Data retention policy

Timothy Ng
Timothy Ng
Seventh Anniversary Participant
in Organizational Best Practices General Discussions

Hey all.

With all the privacy laws that have been enacted in the past few years, we’ve been working to establish a retention policy for data in our database for both donors and non-donors. We’ve done quite a bit of work establishing policies for non-donors that encompasses cold prospects, event attendees, petition signers, activists, and other folks who have engaged in various ways with our organization. We’ve been struggling a bit with donor data retention since lapsed donors feed into direct mail and planned giving strategies, and different areas of Development have different ideas for how long donor data should be retained. Has anyone established a retention policy for donor data that seemed to work for their Development department?

I’m happy to share the basics of our non-donor data retention policy with anyone who might be interested.

Thanks!

-Tim

Comments

  • Emily Gerhart
    Emily Gerhart
    Name Dropper First Anniversary Facilitator 1

    @Timothy Ng
    I'm also interested in your non-donor data retention policy. Thanks!

  • Sunshine Reinken Watson
    Sunshine Reinken Watson Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply February 2026 Monthly Challenge

    @Timothy Ng I am in the “never delete a donor record” camp. It is useful for reporting, and you never know when a “lost” donor will re-engage.

    I am curious about your non-donor retention policy. I wouldn't want to delete anyone who has anyone who has opted out, because it is important to keep those for future mailing/email lists (especially if you use outside/purchased lists for mailings). Reporting needs are also a concern for a history of event attendance, etc.

  • Irene Hui
    Irene Hui Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 PowerUp Challenge: Data Health #3 2025 bbcon Attendee Badge

    @Timothy Ng I agree with Sunshine and Kate – where I don’t delete any records. I also don’t set them to inactive status in our database. I have included them in direct mail suppression files for merge/purges, list rentals, etc. There are times where a gift officer may do outreach and reach out to these lapsed or cold donors and get them to re-engage so it is best for us to leave them in. We also have past continuing medical education course registrants who attended courses for free, so they are technically non-donors as well in our system. I would be interested learn about your non-donor data retention policy.

  • Rachel Kave
    Rachel Kave
    Tenth Anniversary PowerUP Challenge: Chat for Blackbaud AI Task One Kudos 1 Name Dropper

    @Timothy Ng would love to see your retention policy..we have yet to do this. Thanks!

  • Christine Robertson
    Christine Robertson
    Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Timothy Ng I have always been in the never delete a donor camp, but I think that the changes in privacy laws around the world may shape my thinking moving forward to a degree. I can't help but think of how much data we add to our donor CRMs that we could need permission for at some point in the future (information gleaned from wealth searches, obituaries, student registration, etc.).

  • Peter McKay
    Peter McKay
    Name Dropper First Anniversary Facilitator 1 September 2024 Monthly Challenge

    @Timothy Ng
    I would also be interested in checking out your donor retention policy if possible! Our direct mail firm just amended their privacy terms, as their doing way more analysis now. And now that we're all working in shared g-drives, there are a ton of classified to sorta-classified docs that we don't have a good retention policy around. Let alone within RE. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

  • Beverly Byrd
    Beverly Byrd
    Facilitator 1

    Late to conversation but scouring for information. I am not in development and my thinking maybe way off. Being a data person cleaning data up includes records that are no longer valuable needs to go. How that is determined by the policy that is set. Which one is not and data sprawl is real. I would love to see the policy anyone has set.

    For example of a record that in my thinking should be purged: our school is 2 yr - PreK, then all girls K-12. If we had a family that had a boy in the 2 yr program for 1 yr. They have never donated or contributed and it has been 10 years or more. To me that record needs to go. I know there is an Inactive status but the other side of the coin is data concern in a breach and being responsibile for data such as this.

    The child's record of attendance is in the SIS. This is specifically in RE. Any insight and examples would be helpful.

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