Phonefinder: Duplicates?

Sarah Krenicki

UPDATE: Thank you all! This has been incredibly helpful.

I have been using RE for >7 years but this is my first time running Phonefinder (my org historically outsourced a phone scrub service).

We have phone types of "Home," "Cell," "Work," "Phone" (used when it is unknown if # is h/w/c) and "Scrub Append" (scrubbed numbers not yet verified).

I ran phonefinder on the "Home" numbers in the database and was told > 1,000 numbers had been added (with the type of “phonefinder”). Many of these numbers are not new at all, but were already on the constituent record as one of the other phone types. So now I'll have two numbers on a constituent record: one as “phone” and one as “phonefinder” but they are the SAME NUMBER.

I ended up exporting the phone numbers for all records with added phones, using import to change the phone type of identified phonefinder dupes to “delete” and using the delete phones plugin to delete the “new” numbers that were dupes.

I feel like I did something in a very roundabout and nonsensical manner. I want to run phonefinder on the phone types of “Phone” now as well, but dread having to do all that cleanup again! There has to be an obvious solution staring me in the face, right???

Knowledgebase article 42176 was not helpful.

JoAnn Strommen

@Sarah Krenicki Having to do something in a roundabout, nonsensical manner in RE? LOL (Working on project where data is viewable in web view but can't be pulled out) But back on phones.

I'm past due for running phone append so will be anxious to see if there is someone more creative or has that obvious solution but your process sounds similar to what I ended up doing last time I ran a phone append thru BB: Export, review, edit, review, edit…, import.

Joe Moretti

@Sarah Krenicki I will just give my opinion on Phone Finder and Email Finder. I no longer use them, since when I have in the past, way too many incorrect phones and emails resulted. The issue is that when Phone/Email Finder looks for phone or email, they are not looking at the person, but the address, which means if the people moved, you will have the new people's information or anyone who lives at that address, so you may end up having a child's email on a constituent's record as opposed to the actual person in RE. But what you are doing is correct, it is just a time consuming experience. I find it better to get that information in an appeal or mailing, that way you are getting the correct information for the constituent.

Christine Robertson

@Sarah Krenicki If you use a third-party import tool, you can match to the phone number in the process. If you do add these to RE, I would export the data to Excel and use Importacular (since their free version will update phone numbers). You can set your template to only add numbers that don't already exist in RE and avoid seeing the same one twice.

That said, I'm with @Joe Moretti - I've found these results rather suspect and would be very careful to identify any numbers that you do import as being from PhoneFinder so you know that they may not actually be connected to that constituent.

Faith Murray

@Sarah Krenicki
Seconding Joe Moretti's experience that there will always be some false leads on a phone append. You can minimize this by always running an Address Update and Addressfinder append first, before any other data appends. Even with the false leads, I still value the phone appends because, even if you have to call 2-3 wrong numbers before you reach someone, in some cases that is still better than no number at all. Just be sure to have a volunteer or staffer verify the number (thank-you calls are great) before approving it for leadership usage. (CEO's don't have patience for that process.)

As for dupes, my personal take on it is, leave the duplicate phone in with its Phonefinder type. It doesn't hurt anything and serves as verification. For example, we have donors whose Home phone was last updated in 2005. When a Phonefinder append pulls in the same phone number in 2023, it validates that the number is still current. I only allow 1 Phonefinder number per record though, to keep clutter down. When we call the donor and confirm the number is legit, then we manually update it to Home number and delete duplicates, keeping the most recent date.

Karen Diener

@Sarah Krenicki
You handled it in the best way possible, unfortunately. I also stopped using PhoneFinder and EmailFinder largely for these reasons.

But I always want to point out that this is NOT just an issue with Blackbaud's “versions” of these data enrichment services. I've used other products and they have the same level of accuracy. If someone wants to hide their email or phone number it isn't too difficult to do.

I do wonder about organizations who want this information, phone numbers in particular. Do you actually call people, or only when there is an issue with a transaction or something else? I know I'm highly tuned in to this issue because this is the world we live in, but I don't particularly like getting phone calls when I know I didn't share my phone number with them. I hardly ever share my phone number for this reason alone. Just curious!

Karen

Faith Murray

@Karen Diener
We generally only call a Phone Append number if there is a question with a gift. Thank you calls are also generally well-received. While I'm like you – I don't give out my number – most donors who have been giving for 5, 10, and 20 years don't remember whether they've given their number or not (we always include a line for supplying phone and email on donation reply cards), so I've never gotten ruffled feathers from them.

Yes, I've had a couple people ask, “Where did you get my number?” and I answered honestly: Whitepages online. (We have a lookup subscription with them.) Most people seem to understand the idea of their number being on Whitepages and you have looked it up to try to get ahold of them for a legit reason, or that your org “subscribes to a service to keep our donor records up to date”. I've only ever had one donor grumble about their “number being online”, but that was because the number was their daughter's phone, not theirs, and they didn't hold it against us.

Solicitations are a different creature – but at that point, why would one be cold-calling donors for a gift? The whole idea of a moves management cycle is to build relationship first, so unless your org is into phonathons, there should be active communication happening like personal cards and visits before a solicitation occurs.

Karen Diener

@Faith Murray:

@Karen Diener
We generally only call a Phone Append number if there is a question with a gift. Thank you calls are also generally well-received. While I'm like you – I don't give out my number – most donors who have been giving for 5, 10, and 20 years don't remember whether they've given their number or not (we always include a line for supplying phone and email on donation reply cards), so I've never gotten ruffled feathers from them.

Yes, I've had a couple people ask, “Where did you get my number?” and I answered honestly: Whitepages online. (We have a lookup subscription with them.) Most people seem to understand the idea of their number being on Whitepages and you have looked it up to try to get ahold of them for a legit reason, or that your org “subscribes to a service to keep our donor records up to date”. I've only ever had one donor grumble about their “number being online”, but that was because the number was their daughter's phone, not theirs, and they didn't hold it against us.

Solicitations are a different creature – but at that point, why would one be cold-calling donors for a gift? The whole idea of a moves management cycle is to build relationship first, so unless your org is into phonathons, there should be active communication happening like personal cards and visits before a solicitation occurs.

Oh I completely agree with a lot of what you've said here, and those are the reasons I would also provide.

But I have worked a lot of organizations who want phone numbers but cannot answer when I ask why they need them. They don't really have a strategy to use them OR an actual need - there is not a problem they are necessarily solving by getting the numbers.

Thank you calls and gift issues? Absolutely. In my experience, it is really rare to have gift-related questions and no contact information at all.

Karen

Dan Snyder

@Sarah Krenicki
What we have done with past runs is globally change the type from PhoneFinder to Phone and for any that failed we knew they were dupes and could delete all of them. This did not prevent us from having the same number as a cell phone too, but since PhoneFinder is only for landlines we just focused on that type first.

Sarah Krenicki

@Karen Diener We do a “thank a thon” Phoneathon at fiscal year end which has been well received. We also do a phonathon in the fall for a subset of our donors, but we only solicit people who have initially provided a phone number. The Phonefinder and append is primarily for a) verifying/updating provided numbers which are older and possibly no longer accurate b) the thank a thon, and c) data health metrics. (I have also found that with address finder, searching for the names of those deemed “lost” is a good way to find deceased constituents.)