It’s been 16 months since we announced The Agitator Data Liberation Crusade  — a quest to make available fundamental data that’s of daily use to fundraisers free of charge or as near-free as possible.

Our rationale for this Crusade aimed at benefitting both small and large nonprofits is explained in our post Fundraising Data and the Cost of Embalming an Elephant.

I’m delighted to report that our colleagues over at our sister company, TrueGivers, have answered the challenge with a series of engineering and design initiatives that are now ready for prime time.

Today we’re releasing the first in this series of near-free data tools.

It’s  called TrueNCOA — an on-demand, easy-to-use address correction system that will process as many records as you wish for just $20.  

TrueNCOA was created to empower nonprofits of all shapes and sizes in the U.S. to reap the benefits of NCOA services. Most organizations spend far too much for address correction services. With no hidden fees, no record minimums, and no record maximums, TrueNCOA is an all-you-can-eat approach system that will process any file for $20.

U.S. Agitator readers can sign up for free at TrueNCOA.com, where you can find out all the details about putting TrueNCOA to work for your organization. Their website also has helpful links, like their frequently asked questions section, and technical info right on the site.

In the weeks ahead, our Data Liberation Crusade will also be featuring additional low and no cost tools from TrueGivers designed in an easy-to-use fashion for U.S. organizations:

• Wealth screening;
• Relationship mapping;
• Predictive scoring for major and planned giving;

Plus

• On-line, real-time identification of an individual’s giving to other organizations.

All of these have been designed with the goal of being the ‘best-in-breed’ at the lowest cost and more useful than anything else out there. I’ll keep you posted as they’re released. Now back to TrueNCOA.

Retention Depends on Staying in Touch With Donors

As I emphasized in my book Retention Fundraising: the New Art and Science of Keeping Your Donors for Life, among the easiest of what I call “easy retention wins” is keeping your donors’ addresses up to date.

Afterall, if you can’t communicate with ‘em you’re unlikely to hold on to them.

It’s sad but true that, on average, 10% of all U.S. nonprofit mail appeals won’t even be delivered.

That’s because nearly 45 million Americans move each year, and for many their mail is undeliverable because of incorrect addresses.

The result for nonprofits? Wasted money. Lost revenue. Lost donors.

This is senseless waste. And it’s one reason why TrueGivers™ has joined The Agitator Data Liberation Crusade to do something about it.

Here’s how the folks at TrueNCOA we will help the organizations of Agitator readers :

• In minutes and and for only $20 — they’ll make sure your donor or constituent list is up-to-date and optimized for maximum deliverability.

There are absolutely no strings attached. Period. They clean up your data and send it back to you ready to use. It’s that simple.

Specifically, here are the services they’ll provide:

• Match your list against the National Change Of Address dataset of approximately 160 million records  and update your records. As a full-service provider, TrueNCOA looks at change-of-address records filed with the Postal Service over the past 48 months. (Many providers only cover the past 18 months.)

• Address Verification/CASS Processing. To assure the highest degree of deliverability they’ll then validate and standardize your address data with their CASS processing service that matches addresses in your list to the monthly update on the Postal Service’s National Address file, then standardizes address information and adds the correct Zip+4 and postal codes.

• Eliminate Duplicates. The average database has up to 10% duplicate records. By eliminating dupes you reduce unnecessary, printing and postage costs.

To get started just go online to TrueNCOA. If you have any questions or need any help they have the most friendly and helpful data specialists around. Contact them by email at  support@truegivers.com or call and talk with a living, friendly human at 855-878-3448

Welcome to the first phase of the Agitator Data Liberation Crusade.

Roger

P.S. As long as you’re a nonprofit there is no limit to the number of records you can process for $20. Files under 10,000 records can process in as little time as 5 minutes with no strings attached.

To get started just contact TrueNCOA.