Top Tips for Cleansing Charity Data

1. Poorly addressed mail is not appreciated by the recipient; in fact 1 in 4 people would stop donations immediately if mail was sent to a deceased relative.
2. Only use cleansed data lists for targeting donors whether it be for new or current donors, it will save you money on postage, marketing costs, printing and handling returns
3. Think about who you are targeting and why, as poor targeting costs money and 44% of people consider badly targeted charity mail as “wasting money”
4. There is no need to have poorly addressed / incorrectly addressed mail, using the Royal Mail PAF database is quick and cost effective.
5. There is more to data cleansing than just de-duplication and PAF.  There are a number of industry standard suppression files covering gone-aways, movers and deceased names.
6. Don’t use redirection services on cold or prospect data, it’s more cost effective to suppress them.
7. It’s approximately 6 times more expensive to acquire a new donor than to retain an existing one. Use NCOA Update to keep track of donor movements and increase your donor retention.
8. Only use the most verified of sources (such as Mortascreen and NCOA Suppress) for cleansing your most valuable and active donor data and always follow up with another medium such as phone, email or mailer to verify their contact details.
9. Nearly 500,000 people die in the UK every year, and over 6 million people move, your data should be cleansed regularly to ensure it is up-to-date.
10. Be a responsible charity mailer.  Have your donor and prospect data checked for FREE by Fidelity.

To receive a free data check please contact Louise on 01525 300001 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it