Most successful contact info search

Sandra Ross
Sandra Ross
Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 PowerUp Challenge #2 Gift Management August 2025 Monthly Challenge Badge
in Blackbaud K–12 Education Solutions™ General Discussions

Would love to hear from others as to what company or strategy you have had the most success with in locating email, cell and mailing addresses for “lost" alumni. We have tried multiple companies but always seem to get back a lot of old, invalid or family emails. We have also reached out to our alumni to share data for those they are in touch with. Looking for new companies or methods to try. Thanks for sharing!

Comments

  • Tami Goertzen
    Tami Goertzen
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 3 Altru Fall 2025 Product Update Briefing Badge Name Dropper

    I think you may get a response if you posted this in an education forum. This is the Altru forum.

  • Ray Bergman
    Ray Bergman
    Sixth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    @Sandra Ross - Is this a higher ed request or a k-12 request? IE: college alumni or k-12 alumni?

  • Sandra Ross
    Sandra Ross
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 PowerUp Challenge #2 Gift Management August 2025 Monthly Challenge Badge

    Hi Ray, thanks for replying. We are 9-12 grade alumni.

  • Sandra Ross
    Sandra Ross
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 PowerUp Challenge #2 Gift Management August 2025 Monthly Challenge Badge

    Thanks!

  • Ray Bergman
    Ray Bergman
    Sixth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    Great. This topic has now been successfully moved to the K-12 Community.

  • Faith Murray
    Faith Murray
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    Any data append company you use will have mixed results - that's the reality of bulk data. Still, it's better than doing no appends at all! Part of the complication is when people use a phone or co-sign on real estate that is registered in a relative's name - it really throws off the data matching. We've used Blackbaud, Anchor, and VeraData, as well as the USPS IMSB tool (for address updates), and sometimes we just broker the append through our acquisition provider. There is a margin of error in each of them. Of these, VeraData and Blackbaud probably have the most well-known name.

    You might look into geolocation append services, if you are wanting something more targeted. We have not tried this ourselves, but if you host an event, for example, you can rent a list of device information for devices that have been at your location. You can then have this device information matched to your participant lists. See this interesting website and scroll down to the sections on Geofencing, Geoconquest, and Event Targeting, for descriptions. Also please note that even in this instance, the website projects less than a 90% accuracy matching of IP addresses.

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