Database 101

Now that you've made it through the holidays and have a moment to take a breath, it's a good time to do some nonprofit housekeeping to prepare for your 2010 fundraising and program planning. And the key to all your efforts is your database.

Ask yourself: can you use your database to do these essential functions?

Provide basic demographic and organizational information:

• Quickly find mailing addresses, 9-digit zip codes, email address, phone numbers (including cell phones), and appropriate salutations for all of your clients, donors, and volunteers
• Tell what age people are, and whether they have children (and if so, how old)
• Track program participation and ticket purchases by year and specific event/program area
• Identify folks who do not want their names/addresses exchanged or shared
• Look up all past board members, find out when they served, and on which committees

Let you know about your donors and donations:

• See and date every donation made over at least the past ten years
• Track specific interests of individual donors i.e. specific program interests, community affiliations, level of involvement in your organization
• Look up donors who have given to special appeals and/or like to give for specific programs or purposes (such as scholarships)
• Find out who has been the contact person/solicitor for each donor
• Differentiate between donations of cash, stocks, materials, and volunteer time
• See which fundraising events your donors have attended
• Provide detailed information about donors who have committed to multi-year donations, monthly contributions, and/or planned gifts
• Find lapsed donors
• Identify which donors want to remain anonymous and/or prefer not to receive phone solicitations
• Track all foundation, corporation, and government donations over the history of your organization including contact person's name and phone number

Document the work of your volunteers:

• Track the number of volunteer hours by month and year
• Find volunteers who like to help out with specific tasks and/or events
• Look up volunteers with specific skills i.e. carpentry, hauling, fundraising, finance, etc.
  
• Identify the volunteers who have given the most hours per year

Create and print reports, letters and labels including:

• Customized solicitation and thank you letters
• Donor lists by fiscal year, amount given, and zip code
• Reports tracking in-kind donations
• Volunteer lists by year, month, and task
• Mailing labels and name tags for specific purposes.

This may sound like a daunting task (and may require a re-evaluation of your chosen software), but the work you do now to put your database in order will benefit your organization for years to come.