

Let’s get started.

Contact NPOInfo if you are interested in using employer appends for your nonprofit.


These are the basics for employer appends for nonprofits.

What are employer appends for nonprofits?

Employer appends add information about your donors’ employers to your donor database. Your nonprofit can then use this information to maximize matching gift revenue. This information about employers can help you, and your donors, reap the benefits of their matching gift programs. These matching gifts refer to companies matching your donor’s gift to nonprofits, typically on a 1:1 ratio.

Appending employer data has several benefits. Beyond discovering matching gift opportunities, employment information helps nonprofits learn more about potential corporate social responsibility opportunities. This information can get conversations about corporate sponsorships started and help identify volunteer opportunities. That said, the most important is the potential to increase your fundraising revenue without heavily investing your own resources.

Why append employer data to donor records?

So, why should you append employer data? For starters, you can reduce potential losses in matching gift revenue. Your donors may be unaware that their employers offer these programs and make donations without requesting a matching gift. Here, you lose what is essentially free money from your donors’ employers.

Employer appends close the gap between matching gift revenue and eligible donors. While many donors are eligible for matching gifts, about 78% of them don’t know about their employers’ matching gift programs. If your nonprofit is aware of their eligibility, you can help your donors make a bigger contribution without having to reach back into their own wallets.

78% of donors are not aware of their employers' matching gift programs.

What types of nonprofits can benefit from an employer append?

A wide variety of nonprofits reap the benefits of these appends by minimizing matching gift losses. Rather than wondering if you will benefit from an append— you likely will— the question is whether your organization is well positioned for one. The only thing you need to get started is clean donor data.

Clean donor data entails regularly practicing good data hygiene. Data hygiene can involve tasks such as keeping your records current, removing duplicates from your data, and checking for inaccuracies.

While we’ll cover the basics of data hygiene later in this guide, focus on these 3 questions to understand whether your organization is prepared for an employer append:

  • Do you have an up-to-date email address? Your data should have a recent email address for donors.
  • Do you have an up-to-date mailing address? In addition to an updated email address, it is important to have donors’ most recent mailing address as well.
  • For higher education institutions, can you provide graduation years? This piece of data is useful if your nonprofit is a higher education institution like a university. Graduation year can provide insights like how likely someone is to donate based on how long ago they attended.

If you can answer these questions with your current donor data, you’re probably in a good place to start thinking about employer appends.


These are the types of information your nonprofit gains from employer appends.

What types of information can you access through an employer append?

An employer append will grant you access to a few different pieces of information. After appending employer data, you will know your donors’ employer name, their job title, and matching gift information. Here is what this data means for your nonprofit.

Employer Name

Learning who your donors’ employers are is a key part of maximizing fundraising. Once you know the name of a donor’s employer, you can find out about the corporate social responsibility programs their employer may offer that could benefit your nonprofit.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to efforts a company makes to better society. Because CSR is meant to give back to the community in some way, many companies turn to nonprofits to help them do so. For example, while individual donations make up about 75% of the contributions to a nonprofit, CSR can boost these efforts by companies matching what their employees donate.

Job Title

A donor’s job title can give you insights into how much decision-making power they have at work. It can also tell you something about their financial capacity to give.

Donors working in high positions could be useful leaders within their organizations. These donors could help the organization set up CSR initiatives that benefit your nonprofit. Further, donors who are in advanced positions at their workplace may be more financially capable of donating larger gifts to your organization.

Matching Gift Information

Matching gift information is the key piece of information your nonprofit earns from employer data appends. This information tells you whether your donors’ employer has a matching gift program and if so, how that program works.

If you’re not an expert on matching gift programs, don’t worry. Here is a basic breakdown of the gift match process:

  1. Donor makes initial gift. The first step in acquiring a matching gift donation is accepting a donation from a donor whose employer offers a matching gift program.
  2. Donor requests the matching gift. Once your donor makes a donation, they must request a matching gift from their employer. This is where many nonprofits lose potential fundraising. Many donors are unaware that their employers offer these programs and do not request a matching gift.
  3. Your nonprofit receives a matching gift. If all goes to plan, you will receive a separate donation from your donor’s employer known as a matching gift. These companies usually match gifts at a ratio of 1:1, but some companies match at higher rates of 2:1, 3:1, or 4:1.

The matching gift process is straightforward for your donors, as long as they know about it. That’s the value of an employer append that can provide matching gift information, as you can share educational information with donors who work for match-eligible companies. Your nonprofit can gain at least two donations for the “price” of one— don’t neglect these programs when you could be bringing in free money for your organization!

Get Double the Donation's ultimate guide to matching gifts to learn more


This is the employer append process.

How do employer appends for nonprofits work?

You might be thinking about what the process for employer appends looks like. There are four steps involved— gathering donor data, maintaining data hygiene, inputting your donor data, and receiving output data. Let’s break down each step.

employer appends process in four steps

Step 1: Gather donor data.

One of the only “requirements” for your nonprofit to begin the data append process is to have initial donor records that you’d like to enhance.

Gathering donor data is a crucial step in ensuring you have accurate employer data. Your nonprofit may not have an extensive donor database to work with, but there are many ways to gather more data about donors. Here are a few tips to get you started:

  • Use donation forms to gather employee data. Update any existing donation forms to ask donors for employee data. This is a simple and easy way to gather data any time someone makes a donation.
  • Evaluate data to identify missing employee data. Perform an audit of your data to pinpoint which donor records are missing employee data. Once you have a smaller list to work with, it is easier to tailor how you gather data.
  • Select a data append service. Investing in a data append service like NPOInfo takes the pressure off of you to append data. NPOInfo can help you append employer information, donor addresses, and more.

Securing donor data doesn’t have to be expensive or stressful. Our tips can help get you started with filling in the blanks in donor data.

Step 2: Maintain a high standard of donor data hygiene.

Data hygiene is a process you should practice regularly to keep clean, efficient data. Practicing good data hygiene involves regularly sorting through data to remove things that are irrelevant or inaccurate.

Because employer appends involve adding more data to your database, consider revitalizing your data hygiene practices prior to investing in an append. Analyzing your nonprofit’s data is easier, faster, and more efficient when the data being analyzed is already clean and organized. Clean data will also yield better, more accurate results if you decide to append employer data.

Conduct a sweep of your database and do the following:

  • Remove useless records. Remove data that no longer serves your nonprofit. This can include data on deceased donors, minors, or people who are incarcerated.
  • Remove any duplicates. Duplicate entries can happen, but they can make data analysis slower. Remove any duplicate entries you find.
  • Standardize entries. Make sure that data entries follow a standard formatting pattern. Formatting for things like titles and contact information should be the same across the entire dataset.

From here, you can confidently share data with your data append partner, knowing that you’re providing them with useful information to use in the append process.

Step 3: Input your data.

The next step in the employer append process involves inputting your donor data. Using a source like NPOInfo, supply the service with as much information about your donors as you can. We ask for the following:

  • Unique donor ID number
  • Name
  • Mailing address (for home and/or business)
  • Region (state, city, and country)
  • Email address
  • Phone number
  • College or university attended
  • Graduation year, major, and degree
  • Last gift amount
  • Last donation date
  • Date the entry was last updated

We know this is a lot of information to ask for all at once. Most organizations don’t have all of this data, so don’t worry if you have some gaps. Strive to fill in as much as possible. Remember, the more data you provide, the more accurate the results will be.

Step 4: Receive your output data.

The final step in this process is receiving the employer data. This data is the result of all the hard work you put into maintaining a high standard of data hygiene! After inputting your data, we supply you with:

  • Found flag: This marker indicates if the donor was found. It also tells you if their employer was identified.
  • Employer name: This tells you the name of your donors’ employers.
  • Matching gift program: This metric indicates whether the employer offers a matching gift program.
  • Job title: If possible, NPOInfo supplies the donor’s job title.
  • Accuracy rating: This metric is a percentage based on how confident NPOInfo is that the donor and their employer were correctly identified.

Keep in mind that these outputs and their accuracy is based on information your nonprofit provides. These pieces of data are specific to NPOInfo, and other services may differ slightly.


These are 4 top tips for making the most of employer appends for nonprofits.

Tips for Appending Employer Data for Nonprofits

While appending employer data is a great way to reduce lost potential in matching gift programs, simply adding new records to your database isn’t enough to truly enhance your nonprofit’s efforts.

Keep these additional tips in mind to make the most of your employer appends.

Make sure donor records are current.

Using up-to-date records is a crucial part of maintaining clean donor data. It is easy to neglect data and forget that it is about real people— people whose addresses can change!

Home addresses are relatively easy to verify. Using the USPS National Change of Address database, you can check your donor data against the addresses listed there. If you notice a donor changed their address, update that information in your database. Don’t let this get out of hand— remember to check in with your data periodically and correct these issues in small batches.

The USPS database is a great way to check donor addresses, but it works best if you are using it for a small amount of data. NPOInfo offers to take care of this for you so you don’t have to spend time manually cross referencing addresses. If you’re finding that you don’t have an extensive database when it comes to addresses, consider investing in NPOInfo’s address appends service.

Up-to-date donor records matter to your nonprofit when it comes to employer appends and contacting your supporters. Old donor addresses don’t ensure as much accuracy as a current one when it comes to employer appends. As for staying in touch with donors, you don’t want to waste ink on a mailer that is sent to their previous address.

Remove any duplicates.

Duplicate entries in data are copies of the same data. For example, you may have the same “Jane Doe” entered into your data twice. While duplications can happen easily during data input, it is important to remove them during data clean ups.

If done regularly, deduplication will save time and effort when it comes time to input data for employer appends. It can also benefit your nonprofit by making running searches and reports on donor data more efficient.

Check in for duplications regularly so they don’t pile up, and remove any that you find.

Look out for inaccuracies.

Inaccurate data can wreak havoc on employer append results. Submitting donor data with inaccurate information will yield less useful information. To make sure employer append services correctly identify your donors, correct information that is:

  • Out of date: As we mentioned before, keeping your records up-to-date is a key part of good data hygiene. It is also a factor in your data’s accuracy, as old information is not necessarily correct information.
  • Input incorrectly: Look out for things like typos and misspellings. These things can happen due to human error during data input, but correct any that you find while inspecting your data.
  • Missing or incomplete: Try to look for incomplete or blank fields of data. You may or may not be able to fill in missing information, but it is helpful to at least flag these issues.

The best way to solve these issues is to stay on top of data hygiene. You should regularly check for old information, typos and misspellings, and incomplete fields. Familiarize yourself with what your data is supposed to look like so any inconsistencies will stick out.

Use employer data to increase fundraising revenue.

After receiving information about your donors’ employers, your next mission is to increase matching gift revenue.

Increasing the number of matching gifts you receive can be as easy as informing donors that the opportunity is available to them. Aim to increase general awareness of these matching gift programs among your donors using existing touch points like newsletters or email lists.

From there, reach out to individual donors who have been identified as match-eligible. Try to educate these donors about what the process of requesting a matching gift looks like from their end to increase the likelihood that they will complete the process. Check out this guide on how to use matching gift forms to understand how it works.

The information you gain from employer appends doesn’t stop at just knowing who your donors’ employers are. Take note of your donors job titles as a way to infer what their donating capabilities may be and consider ways to steward highly successful supporters into making larger gifts in the future.


Work with an agency like NPOInfo for to make the employer appends process simple.

Wrapping Up: Work with NPOInfo to append employer data.

Now that you’ve learned the ins and outs of employer appends, it’s time to think about next steps. If you decide to use your donor database to append employer data, the service you choose can be a big decision.

NPOInfo makes the process as easy as possible. All you need to do is input as much requested data about your donors as possible, and leave the rest to us! From there, NPOInfo will supply you with information to guide you on your path to maximizing matching gift revenue.

To learn more, contact our team today. In the meantime, while we walked you through the basics of employer appends, there is still a lot you can learn about matching gift programs. Check out some of the resources below to find out more:

Contact NPOInfo if your nonprofit needs help improving fundraising strategy.

The Nonprofit’s Ultimate Guide to Data Append Services

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The most important component of your nonprofit is its mission — what you set out to achieve through your organization is the entire reason for its existence. In order to fulfill those goals, you need to spread the word and gain support in one form or another. Appending data, or the process of adding new data points to your nonprofit’s records to give you additional information about supporters, can help you find the right people to build your following.

From appending contact information to conducting wealth screening, there are plenty of options that can play into your development strategies and push your mission forward.

Data appends may be new to you, and they might even sound a bit intimidating. Thankfully, there are professional data append services out there to do the work for you and let you focus on what matters most: strengthening your nonprofit’s impact.

At NPOInfo, we specialize in data append services for nonprofit organizations. Using that expertise, we’ve created this comprehensive guide to nonprofit data append services, helping you to level up your supporter engagement strategies. Here’s what we’ll cover:

Comprehensive and clean data can transform your nonprofit’s strategies, enabling you to verify supporters’ contact information and create targeted outreach that’s tailored to their interests. Ready to see the complex, but useful topic of data append services made simple? Let’s get started.

Get a free quote from NPOInfo for your data append service needs.

NPOInfo, a nonprofit data append service, defines data appending.

What is data appending?

Put simply, data appending is the process of adding new information to your nonprofit’s database. This could be done to correct outdated, void, or inaccurate data, or to supplement existing data with more information from external sources.

NPOInfo, a data append service, illustrates its definition of data appending.

By filling any gaps in your database, the data becomes infinitely more valuable to your nonprofit. A missing email or phone number has no worth to your marketing efforts. Neither does missing wealth insights. A valid method of communication and accurate wealth data will allow you to reach a potential donor or volunteer with a tailored ask.

Or, if you’re pursuing corporate philanthropy initiatives, then accurate company information through an employer append will be incredibly insightful.

Data Appending Categories

There are three main types of data appending that you’ll want to consider, including:

  • Forward: This refers to adding additional details to basic information. For instance, your organization already has an individual’s name and address, and the append adds their phone number to their profile.
  • Reverse: The reverse, on the other hand, is filling in the gaps of a lone detail that has no accompanying basic info. Let’s say your organization has a list of phone numbers with no names. You would use the process of reverse appending to get the names to go with the numbers.
  • Fractional: Fractional appending is a combination of forward and reverse appending. To illustrate, imagine you have someone’s name and email address, but you need their postal address. Sorting data to find that piece of info is fractional appending.

The type of appending you’ll find most useful depends on the type of data your nonprofit needs appended, but you’ll most likely using forward appending based on the information that you already have on constituents.

Data Appending Timing

Beyond the three types of data appending, there are also two ways to acquire appended data that affect how quickly you’ll receive the information:

  • Real-time: This method of obtaining appended data occurs when a set of information is sent to a server that fills in the additional information in real-time, on an as-needed basis. This option works best for organizations that need automatic, immediate information on individual records. For example, your organization could partner with a data append service to analyze each transaction made through your online donation form and have missing contact information appended to each transaction as they’re made.
  • Batch: This refers to appending data to a batch of multiple records all at once. This is the best choice for nonprofits that have a large, existing database in need of organization. For example, you could send a file with 100 records, each with missing contact details and wealth data, to a data append service, and they would append the missing details to each record in a batch manner.

Whether you use real-time or batch acquisition depends entirely on the needs of your organization. Both are accurate and efficient processes.

What types of data can you append?

Your nonprofit can append many different categories of data to support your marketing efforts. Whether you’re looking to refresh outdated contact information or pull wealth data to create targeted fundraising asks, you’ll want to consider the types of data that will play into those strategies.

So that you have a stronger understanding of the type of data your team needs, here are the four main types of data you might consider appending for your constituents.

Data Append Type #1) Contact Information

Everything from phone numbers and email addresses to social media profiles and other methods of contact is appendable data.

Making sure the contact information you have is accurate by verifying current info and adding in additional contact info when needed will exponentially expand your nonprofit’s reach with its audience.

You might consider this type of data append when you’re struggling to get into contact with your supporters. However, we recommend regularly appending this information on a regular basis since your supporters’ contact information likely changes on a regular basis.

Data Append Type #2) Demographic Data

Demographics illustrate who your audience members are as individuals. This might include:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Race and ethnicity
  • Income
  • Employment
  • Level of education
  • Marital status

Appending demographic data will allow you to understand who your donors are, what types of programs they might be interested in, and what platforms you should use to effectively contact them.

For example, a birthdate append will let you know how old each supporter is, cluing you into the best platforms and types of opportunities you should promote to them. If you segment your constituents by age and want to target younger donors, you

Data Append Type #3) Geographic Data

Appending data based on geography allows you to target an audience based on where they are located. This type of data is especially useful if your nonprofit operates in a localized area.

For instance, knowing their general location through a postal append will help you elevate opportunities that are local to them, maximizing the likelihood that they’ll get involved.

Data Append Type #4) Donor Wealth Screening

Wealth screening gives nonprofits insight into a donor’s assets to learn how much and how likely they are to donate. Conducting donor wealth screening can help pinpoint which donors are open to increasing their support, allowing nonprofits to focus their energy on a specific group of individuals rather than expending resources on cultivating unlikely supporters.

Some of the wealth data your nonprofit might append includes each donor’s:

  • Net worth
  • Propensity to give
  • Charitable giving to other organizations
  • Business and foundation affiliations
  • Real estate
  • Stock holdings

To conduct a wealth data append, you’ll need to turn to software that compares your constituents’ identifying information to data found across charitable giving and wealth databases to determine prospects’ capacity and willingness to give. Then, you can use the information you gather to segment your donors, create target outreach, and tailor the donation amount and frequencies you request to match each segment’s capacity to give.

Note that wealth screening is the only type of data append that our experts at NPOInfo don’t offer. However, we’re more than willing to chat about your data enrichment needs! Explore our offerings and reach out for a quote if you’re looking to append contact, demographic, or geographic information for your supporters.

Get a quote!


NPOInfo defines data append services.

What is a data append service?

With thousands of data inputs to evaluate and supplement, data appending can get quite technical and time-consuming. That’s where data append services come in.

NPOInfo illustrates its definition of data append service.

A data append service is a service that handles the process of filling in the gaps in your database and adding more useful information to your existing data. In terms of value proposition, data append services help your nonprofit acquire greater insights into your target audience.

We’ve covered what data appending is and data append services are – we’ve also covered the types of data appends you can use as an organization. Now, let’s dive into why data append services are important to your nonprofit.


NPOInfo explains what data append services can do for nonprofits.
What can data append services do for your nonprofit?

According to IBM, bad data costs companies in the U.S. $3 trillion annually. That’s no insignificant amount to a business, especially nonprofits that want to put as much money as possible to their cause as opposed to overhead expenses. Data append services can help prevent this wasteful cost.

From a positive perspective, comprehensive data helps your organization reach your target audience with greater efficiency and return on investment. Since data append services boost the amount of quality information in your database, you’ll have more impactful data available for your use.

For more details on how data append services serve your organization, here’s a list of five general benefits:

NPOInfo illustrates the benefits of data append services.

  • More information: Data append services grant you access to a wealth of information that would otherwise be unavailable to you. Data append services can easily provide data such as phone numbers, email addresses, and even mailing addresses.
  • Better information: Not only can data append services provide more info, but they also provide cleaner, more accurate info about supporters. These services complete missing data points and verify existing ones to be sure everything in your database is full and accurate.
  • Greater segmentation: With more quality information, your nonprofit will be better equipped to segment your database into groups. That way, you’ll have segments ready to help you reach your desired target audiences.
  • Faster processing: Data append services are professionals at data appending. They know what they’re doing, and can do it quickly. Ultimately, these services will save your nonprofit a significant amount of time compared to doing it yourself.
  • Lower costs: As we said, bad data costs organizations a lot of money. Save the expense of avoidable errors with the help of data append services.

Bear in mind that these are the benefits that any organization can expect from creating more comprehensive constituent profiles.

Nonprofit-Specific Benefits

But how do data append services specifically benefit nonprofits? Let’s take a look at three perks unique to mission-driven organizations, including:

  • Heightened awareness: If you have more accurate contact information for your audience, you can confidently send communications to individuals, knowing that they will receive them. More people will know about your nonprofit and its mission. A correct phone number, email, or postal address makes all the difference in outreach efforts.
  • Increased fundraising: One of the effects of heightened awareness is raising more money for your cause. Spreading the word about your organization with the help of accurate data appending is an excellent fundraising tactic.
  • Access to nonprofit-specific data: Data append service providers that specialize in nonprofit data appending, like NPOInfo, can provide you with information especially relevant to nonprofits. For instance, data regarding a donor’s employer can help you discover matching gift opportunities.

Now you know why data append services are so valuable, and you’re probably ready to get started. But first, let’s explain how data append services actually append data.


NPOInfo explains how data append services work.
How do you append data?

Data appending is adding new relevant information from external sources to an existing database.

For data append services to complete the process, there are multiple steps they must follow. Here are the six main parts:

NPOInfo illustrates the steps of data append services' process.

  1. Formatting: All the data should be converted into the same format, usually in a comma-separated value (CSV) format, to be properly analyzed.
  2. Uploading: After the data is properly formatted, it should all be put into a single file and sent to the secure file transfer protocol of the specific service.
  3. Matching: Once the file uploads successfully, the data append service begins to match client data with that of their business database to identify missing pieces and those needing correction.
  4. Enhancing: Enhancing refers to the actual completion of the necessary edits identified in the matching process. Individuals’ emails are added to their corresponding names and postal addresses, and inaccurate data pieces are corrected.
  5. Verification and validation: After matching and enhancing, data is sent to the data append service’s verification team in order to validate data. This process could be manual, automated, or a combination of the two. For example, the verification team may check to be sure emails included in the dataset don’t trigger a failed delivery message.
  6. Downloading: Finally, after the appending process is done, the data file is sent to the client to be downloaded for their use. Data append services can offer the file in essentially any format desired by the client.

That’s it! The process is fairly straightforward, whether you’re conducting wealth screening, appending contact details, or pulling employer data for your constituents.

We’ve discussed what data appending and data append services are, why they matter, and how they work— now it’s time to help you decide who to work with.

NPOInfo lists examples of data append services.

5 Data Append Services to Check Out

If your nonprofit is ready to get started with data appending, begin the process by exploring your options for the right data append service.

Here are five for your consideration:

Our Top Recommendation: NPOInfo
NPOInfo is a data append service for nonprofits.

NPOInfo is a data append service uniquely designed to work with nonprofit organizations to improve their fundraising efficiency. We guarantee accurate results, quick turnarounds, and thorough investigation into every possible opportunity for your organization.

Nonprofits of every shape and size including schools, healthcare institutions, associations, and more can benefit from our data enrichment services, which include:

  • Employer appends: Employer appends will let you know where your donors work. For nonprofits, this service is incredibly helpful in identifying corporate matching programs you can make use of, as well as forging stronger corporate connections. We use a combination of public and private information including government records, SEC filings, social media profiles, business registrations, and more in completing this data append service.
  • Email appends: We can provide you with up-to-date email addresses for each of your donors through our email appends. Emails are the most cost-effective option to reach out to a large number of donors at once.
  • Phone number appends: Just like with email appends, our phone number append services will provide you with the most accurate phone numbers for your entire donor database. We can find both cellular and landline numbers for you to use in your next donor call spree or phone-a-thon campaign.
  • Date of birth appends: This append service is often overlooked by nonprofits in their data collection processes, but it shouldn’t be! Knowing your donors’ birthdays will allow you to segment your audience by age bracket, and even plan a personalized birthday mailing campaign. With average match rates of up to 70%, our date of birth appending can easily and accurately provide you with the month and year that your donors were born in.
  • Postal address appends: Did you know that more than 40 million Americans move each year? That means almost 10% of addresses become outdated annually. Use our address append services to keep your mailing address database up to date and accurate. NPOInfo uses the official USPS National Change of Address process to identify any address changes registered with USPS in the last 48 months. With the information we find, we’ll provide you with an updated standardized list of addresses to help with your next round of fundraising letters.

If one of these services doesn’t match exactly what you’re looking for, we’re still happy to chat about how we can fit into your data enrichment strategies, and we’d love to connect you with one of our trusted partners in the space if needed!

How to Get Started

Now that you know all the valuable services NPOInfo offers to your nonprofit, let’s talk about the process of working with us.

Here’s what you can expect by partnering with our experts:

  1. Select your services. After considering which gaps in your database you want to fill, choose the data append service(s) that will best meet your needs.
  2. Get a quote. Our team will review your requested data appends and anticipated record count, and from there, we’ll give you a fair and accurate quote.
  3. Upload your records. Securely send your records to NPOInfo with all the required info, and we’ll get right to work. Pro tip: the more data you can provide, the more accurate your appends will be.
  4. Receive your appends. Once we finish our appending processes, we’ll send the appends your way. Our team will be available to answer any questions you may have about the reports, and we can even help you import the appended data into your existing database.
  5. Keep your data fresh. Even after your first data append, donors may change addresses, phone numbers, emails, and other information again and again. NPOInfo will maintain a relationship with your organization to keep your data updated and fresh for years to come.

When it comes to data append services specifically for nonprofits, NPOInfo is the best of the best. Reach out for a custom quote, so we can help strengthen your supporter relationships with stronger data!

Get a quote for NPOInfo's unparalleled data append services.

General Data Append Services

There are many general data append services that aren’t specifically created for nonprofit organizations.

While we recommend going with services that are geared toward your organization’s needs, here are four other well-known options:

  • Experian: Experian’s data append services focus on providing customer demographics and wealth screening services to help businesses develop a profile of their most profitable customers, anticipate buying behaviors and trends, and identify potential new customers.
  • Melissa: Melissa offers standard data append services both in the U.S. and internationally, as well as a customer profiling service similar to that of Experian.
  • Accurate Append: Accurate Append focuses on contact information services, including email, phone, and address appends.
  • Webbula: Webbula specializes in email data appends for different professionals: marketers, CRM directors, advertisers, and more.

For nonprofit organizations, we’d recommend partnering with nonprofit-specific data append services. This is because data append services like NPOInfo that are designed to work with nonprofits will best understand the unique needs and challenges your nonprofit faces – and we’ll know how to get you the data that will best fix your problems.

NPOInfo concludes its rundown of data append services.

Wrapping Up

Nonprofit data appends are a valuable investment for many nonprofits because they provide more quality data, greater efficiency in data analysis, and save your organization money in the long run.

Before exploring different providers, here’s are some final thoughts on how you to select the best data append service for your mission-driven organization:

  • Remember you’re a nonprofit. There are many data append services out there. For nonprofits, you’ll see the best results working with a nonprofit-specific service like NPOInfo. We know your goals and how to provide the best data to help you meet them.
  • Really consider what data gaps you want to fill. As you’ve seen, not all data appends are created equally. You can get an email append, a phone append, wealth screening, and many others. Know what you’re looking for before selecting a service.
  • Avoid a fixed mindset. Data appending is an ongoing process—after all, data will continue to become outdated as the years go by. Make sure you’re satisfied with the data append service you first selected and if not, pivot as needed.

To begin the process of appending data to your nonprofit’s database, reach out to the team at NPOInfo today. In the meantime, to help you with other aspects of operating a nonprofit, check out these additional resources.