Optimizing Your Database for Planned Giving

Your database is the lifeblood of your organization! Inside your database is the key information you can use to target those most likely to leave you in their estate plans helping you fulfill your mission. 

The goal is to find the warmest planned giving leads and engage them first.  Your database helps you identify those most likely to give. The better your database is, the more effective your planned giving program will be.  

A few ways to optimize your database for planned giving success: 

1. Constant Cleaning: A database is only as good as the information held within it.  Developing and implementing a policies and procedures manual to define how data is entered helps maintain standard entry. Standardized data entry creates consistent data making your life easier!
2. Update Demographic information: Key demographic information like age, address, and relationships should be constantly updated! You don’t have to pay for this! At your next event, have a sign-in sheet to capture updated data. Gift officers should have it as standard procedure to ask if the donor’s data has changed recently. This key information will help you create a profile of your typical planned giving door. Using this profile, mine your database to create a group of individuals that fit the criteria.
3. Grouping:  Whether you are creating a report, query, or list, this grouping of donors who match the profile is used to send targeted emails, letters, and/or postcards.  Update your lists frequently to ensure you are using the most up-to-date group.  
4. Track All Planned Giving Contacts:  Whether an in-person conversation or an email, keep track of every time you have a planned giving contact.  This tracking helps you view previous communication and determine appropriate next steps.

Optimizing your database is work. When you consistently clean your database, update key demographic information, update your lists, and track planned giving contacts you set yourself up for success in planned giving.

Is your database not optimized?  No worries, start cleaning today!  The analogy I use is cleaning a database is like cleaning a house. If you do a little each day, it stays clean. The more consistently you clean your database, the better it will be.  But you have to start somewhere. Today is a good day to start, it is an investment in fulfilling your mission!