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Donors entering incorrect addresses on the online form

Abby Sheppard

We have an embedded plug in on our website for online donations. We have a field for them to fill out their email and address so we can attribute it to the correct constituent, but we are running into the problem of people not entering their information correctly, for example switching numbers around on their zip code. Typos are very common nowadays, but we are running into the issue that we are having incorrect mailing addresses in our database, which gives us a lot of returned mail. Does any one have any tips to handle this situation?

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Comments

Austen Brown

Hi Abby Thurston‍ - The donation form you are referencing, was it created in OLX or NXT?

Abby Sheppard

OLX Austen Brown‍

Austen Brown

Hi Abby Thurston‍ - You need to review each constituent manually, accepting/rejecting the information they provided while filling out the form. After you have done this, prior to downloading gifts from OLX into Batch follow the steps below -

After selecting gifts to download and clicking on Bulk Processing.
Go to the second tab (Options).
At the bottom of the window under Transaction Profile Data, choose Reject Profile Information.
Then go back to the first tab (Processing), and click the Process Now button.

By completing step 3 you will ensure that changes 'rejected' during the review process in OLX (prior to download) remain as you selected them. This will solve the issues you are experiencing with bad addresses.

I have created a step-by-step guide for downloading OLX gifts into our system; if you are interested in this document send me a DM with your email address.

Abby Sheppard

Austen Brown‍ That is very helpful, and I am interested in that document!

My question was more towards what if the donor puts in the wrong information, and we have no idea that the information is incorrect? Ex.

First Name: Abby

Last Name: Thurston

Billing Address:112233 Example Road Atlanta, GA 30000

** My address is actually 11223 Example Road, I just entered it in wrong and now Raiser's Edge has the wrong data for me, but no one is aware.

Austen Brown

You need to get AddressAccelerator - it validates addresses, and lets you know when they are not correct. Check out KB Article #75452 for more information on how it works. The validation happens in real time as an address is added, or you can do it in bulk through the data health center. My organization has been using this add-on for a number of years, and it has greatly reduced the number of returned pieces of mail, due to typos and user error.

Faith Murray

Doubling up what Austen says, we run all of our addresses through BlackBaud's AddressAccelerator service at least once annually. The number of returned pieces since we began using some type of annual validation service is only a fourth of what it used to be when I started here 10 years ago, so it pays for itself in the long run in saved postage. A second service that pays for itself is the deceased person finder, so you aren't wasting postage mailing to people in your system who have died.

That being said, if you are pinching pennies, you CAN get all of this information for free, through the post office. It just tales a little more processing on your part. Ask your mailing house for a copy of their Post Office return codes after they do a bulk mailing for you -- it will have a list of all corrected addresses with codes to identify what kind of correction was made. Or, you can create a free account on the USPS Small Business tool and submit your own lists up to 10,000 records (perhaps pull a query of recently-changed addresses each month), and it will spit out a list of unmatched and corrected addresses in Excel for free. Then you can just upload any address corrections via Import.