Explore this comprehensive guide to nonprofit data hygiene.

The Fundraiser’s Guide to Improving Nonprofit Data Hygiene

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Data is essential to the livelihood of any organization. However, it fails to hold any value if you’re unable to identify your data when you need it. Without taking the necessary steps to keep your data up-to-date, clean, clear, and concise, it is virtually useless.

So, you may be wondering, what is the key to making the most of your data? The answer is simple: proper data hygiene.

At NPOInfo, we help nonprofits elevate their internal data through database appends. By doing so, we’ve seen firsthand the importance of clean data when it comes to improving a nonprofit’s donor stewardship and fundraising efforts. Because of that, we’ve created this comprehensive guide to nonprofit data hygiene. We’ll cover the following points:

If you’re looking to optimize your fundraising efforts through using clean data, read along as we uncover all you need to know!

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What is database hygiene? An Overview

Database hygiene is the ongoing procedures and processes involved with keeping a nonprofit’s main database, its constituent relationship management (CRM) system, “clean” or with few errors. These processes involve a variety of actions, such as verifying existing data, removing duplicate and non-useful records, and appending new data to fill gaps in any incomplete records.

This is crucial, as “dirty” data can lead to many fatal pitfalls, including ineffective lead tracking, marketing missteps, and the inability to personalize outreach materials to donors and subscribers.

Most commonly, we see database hygiene discussed in relation to the following information:

  • Postal addresses: On average, 15% of individuals move each year, but 35% of those people fail to update their address information. Failing to keep track of postal addresses will put your information in the wrong hands— something you definitely don’t want to happen!
  • Email addresses: Email marketing has the highest return on investment of any channel, with $40 gained for every $1 spent. Therefore, you want to be certain your nonprofit is receiving email addresses from contacts and keeping this data clean. Approximately 54% of records in a nonprofit’s database are missing email addresses.
  • Phone numbers: Research indicates that 42% of records are missing phone information; an issue that needs rapid resolving.
  • Deceased: As a means of preserving resources and reducing perceived insensitivity, it is important to conduct routine deceased suppression as part of your data hygiene routine.
  • Duplicates: For organizations with multiple databases, it is extremely common to find duplicate information.

This image covers a checklist of nonprofit data hygiene best practices
These aspects provide a simple overview of the key components nonprofit organizations must pay attention to when evaluating the hygiene of their data. However, it is just as important to understand the value that this data presents to nonprofits in the first place.

Why does clean data matter for nonprofits?

Nonprofit data hygiene is a key factor in achieving data maturity. Research shows that every day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated globally. However, most of this data remains underutilized by nonprofits due to a lack of data organization.

For your nonprofit, this could mean:

  • Missing out on opportunities to engage supporters. One of the best places to start the process of major gift prospecting is in your donor database, but disorganized data can obscure a strong prospect’s capacity and affinity markers. Additionally, you might miss an opportunity to invite a supporter to a fundraising event or volunteer opportunity they would be interested in if their engagement history is unclear.
  • Overspending on outreach. Messy, disorganized data could lead to wasting resources by sending costly direct mail solicitations to outdated addresses. Or, you might end up spending more on communication channels that supporters don’t use or respond to than on the ones they regularly engage with.
  • Lapsed donors. Not carefully tracking supporters’ involvement can lead to missed follow-ups, which can come off as a lack of appreciation for their contributions. When donors don’t feel like your organization values their support, they’re more likely to stop engaging.

When your nonprofit’s data is disorganized, valuable information goes by the wayside. Be sure to take advantage of all potential opportunities by maintaining clean data.

How do nonprofits use data?

On the flip side, maintaining proper data hygiene can benefit your nonprofit in numerous ways. As the world transitions into a more digital lifestyle, the volume of available data continues to grow. Nonprofits are striving to be more data-driven in response, and it’s no secret that data-driven strategies tend to be the most effective.

There are six main types of data your nonprofit should collect, each of which provides a unique benefit:

This graphic lists the six main types of data to focus on when practicing nonprofit data hygiene, which are discussed in more detail below.

  • Donor data, which helps your nonprofit better understand its individual supporters and develop stronger relationships with them.
  • Campaign data, which provides insight into your nonprofit’s fundraising strengths and potential areas for improvement.
  • Marketing data, which allows you to identify the best ways to reach supporters and amplify your mission.
  • Financial data, which helps you assess your revenue and expenses to aid in developing a stronger financial management system.
  • Website data, which allows you to develop stronger content and provide a better user experience within the main digital hub of information about and engagement with your organization.
  • External data, which is useful in planning for organizational growth as it provides new perspectives on your mission and industry.

While most nonprofits rely on data when planning their fundraising, outreach, and stewardship efforts, this is significantly easier and more likely to succeed when your data is hygienic.

5 Common Nonprofit Data Hygiene Challenges

While working to clean up your data, you may encounter several challenges that make it difficult for you to organize the information at hand. Here are common data hygiene challenges that your nonprofit may encounter, as well as steps to resolve them.

This graphic visualizes nonprofit data hygiene common challenges.

Ambiguous Data

Ambiguous data is information that is too broad to decipher its true meaning. More simply, it is when the same code is used for two different types of data. For example, if you use the label “board” to indicate someone’s ranking, you may forget later down the road if that individual is a current or former board member. This difference in title is important to take into consideration before approaching the individual for future campaigns. You probably don’t want to seek the aid of a former board member, though you would with a current board member!

To fix this issue, identify how each type of data should be coded moving forward. In the example above, you can establish clarity through coding current members as “current board” and former members as “former board.” Specificity is key. When cleaning data, review all records with ambiguous coding and update them as you go.

Duplicate Data

Duplicate data is identical data entered throughout your database. This most commonly happens in the form of having two records for one supporter— for example, if an individual made two gifts, each on a different date and each from different email addresses. Your CRM could record this as though there are two separate supporters, rather than one individual with two email addresses. It’s important to rid your system of duplicate data to avoid redundancy in your approach (such as that one donor receiving double the communications).

Implement a deduplication process at least once per quarter to stay on top of the game. Additionally, your database should have a merge tool that you can use to review duplicate records side by side and decide which records to merge into one and which to keep separate.

Inconsistent Data

Inconsistent data is when your entries differ across multiple databases. For example, if one of your systems says that two individuals are married while the other says they are divorced, sending them joint communication efforts may be a mistake. You can avoid issues like this through keeping your data consistent.

If you suspect that some of your data is incorrect, identify a threshold for data you will review. For instance, when considering donors, it may be wise to establish a review for those who have gifted a certain amount or higher. Hypothetically, if someone donated $3 million to your organization, your system should flag this entry and notify staff to double check that this amount is correct before proceeding. Implementations such as this will help prevent inconsistent data down the road.

Misplaced Data

Sometimes data is simply misplaced in the system. With such high variability in human error, this is very common in free-text fields. For example, you could have John Smith’s email address entered under Mary Jones. Making sure everything is in the right place will make your marketing and fundraising efforts run as smoothly as possible.

As with all other challenges, a thorough review of data entries will help to identify if data has been entered in the wrong location. Be sure to review misplaced data as needed, move the data into its correct location, and delete the data from its original, incorrect location.

Missing Data

Missing data is a cause for concern, as it is impossible for your organization to use such valuable information if it isn’t there in the first place. A common example of this is missing contact information, such as email address or phone number, resulting from “optional” form entry fields. If you’ve ever made an online donation to a nonprofit and left one of the two “contact information” fields blank, you’re a source of missing data for that organization!

If you have other data sources that contain what you need—such as old databases or third-party systems—you may seek these for filling in the blanks of missing information. Not to mention, the data append services provided by NPOInfo make the processes of finding missing data quite simple. From email addresses to phone numbers, our data append services can locate exactly what you need.

How do you clean donor data? 5 Steps


Now that you know what clean data is, the importance of maintaining it, and the challenges you may encounter along the way, it is time to dive into the nitty-gritty of exactly how to clean your data. Here are the five data hygiene steps we will discuss:

  1. Conduct an audit of your nonprofit database.
  2. Remove unnecessary or harmful information.
  3. Take a closer look at the data you have left.
  4. Standardize processes for ongoing maintenance.
  5. Bring an expert on board to help.

Let’s begin!
This graphic walks through the steps of nonprofit data hygiene

Step 1: Conduct a database audit.

Conducting a database audit is the first step in cleaning your donor data. An audit allows you to assess the current state of your data and discover the areas most in need of improvement.

Use the following steps to conduct your database audit:

Step 1: Identify problems you’re facing regarding data collection. What are the main issues your organization is facing that impede on proper data collection? What are you looking to get out of the audit process?

Step 2: Pinpoint unhelpful information. Identify which pieces of your information are inaccurate, outdated, or utterly incorrect. Make note of these points and you will help yourself in the long run. Keeping this information within your database will prove more harmful than helpful.

Step 3: Identify inconsistencies in your data. If you are a long-standing organization, your team has probably gone through several different data input procedures. As a result, you have probably cycled through many different ways of uploading names, addresses, dates, and other types of information. If you are a newer nonprofit, the threat of human error can also lead to variability amongst data input. Use your audit to note any inconsistencies that have occurred.

Step 4: Share your findings with your team. Once the audit is complete, be sure to share the information discovered with all parties involved. Ensure stakeholders—such as board members and executive leadership—are aware of the findings and on board with moving to the next steps of the data hygiene process

By conducting a database audit, you can produce an official review of your database to understand what areas contain the largest amount of inaccuracies, what information is missing, and where gaps in your data lie. This will put you in the best position for correcting your data moving forward.

Step 2: Remove unnecessary or harmful information.

Once you have conducted your audit, it’s time to get rid of any extraneous content. These pieces of irrelevant information will ultimately be a waste of time and money, as you’ll end up sending marketing materials and messages to those who don’t want to or are not able to engage with your information. Some examples of unusable data points to remove include:

  • People on Do Not Call lists: Individuals who wish to opt-out of telemarketing calls register with the National Do Not Call Registry. Nonprofits are traditionally exempt from these regulations, but if your organization partners with a commercial telemarketing company you must comply with these guidelines.
  • Do Not Mail lists: People who wish to not receive mail and emails from businesses can register with the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) website, DMAchoice. Nonprofits are not required to use this list either.
  • Minors: Remove those under the age of 18 from your database. This is especially crucial as if you conduct marketing to children, you can be fined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
  • Incarcerated individuals: Those who are currently within the prison system cannot respond to marketing materials. Remove individuals within federal and state prisons, county correctional facilities, and jails as a means of preserving your resources.
  • Deceased persons: By making sure not to contact the deceased, you can prevent sending unwanted marketing materials to their family members. Failing to do so often comes off as insensitive.

Once this information has been eliminated, you’re left with a database that contains information only about those who are interested in hearing from you and are able to respond to your messages. Remember, more data in your database isn’t necessarily better. If you need help determining what data to keep or not to keep, nonprofit data hygiene providers can assist you with removing these types of records or suppressing them from your direct marketing efforts.

Step 3: Take a closer look at the data you have left.

After refining your database and removing unwanted information, assess your remaining data closely. In particular, it is important to assess and correct the database errors you identified during the primary audit stage. You can ensure your records are clean by:

  • Eliminating duplicate entries: Verify the correct entry and merge or eliminate any copies that might have emerged over the years.
  • Standardizing mailing addresses: When inputting mailing address information, establish a standardized method for interchangeable abbreviations, such as “Lane” or “Ln.” Also, be sure to establish guidelines when it comes to area codes: 5-digit ZIP code versus ZIP+4 code.
  • Verifying email addresses: Ensure all remaining addresses are real and active. Following this principle will increase your email engagement rate and allows you to save time and resources by only sending messages to correct, active email addresses.
  • Ensuring numbers and abbreviations are standardized: This includes titles, ages, and any code words your team uses to categorize donors or prospects.

Taking the time to refine data will help correct small inconsistencies that can add up to much larger issues.

Step 4: Standardize processes for ongoing maintenance

It is best to adopt continuous data hygiene practices, rather than conduct an occasional major—and very time-consuming—cleanse. Ensure future success by creating an ongoing process for standardized data entry and maintenance. Some important tactics to consider implementing would be:

  • Standardizing data input practices. Outline the rules for team members to follow when they input new information into your nonprofit database. This includes procedures for inputting names, phone numbers, physical email addresses, employment information, and all other relevant data points.
  • Creating a data training process for staff. Create a shared document that includes all the details team members need to use the database effectively. Review the process in a meeting or training seminar so that everyone is on the same page for protocol.
  • Defining rules for handling errors. Define the process of correcting errors and include it within your data input process documentation. Who is responsible for fixing incorrect, incomplete, or duplicate records in your system?
  • Streamlining your donor-facing forms to only ask for essential information. This refers to elements that request information from the donor, such as your newsletter sign-up page or online donation form. Streamlining these platforms will help prevent the buildup of unnecessary or harmful data that inevitably clogs your database.

Using these practices as a means of standardizing your data maintenance approach will help make the process manageable. The maintenance process is customizable to your organization, so be sure to implement whatever tools work best for you!

Step 5: Bring an expert on board to help

Establishing good data hygiene can be challenging, especially when you’re not sure where to start. Professionals that specialize in nonprofit data hygiene can set your team up with a concrete plan for future success in data management practices.

Database marketing specialists can assist with all of the processes outlined in the steps above, but they don’t stop there. These professionals provide a wide array of other services, such as:

  • Merge and Purge: Identifying and combining or eliminating duplicate records in your database.
  • File Conversions: Converting files into useful formats according to the various needs of your organization.
  • A/B Splits: Segmenting your data into groups to determine which marketing strategies are most effective.
  • Parsing: Splitting up the elements of one record into separate fields in your database.
    Data appends. Supplementing data from your organization’s internal database with external information. Learn more about how NPOInfo can help you do this!

This graphic provides an overview of nonprofit database marketing services
Beyond hygiene, data marketing firms also conduct data enhancement, audience building, targeted digital marketing, and other marketing efforts. Partnering with professionals containing these valuable skills will leave your organization with a stronger framework for future campaigns.

3 Donor Database Best Practices to Improve Your Data Hygiene

Create processes for standardizing data formatting.

To make sure all relevant donor data appears in reports and is properly formatted, establish standards. For processes that are unique to your organization, you’ll need to formulate your own internal standards.

You will want to have rules in place for information such as:

This graphic displays important nonprofit donor data information to gather.

  • Names: Decide how you will deal with formal first names versus nicknames or preferred names. Designate a field for each and use them consistently. Set rules for capitalization and abbreviation, but avoid writing names as fully capitalized.
  • Addresses: Determine whether you spell out or abbreviate a roadway, such as writing “Street” or “St.” Set rules for entering apartment numbers. For example, if you are referring to someone living in Apartment 10, would you reference it #10, Apt. 10, or Unit 10? Decide whether or not to abbreviate the names of states, like CA vs California.
  • Donation Dates: Should the donation date entered be the date on the check or the deposit date?
  • Spouses and households: Define a process for associating contacts who live in the same household. By grouping individuals with the same address, you can avoid redundancy in your messaging.
  • Job titles: Decide to spell out or appreciate job titles. Create a list of standard titles—such as Doctor or Dr.—and how they should be shortened if you plan to use abbreviations.
  • Phone numbers: Standardize the entry of phone numbers using. You might use parenthesis ( (555) 555-555), dashes (555-555-555) or no punctuation (555555555).

When it is all said and done, as long as the information is held to the same standards, you should have no need to worry. Be sure to collect the same information for all of the contacts in your database and whenever possible, include as much information as you can.

Schedule regular data back-ups.

An important, and often forgotten, component of data collection is regularly backing it up. In a survey by Jay Love, 60% of organizations admitted to not backing up their data properly each day. Further, only 5% claimed to even test their backup solutions–a recipe for disaster!

In case of a software crash, the last thing you want to happen is a loss of all of your data. To prevent this from occurring, it is essential that your organization undergoes proper back-up procedures each day to ensure your data remains safe.

Equally important to backing up your data is testing your data. By this we mean, your organization should run tests to make sure the data saved in your backup is recoverable and usable.

Invest in data appends

To enhance your clean data, it would be in the best interest of your nonprofit to invest in data appends. By doing so, you will house the most organized and up-to-date information within your database.

NPOInfo offers a wide array of services that can assist the data append process. Such services include:

  • Employer Appends: Knowing where your donors work is incredibly important. Here at NPOInfo, we use our proprietary screening and identification methods to append employer information, and oftentimes a job role, to individual records. Our screening method gathers data from both public and private sources, giving you the most accurate information possible.
  • Email Appends: Emails are crucial to reaching your donors and not to mention, the most cost-efficient for your organization. Therefore, it is important you have the right email addresses listed within your database. NPOInfo can help you fill in any of those gaps.
  • Phone Number Appends: Whether you’re looking to contact a donor or constituent, having the correct phone number is necessary. The NPOInfo phone number append service provides you with both cellphone and landline numbers to be used for both your regular donation solicitations, as well as matching gift reminders.
  • Date of Birth Appends: Being aware of your supporters’ ages and dates of birth is important to your organization’s marketing efforts. Whether it be for birthday mailing or market segmentation, our services will help you to best pinpoint birthdates for all of your needs.
  • Address Appends: With more than 40 million Americans moving each year, having up-to-date address information will save your organization significant funding that can be lost due to misinformation. Double the Donation offers National Change of Address screenings to ensure your organization has up-to-date mailing addresses. Further, NPOInfo provides standardized addresses that meet the USPS’s requirements for bulk mailing rates.

Data appends provide irreplaceable value to your organization’s marketing and fundraising efforts, so consider the help of NPOInfo in your next data append pursuit!

If you are interested in learning more about the importance of proper nonprofit data hygiene, here are some additional resources to explore:

This image guides users to optimize their nonprofit data with NPOInfo.

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.