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What is your FAVORITE clean up task, project, or product?

Carlene Johnson

I just found out a client has Address Accelerator and I became disproportionally excited about the idea of standardizing all their addresses, doing some cleanup, and having valuable data about the deliverability of their addresses so that they can improve their direct mail program.

I want to drop everything else I'm supposed to be working on so that I can do that project and I'm forcing myself to only start that project as a reward if I get all the other things done.

I recognize that my level of enthusiasm for discovering they have Address Accelerator is a little bizarre. ? So now I want to know about the project, task, or BB product that generates that type of response in YOU!

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Comments

Austen Brown

@Carlene Johnson - One of my most rewarding clean-up projects involved comparing credit cardholder names against donor records - at my last org, I mined 20 years of gift data over a couple of years. It ultimately helped standardize legal names vs. preferred names and served as a valuable double-check to ensure gifts were recorded on the correct records. There’s something deeply satisfying about bringing order to chaos and uncovering insights hidden in plain sight.

Bobby Steurer

@Carlene Johnson Merging records is big for me. A corporate partner will send us contributions from any number of business addresses, and in the past, those often got recorded under that address as a brand new record. Always nice to consolidate.

Rachel Cavalier

@Carlene Johnson Like Bobby, I LOVE being able to match up records and merging them. It's so satisfying to make the database just a little tidier each time.

Spring Velazquez

@Carlene Johnson cleaning up and organizing Addressee & Salutation formulas. To go from 200+ formulas to (currently) 50 plus with headers so users know which one to use. I feel like I need a cigarette and a drink when I'm done ?

Carrie Powell

@Carlene Johnson, I hope it goes well! We have had some issues with Address Accelerator incorrectly updating our donors' addresses or marking them as undeliverable. ?

Carlene Johnson

@Carrie Powell - are you referring to Address Finder or Address Accelerator?

Carlene Johnson

@Spring Velazquez you deserve both after a project like that!!!

Carlene Johnson

@Austen Brown that is FANTASTIC data mining! Love it!

Carlene Johnson

@Bobby Steurer don't you love seeing the number of duplicates # go down?!?

Carlene Johnson

@Rachel Cavalier
I agree. It is such a tangible measure of cleanliness. Sometimes when I'm having trouble getting started with my day I will merge a handful of duplicates to get me in the flow of work.

Carrie Powell

@Carlene Johnson Oh, that's right – Address Finder.

Miki Martin

@Carlene Johnson at my last org I had almost completed cleaning up the addressees and salutations before they removed my position. It was such a rewarding experience knowing I had reduced the number of options.

Carlene Johnson

@Miki Martin
That's a great project to complete! So satisfying.

Sunshine Reinken Watson

@Carlene Johnson
Any coding reconfiguration/clean-up that makes it easier for people to pull reports and see what they need to see on standard dashboards is very satisfying.

Vicky Lopuchowycz

@Carlene Johnson - I love cleaning up addresses, prefixes, district codes, and phone number formatting. It's so satisfying when you run a report and everything matches up the way it is supposed to - sometimes it's frustrating because if people just followed the data entry policies I wouldn't have to do that but job security is nice :-)

Marie Stark

@Carlene Johnson I like address finder and merging records.

Mercedes McCay-Read

@Carlene Johnson for me it was cleaning up/organizing our Addressee/Salutations tables. Making sure I had all the possible addressees/salutations listed and organized based on couples, individuals and do not use.

Ann Fleming

@Carlene Johnson My add/sals are pretty specific (and judiciously used) but as we modernize our addressees, I would love to take the time to pare down a little more and make a good preferred address and salutation that can be used for just about everything! Even in an import/export, it is a heavy lift, but I think it will add so much value!

Anna Warner

@Carlene Johnson, I love cleaning up add/sals until I hit those roadblocks where there is one used somewhere, and you can't find where. Then I start losing my mind looking for it. I love cleaning up our mail selections (an attribute) each summer!

Danielle Repic

@Carlene Johnson
I like to clean up deceased records, a bit morbid? although we do have a handful over 100 and I find it fascinating when they are active in the community.

Kathy MacLeod

@Carlene Johnson - I too like cleaning up the addressee and salutations. It's satisfying about being able to make that small change, it makes and some of the bigger tasks feel less complicated.

Dan Snyder

@Carlene Johnson Does throwing away junk at my house count? I love putting the trash can out front for easy pitching!

To actually answer your question, I love finding relationships that are the wrong type. For example, as part of the conversion to RE back in 2003 (I wasn't at Bennington then), many of the high school relationships were entered as individual relationships, instead of education relationships. Anytime I can spend on cleaning those up feels great to me because I have put data in it's home.

Austen Brown

@Danielle Repic - Reading obits is one of my favorite things about deceased clean-up. Also love to see what folks got up to in their lives.

Rachel Kauer

@Carlene Johnson

I was actually going to say working on address update projects too! I find it fairly cathartic to go through and cleanup addresses. We just recently did a AddressFinder run and now I'm sorting through all our recent returns that went unmatched. But I'm curios about Address Accelerator now! I've seen the dropdown and wondered what it did.

Alex Wong

cleaning up old batches - it is quite satisfying to spam “alt-d” “tab” “space” over and over until your thumb sore

cleaning up old queries - same here in the delete multiple queries box - spam “tab” “space”

people in my office think i'm trying to crush the keyboard

Lauren Henderson

@Carlene Johnson an oldie but goodie- adding the “return service requested” to our postal insignia for annual report mailings- it was a VERY tangible way to prove my point that our address data was largely out-of-date, and that we needed a subscription (AddressFinder at the time) to begin to keep up. Bins and bins full of returned glossy publications speak loudly.

Carlene Johnson

@Rachel Kauer
Address Accelerator is AMAZING! If it is part of your contract I highly recommend becoming familiar with it.

Lucy Ruiz

@Carlene Johnson I like cleaning up “inactive” records. I like making a case for why a record should be kept in spite of lacking the “qualities” of an active record.

MK Macmaster

@Carlene Johnson, when I started in my role, I loved cleaning up duplicates; there were thousands! It was great to finally have a clean database and not spend days working through mailing lists for appeals and newsletters.

Carlene Johnson

@Carlene Johnson My add/sals are pretty specific (and judiciously used) but as we modernize our addressees, I would love to take the time to pare down a little more and make a good preferred address and salutation that can be used for just about everything! Even in an import/export, it is a heavy lift, but I think it will add so much value!

@Ann Fleming: You should check out the #BBCONSlides that @Amy Barker has shared in the FB group from her #bbcon2024 session on database cleanup.