Collecting Post-Event Donor Data

Rachel Bhaduri · May 28

We use OneCause for our gala where we have about 1,000 attendees and only require email and phone (currently) for each guest. Any ideas on how to encourage folks to provide their address after the event is over, either through text or email blast? Hindsight is 20/20 - we will probably require address next year!

Faith Murray · May 28

People will only provide address if they either 1) care deeply about your mission, or 2) have an incentive. You will need to come up with a creative offering that can be mailed to them; then send out an email inviting them to sign up for the free offering. Examples could be a commemorative event memorabilia, birthday card, special occasion cards "from a cat" - you can get really creative!

That being said, since you do have their phone numbers, you can also easily get a reverse phone append to acquire their mailing addresses. Our acquisition list provider performs this service for us at cost, meaning we pay about $750 to append 30K records with a 40% return. And in our multichannel world, I don't think people will think anything of getting a "thank-you" postcard in the mail the month after attending a gala.

Rachel Bhaduri · May 28

Yes @Faith Murray I should have thought about an append as we do have a service we can utilize for that. Thanks for the ideas!

Karen Diener · May 29

Just make sure to set expectations around an email append. None of them are 100% accurate, and many will provide "the most frequently used email in the household". That is often a more generic email that people use for online shopping, and not an email that they use much.

Also be very careful not to inundate them with email. I delete multiple emails every day from nonprofits that I wholeheartedly support, but I just don't have the time to read them or resources to make donations.

A lot of people think an email append is a magic bullet, but as long as everyone recognizes that it is only one small step to engaging donors, it will be useful.

Sunshine Reinken Watson · May 29

If you mail event invitations and/or annual statements, you can send them a link to a form to opt-in to those mailings by providing their address. Make sure you can connect the form entry back to the email address or phone number they provided at the event so you can match it up in the database. It would also be good to collect opt-ins/opt-outs for other types of snail mail and email communications on the same form. But I wouldn't make those required to submit or too extensive or else they may abandon it.

Collecting Post-Event Donor Data

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