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 However, outdated or otherwise inaccurate phone numbers in your database can do more harm than good by wasting your staff’s time.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.

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!

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 employer data for example, NPOInfo can handle that for you all at once! We focus exclusively on employer appends to help you grow your workplace and corporate giving revenue quickly.

To run a append on your own, you’ll need access to your own database of that information, 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 appending services provider for the specific data you’re looking for. They can manually check everything and ensure you’re only given accurate information.

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.

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 you need to 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.


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’s what to expect:

  1. Get a quote. Gather quotes from providers who offer this type of service. Quotes will typically be based on your anticipated record count.
  2. Send your records. Securely send your records with the information requested by your provider.
  3. Wait. Appends take some time as providers go through thorough checking and verification processes.
  4. Receive your appends. You’ll receive phone numbers and typically an estimation of accurate the provider is in their results.

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.

If you’re considering other ways to enhance your donor database, NPOInfo is happy to help with our exclusive focus – employer appends! 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 reaching out to your constituents – whether by phone or email – about their workplace giving eligibility.

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