Email Appends: How to Unlock Focused Nonprofit Outreach

The title of the article, which is “Email Appends: How to Unlock Focused Nonprofit Outreach.”

Email is the communication platform most likely to engage 48% of donors and inspire 30% to give. While the platform is a powerful resource for spurring donor response, it takes a focused strategy to ensure your emails reach the right people. That’s where email appends come in.

Email appends bolster the trustworthiness of your nonprofit’s contact list so you can target the right supporters with compelling messages. To help your nonprofit unlock this focused outreach, we’ve compiled a guide of everything you need to know about email appends, including:

Especially when connecting with donors about ways to maximize their support, like matching gifts, organized and accurate data is essential. Let’s start exploring how your nonprofit can increase its email data accuracy for more focused outreach!

Enhance supporter relationships with better data. See how our data appends services can help.

What Are Email Appends?

Email appends involve adding missing constituent email addresses and verifying that existing email addresses are accurate by submitting supporter information to an appending service.

Beyond verifying the accuracy of your data, this process fills in gaps for a more complete nonprofit database. To do this, the data append provider matches email addresses from their comprehensive database to the information you provide, which may include:

A list of data points nonprofits must submit to append providers when asking for email appends, which are listed in the text below.

  • Unique ID numbers
  • Full names
  • Phone numbers
  • Postal addresses
  • Past email addresses
  • Colleges or universities
  • Class years and majors/degrees
  • Last gift amount
  • Date of last donation
  • Date the entry was last updated

After the append service provider cross-checks this information against their database, they’ll send your nonprofit the verified and missing email addresses. Then, your team can simply upload this updated information into your CRM for a clean database!

Why Do Nonprofits Need Email Appends?

According to HubSpot’s database research, email marketing databases naturally degrade by about 22.5% each year. It’s incredibly common, and even expected, for your nonprofit’s database to have errors or become outdated over time.

In fact, supporters may change their email addresses, accidentally make a typo when submitting their information, or even provide a fake email address when donating or signing up for your newsletter. Locating the right contact information can help your nonprofit:

  • Expand your audience. You can’t send a message without knowing where to send it! Filling in the missing information in your database allows nonprofits to expand their audiences by emailing supporters who weren’t previously on their email list.
  • Increase online donations. With a broader audience than ever before, your emails have the potential to garner more support, which may result in a spike in your nonprofit’s online donations.
  • Receive more feedback. Having accurate contact information means more opportunities to engage donors and receive a response. For example, a larger audience for your nonprofit’s feedback surveys can lead to more feedback and more diverse perspectives.
  • Focus your communications. Comprehensive supporter profiles is the key to sending personalized and compelling emails. Email address appending provides the information your nonprofit needs to follow up with donors who are eligible for specific giving opportunities, such as matching gifts.
  • Save time. It can be time-consuming to manually search for every supporter’s contact information and deal with bounced emails. Email appends allow nonprofits to spend their time actually crafting the email and give them the confidence to send or even automate their messages.

Beyond their broader benefits, email appends support different nonprofits in different ways depending on their unique missions and operations. Consider the following examples:

  • Environmental nonprofits use digital communications to reduce paper waste and need accurate contact information to do so.
  • Associations require updated email addresses to contact their geographically diverse members.
  • Universities rely on alumni for donations, meaning they must keep their database up-to-date to keep up with alumni after graduation.

For all nonprofits, clean data is the key to identifying fundraising opportunities and effectively capturing donor support.

How Does Accurate Data Support Matching Gift Fundraising?

As an organization that depends on supporters’ generosity, your nonprofit would benefit greatly from the ability to double donors’ gift amounts. Luckily, email appending can help you reach those donors who are eligible for matching gifts to ensure they capitalize on the opportunity!

Accurate donor data—specifically, contact information—is necessary for your nonprofit to follow up with match-eligible donors and inform them about the opportunity to maximize their gifts. We offer data enhancement services that will help you enrich donor profiles with accurate contact, employer, and demographic details. Then, our matching gift software can automate your matching gift communications, making it easier than ever to raise awareness about corporate giving.

Raising awareness and focusing your communications on the right donors are just two best practices that increase your chances of collecting matched gifts. For more tips, check out the following video:

 

With verified email addresses and our intuitive technology, your nonprofit can capture employer matches without having to track down eligible donors and educate them on the opportunity.

Best Practices for Email Appending

There’s more to appending than simply handing over your supporter information to a data appending service provider. You’ll need a strategic approach and a thorough plan for which data you want to target.

Here are a few best practices to set your nonprofit up for success:

  1. Start with missing email addresses. Missing data is often easier to locate than inaccurate records. If a supporter has never provided their email address, prioritize locating their contact information before moving on to your older records.
  2. Append data regularly. There is rarely an off-season when it comes to your nonprofit’s fundraising and communication efforts, meaning you’ll always need accurate and complete data. Choose a regular cadence for appending, such as monthly, quarterly, or biannually, to ensure your data is as up-to-date as possible.
  3. Focus on existing and lapsed supporters. Email address appending is not synonymous with prospect research. The goal is to identify contact information for those who have previously engaged with your organization, rather than find new audiences to connect with. Look for email addresses of those who have donated, volunteered, signed up for your newsletter, or otherwise communicated their interest in your nonprofit.
  4. Follow anti-spam laws. Your nonprofit shouldn’t look for donors’ email addresses if they want to keep that information private. Otherwise, you’ll send emails to people who haven’t opted in and leave them feeling ambushed. Even worse, you could face legal trouble. Remember to note the details of when and how someone opted into your communications to ensure you don’t violate their privacy.

To approach email appends correctly, your best bet is to work with a trusted and reliable data enhancement partner. As mentioned, we offer data appends specifically for fundraising organizations. When you partner with us, we’ll provide comprehensive, accurate constituent data for your donor engagement needs.

 

Learn more about our data appending services

How to Know Your Email Appending Is Successful

So you’ve completed the email appending process and uploaded the new data into your CRM. Your marketing team goes on as usual, sending the messages they’ve carefully crafted to engage your audience. How do you know that the append was helpful?

Here are a few metrics that may indicate the effectiveness of your append:

  • Open rate: Realistically, your email open rate should increase after an email append, especially if you’ve acquired new email addresses that weren’t previously on your list. This means that more people are receiving and opening your emails, perhaps because they’ve never received one before due to incorrect or missing contact information.
  • Bounce rate: If your bounce rate decreases after an email append, you’re on the right track! This means that more emails were successfully delivered to recipients’ inboxes, likely because your message ended up in the right place this time.
  • Unsubscribe rate: Unfortunately, your nonprofit will likely always receive a number of requests asking to opt out of email communications. However, this data is helpful for understanding which donors simply didn’t receive your email communications and which ones aren’t interested in them. This way, you can focus your emails on those who like receiving them and more closely personalize your communications based on donors’ preferences.

With these data-driven insights, your nonprofit can tailor its outreach strategies to engage as much of your audience as possible. Plus, this may help you understand what other types of data your append service provider can help locate.

What Are Email Appending Services?

As we’ve mentioned earlier in this guide, email appending services are the professional providers that match your existing data with missing or inaccurate email addresses. However, appending services can help you locate and verify many other types of data. Let’s take a look at all the essentials of finding the right partner to work with.

Types of Appending Services

Accurate email addresses aren’t the only data points you’ll need to understand your donors and deliver communications successfully. Append services can help your nonprofit identify:

A list of data types that can be appended other than email appends, which are detailed in the following text.

  • Postal addresses: For those donors who prefer non-digital communications, your direct mail campaigns rely on accurate and up-to-date postal addresses. Additionally, this data can help you determine the likelihood of their attendance at an in-person event of volunteer opportunity.
  • Employer information: This is hugely important to your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts because of its impact on match-eligibility. While you may be able to identify a donor’s employer based on their business-affiliated email address, you can’t depend on subtle clues for all your donors. Leverage employer appends to inform potential donors of the impact they could make.
  • Phone numbers: While text messages may not inspire support as effectively as email, mobile devices are all around a powerful tool for raising awareness. In fact, 57% of nonprofit web traffic comes from mobile devices. Ensure you have the right phone numbers for your supporters and make the most of phone-a-thons or text-to-give campaigns.
  • Birthdays: Many donor characteristics are tied to their age groups, but knowing a supporter’s date of birth is valuable for more than just fundraising. Use date of birth appends to create personalized birthday outreach, such as eCards or branded gifts. This helps your nonprofit steward strong relationships with its supporters as each donor feels personally valued by your organization.

When your appended email data works in tandem with the above types of data, your nonprofit gains a holistic view of its supporters. This way, you can develop personalized and meaningful relationships with each of them through focused communication.

For example, you may send a birthday eCard or encouragement to launch a birthday fundraiser to a donor’s email address after appending their contact information and date of birth. Or, you might launch a text marketing campaign that informs donors of matching gift opportunities.

Qualities to Look For In A Data Append Service Provider

It’s clear that an append is highly beneficial to your nonprofit’s outreach efforts and that a data append service provider can help. However, choosing the right provider is the key to making sure this process meets your organization’s needs within its budget.

To start your search, consider looking for the following qualities:

  • Offers various types of appends. Beyond gathering email data, your nonprofit needs holistic donor profiles complete with phone numbers, birthdays, employer information, and other details. A comprehensive view of your supporters enables more detailed segmentation and helps you to learn more about the donors whose contributions fuel your mission. The right data append service provider will not just append email addresses but can append numerous types of data to give your nonprofit a complete look at each of its constituents.
  • Prioritizes accuracy. Whether you’re sending a fundraising appeal or a birthday eCard, sending an email to the wrong person can be detrimental to your nonprofit’s efforts. It could leave recipients confused and cautious, or it might simply land in their spam folders. That’s why accuracy is a must when looking for a data append service provider. The right provider will take a focused and thorough approach to ensure your nonprofit works with accurate and updated information.
  • Accepts entire data files. Rather than working with selective files, effective data append service providers accept complete data files and sort through them to find the information they need. This saves time for your nonprofit, preventing your team from having to reorganize data and highlight only specific fields. Plus, the more information data appending professionals have to work with, the more accurate your results will be.
  • Provides clear quotes. While the cost of the services your nonprofit will need depends on many factors (including your requested services and the anticipated record count), clear and transparent pricing is essential to establish trust and reliability with the service provider you choose. Look for a provider who will break down the cost for you so you know exactly what you’re paying for. Also, keep an eye out for any hidden fees and ask the provider ahead of time if the quoted amount is the final cost.

Above all, make sure the provider you partner with is responsive and efficient. Your donor communications can’t wait! The right provider will understand your need to implement the data they’re collecting and work diligently to deliver it.

Our team provides accurate, comprehensive donor data quickly without sacrificing quality. From email addresses to employment information, we’ll provide all the information you need to cultivate better donor relationships. In no time, you’ll deliver personalized messages directly to supporters inboxes with confidence that your emails will be successfully delivered.

Final Thoughts on Email Appends

Donor communications are at the core of your nonprofit’s efforts to raise awareness for its cause. However, the first step in reaching the right people with the right message is to have accurate contact information.

Email appends empower your nonprofit to not just reach out to existing and potential supporters but deeply engage them by using what you know about them to focus your communications. As a result, your team will be equipped to target specific audiences with carefully tailored messages, leaving every recipient feeling like you’re speaking directly to them.

For more information about nonprofit data and how you can use it to enhance your outreach, check out the following resources:

Transform your fundraising efforts with complete and accurate supporter data. Get started with our data enhancement services!

/by