Year End Housekeeping Training Webinar

Every database needs regular cleaning before a big year-end appeal. Bad addresses, duplicates, and donors who haven’t given in years waste postage and printing, and asking someone who just gave for another gift can hurt the relationship. This webinar walks through a practical audit of your DonorSnap database so your end-of-year mailings and emails reach the right people.

In this webinar we cover:

• Counting your active and inactive contacts in Community Contacts
• Requesting a free NCOA address cleaning from DonorSnap support
• Finding duplicates with the Duplicates Report and merging them with Merge Contact
• Searching for missing last names, addresses, and email addresses with the “is empty” filter
• Setting a policy for inactivating deceased and lapsed contacts
• Building a lapsed donor report in DataMiner Platinum
• Mass-inactivating contacts with the Excel Import tool

For a step-by-step guide to mass updates, see Update Contact Information with the Excel Import Tool.

Quick recap

Year-end appeals are the busiest mailing season for most nonprofits, so cleaning the database first keeps postage, labels, and effort from going to bad addresses, duplicates, deceased contacts, or donors who just gave. The trainer started by checking the total contact count in Community Contacts, then recommended one step above all others: email [email protected] to request an NCOA cleaning, which updates moved addresses, standardizes abbreviations, and adds ZIP+4. Next she covered finding duplicates under Reports > Administrative Reports > Duplicates Report and merging them one at a time under Maintenance > Merge Contact. She showed how the “is empty” filter reveals contacts missing addresses or emails, and suggested a policy of inactivating donors after three years without a gift. Finally, she built a lapsed donor report in DataMiner Platinum and mass-inactivated those contacts with the Excel Import tool.

Summary

Checking Your Contact Count
Go to Community Contacts and change the Status filter on the left from Active to All to see your total record count. Both active and inactive contacts count toward your DonorSnap subscription tier. Knowing the totals, and how many records have addresses or emails, helps you decide between a physical mailing and an email appeal.

Community > Contacts vs. Your Mailing List
Community Contacts is where you find, review, and fix individual records. It is not your mailing list. When you’re ready to pull the actual appeal list, build it under the Reports menu in DataMiner Platinum.

Requesting an NCOA Address Cleaning
Email [email protected], or use Help > Contact Support, and ask to have your database sent through the NCOA. Support runs the cleaning, which flags people who have moved, corrects address abbreviations, and adds ZIP+4 digits. They’ll then send a help page explaining any follow-up review. The trainer called this the one step to take even if you do nothing else.

Finding and Merging Duplicates
Run Reports > Administrative Reports > Duplicates Report; the trainer recommends the Duplicate Names and Duplicate Addresses options (address matches often surface spouses). You can’t merge from the report, so download it and work through it under Maintenance > Merge Contact, one pair at a time. Administrator access is required. Choose an old and new record, and activity like donations and volunteer hours moves to the new record.

Choosing Fields During a Merge
The merge screen compares every field that differs and lets you keep only one value per field. If both records have different email addresses, write down the one you’re discarding and add it to an additional email field on the contact afterward.

Searching for Missing Data with “Is Empty”
Click the filter lines next to any column search in Community > Contacts and choose “is empty” to find contacts missing that field, such as last name, company, city, or email. Each search checks only that one field (Email 1, not Email 2). To search a field that isn’t in your grid, add it under your name (top right) > User Settings by dragging it into the grid fields, then save.

Setting an Inactivation Policy
All contacts are active until you uncheck the Active box on the contact record. Decide when that happens: deceased contacts, certainly, and possibly donors who haven’t given in a set time. The trainer’s common policy is to inactivate after 3 years without a gift and, after 7 years, export the record to Excel and remove it from DonorSnap. Inactive contacts aren’t automatically excluded from reports, so filter them out yourself.

Building a Lapsed Donor Report in DataMiner Platinum
Add a new batch, title it, then work through the tabs. Choose Active contacts only, pull fields like name, company, email, DonationDateLast, and DonationAmountLast, and add a query where DonationDateLast is less than or equal to your cutoff date. Review the data, then export to Excel so your board or key volunteers can flag anyone worth one more ask.

Mass-Inactivating Contacts with Excel Import
For more than a handful of records, export a DataMiner Platinum report containing the ContactIPK and Active fields, change Active to “No” in Excel, and save. Then go to Maintenance > Excel Import, load the file, choose to update existing contacts, map the Active column, validate, and load. Imports can be undone from the Loaded Data Listing tab.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get my donor addresses updated before a year-end mailing? Email [email protected] and ask them to send your database through an NCOA cleaning. Support handles the process, updating moved addresses, standardizing abbreviations, and adding ZIP+4, then sends instructions for reviewing the results.

Can DonorSnap merge my duplicate contacts automatically? No. Only you know whether two records are really the same person and which details to keep. Use the Duplicates Report to find them, then merge each pair yourself under Maintenance > Merge Contact.

Which Duplicates Report options should I run? The trainer recommends Duplicate Names and Duplicate Addresses. You can run all six options, but they overlap. Duplicate Addresses often finds spouses, so check whether they should be merged or kept as separate donors.

Can I keep both email addresses when merging two contacts? No. The merge tool keeps only one value per field. Note the email you’re discarding and add it to an additional email field on the merged contact afterward.

Does searching for an empty email check all email fields? No. Each “is empty” search checks only that single field, such as Email 1. To check Email 2, add it to your grid under User Settings and run a separate search.

Do inactive contacts still count toward my DonorSnap subscription? Yes. Inactive contacts stay in your database and count toward your contact total.

Are inactive contacts excluded from reports and mailing labels automatically? No. Inactive contacts can still appear on reports, mailing labels, and emails. Remember to filter to active contacts only when you build your mailing list.

How do I inactivate a large number of lapsed donors at once? Export a DataMiner Platinum report with the ContactIPK and Active fields, change Active to “No” in Excel, then reimport the file under Maintenance > Excel Import as an update to existing contacts.

What if I make a mistake with an Excel Import? You can undo it. The Loaded Data Listing tab at the end of the Excel Import tool lists your recent imports and lets you reverse one.

Related Pages:

Year End Campaigns Training Webinar
Merging Contacts
Administrative Reports (Duplicates Report and Master List Report)
Excel Import Tool
Update Contact Information with the Excel Import Tool
NCOA Service