Working Towards Improved Donor Engagement and Strategic Fundraising: The Power of Database Queries

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A fundraiser friend recently told me that her coworkers joke how no one wants to make eye contact with their CEO on Fridays after 4 p.m. When I asked her why, she told me: “Because that’s when [the CEO] makes her craziest requests!”

While some of the requests we get may seem a little ‘crazy,’ the reality is if a fundraiser has a robust database, she is able to respond to these requests with comprehensive reports, populated by thoughtful queries.

The success of queries is largely dependent upon the data you are putting into the database. You can easily assess the health of your current data using the Data Health Scorecard in eTapestry. Based on your data score you can assess and potentially modify how you are tracking constituent data.

A great habit to develop is to track constituent data as soon as something happens. For example, each time you meet with a community partner, you can update their constituent record in your database. A lot of these updates can be accomplished by logging into eTapestry from your mobile device.

At the close of a meeting, log-in to eTapestry and enter any new information, including information about the meeting, observations of fields of interest, names of children/pets/family members, etc. The more information you track, the better able you are to strategically engage that donor through future initiatives.

Constiuent Records

A strong constituent record should track:

1. Biographical information
2. Relationships to other people, organizations, companies, schools, and even pets
3. Preferences for communications and/or solicitations
4. Personal information such as birthday, contact information, and potentially a photo
5. Communications including meetings, phone calls, direct mail, emails, etc.
6. Gifts of cash, in-kind, time, etc.

As the information in your database becomes more robust, the results of queries will similarly improve.

But why are queries so important?

Simply stated, queries are an advanced search engine for your database. They help you identify the “who” portion of any report.

There are three main reasons you create queries.
1. To generate reports for analyzing giving trends and measuring constituent involvement.
2. To segment your constituents for communication purposes.
3. To perform mass updates. Each of these three reasons has powerful applications to fundraising success.

For example:

Imagine you are about to launch a capital campaign.  A giving trend you might want to analyze is how many donors have given at least $1,000 each year for the past five years. These are some of your organization’s most loyal donors and they may be an excellent cohort for the launch of your capital campaign. Similarly, a query can help you segment these loyal donors from your database so you can send them an invitation to an exclusive capital campaign preview event. Finally, a query can help you run a mass update on these loyal donors, indicating they received a personal note from the organization’s board chair, inviting them to a capital campaign event.

You can use queries to drive targeted donor engagement and strategic fundraising practices, which, bottom line, will sustain donor engagement and bring in more money for your organization.

And that’s what we all want.

In order to learn more about the features we discussed in this blog, check out the following resources:

“Queries vs. Reports: What’s the Difference?” Continuing Education Webinar

“Don’t Sweat it! All about Queries” Freshman Orientation Webinar

Queries Help File

Reports Help File

The Account Record Help File

Enter Items into the Journal Help File

Data Health Score Card Help Video

Data Health Score Card Help File

Address Finder (NCOA) Help Video

Address Finder (NCOA) Help File

Mass Update Help File

Knowledgebase

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