Email marketing is an extremely cost-effective way to reach out to your supporters. Compared to other types of marketing, email campaigns don’t require any physical materials or the same level of staff time. Not to mention, they also offer a higher response rate than other marketing methods such as direct mail or phone calls.

Therefore, email marketing is an effective communication channel for getting in touch with your supporters and sending them valuable information.

However, the email addresses in your supporter database may not be accurate or may be missing entirely for some supporters. With email appends, you can stay on top of your email address data and have more time to focus on your campaigns’ content.

We’re here to answer your questions about email appends, so you can successfully deliver more emails and ultimately boost your marketing ROI. To cover all of the essential topics, we’ve compiled a list of the most frequently asked email append questions, including:

• What Is an Email Append?
• Why Does My Organization Need Email Appends?
• How Will My Nonprofit Benefit from Email Appends?
• How Can My Organization Obtain Email Appends?
• Are There Other Types of Data Appends Beyond Email Appends?
• How Can Different Nonprofits Leverage Email Appends?
• What Qualities Should a Good Email Append Service Possess?

At Double the Donation, we help connect nonprofits with matching gift opportunities. Email is one of our primary forms of communication with our clients and their match-eligible donors, so we understand how important it is to have the correct email addresses for each of your contacts. That’s why we’ve written this guide to email appends. Our goal is to make sure your nonprofit can leverage this useful data for easier communication with your supporters.

Since we have a lot to cover in this guide, let’s should get started!

What Is an Email Append?

An email append occurs when an organization submits information from its supporter database to an email append service and receives updated supporter email addresses in return.

To help correctly locate email addresses, some of the identifying information the nonprofit might share with the data appends provider can include full names, postal addresses, past email addresses, and other details they have on file. The provider will then match the information against their database to obtain the most recent contact information. Since it’s easy for email addresses to become outdated, email appends are extremely helpful in making sure you can stay in touch with your supporters.

Why Does My Organization Need Email Appends?

It’s very common for email addresses in your supporter database to be incorrect. Think about how many times you’ve changed an email address, abandoned one, or gotten a new one. Here are some examples of situations that could cause email addresses to be incorrect or become outdated:

• Typos
• People using fake email addresses when signing up for your email list
• People moving
• Changing jobs or graduating
• Switching to a different email address
• Abandoning email addresses or forgetting passwords
• Passing away
• Missing email addresses from some supporters entirely

With this lengthy list in mind, it’s clear to see how it’s incredibly likely that your supporter database includes invalid email addresses, which can make your communication with your supporters less effective.

How Will My Nonprofit Benefit from Email Appends?

As we previously discussed, you may have missing or inaccurate information regarding your supporters’ email addresses. Email appends will help fill in the gaps so you can communicate with as many of your supporters as possible.

When you have a strong collection of supporter email addresses, opportunities open up for how you can communicate and share information with them. Check out these six areas that will improve by using email appends:

• Newsletters. Your organization likely already sends out email newsletters to your supporters. However, using email appends will allow you to expand your newsletter audience.
• Online donations. When you have the right email addresses for your supporters, it’ll be easier to increase conversions for donation requests.
• Survey feedback. Since more people will receive your surveys, you’ll be able to get more feedback and apply it to your organization.
• Relationships with supporters. It’s possible that you could lose your relationships with some of your biggest donors and supporters due to outdated email address data. Retain the bonds you’ve created with your supporters by keeping accurate contact information for them.
• Time saved. Think about how long it would take people on your team to manually search for the matching email addresses for every supporter in your database. Save time that could be reallocated for better purposes by using email appends.
• Matching gifts. Equipped with email appends, your organization can easily follow up with donors about matching gift opportunities. If a donor shares their business email with your organization, then your nonprofit can easily determine whether their employer has a matching gift program.

How Email Appends Will Impact Your Marketing Performance

In addition to the ones listed above, there are so many other benefits that email appends provide, specifically for the quality of your email communications. Some of the most impactful benefits you can expect on your marketing performance include:

• Improved email deliverability. Sometimes, emails won’t go through for various reasons. They might bounce back and send you a notification, but it’s difficult to address the reason each email didn’t go through individually. Email appends will improve your email deliverability by providing you with the most current email addresses for your supporters.
• Increased open rates. The more emails that go out to the correct email addresses, the more people will open them. Make sure your email campaigns don’t go to waste by sending them to the wrong email addresses.
• Protection against spam traps. Spam traps are email addresses used to catch senders sending spam emails. Some organizations will repurpose outdated email addresses to create spam traps. If your organization falls for a spam trap, it can have serious repercussions for your email deliverability, bounce rates, and overall sender reputation. Cleaning your supporter database periodically will help to prevent spam traps.

Email appends can help you with your marketing efforts and overall data hygiene. To add the updated contact information to your supporter database, you’ll need to work with an email append service for help with the process.

How Can My Organization Obtain Email Appends?

If your organization is interested in email appends, you’ll need some help getting the necessary data. That’s where an email append service comes in.

Hiring an email append service simplifies the email append process. It will be your job to give them access to the relevant identifying donor data from your supporter database. In return, they’ll send you the email appends they find.

Here’s a list of different information types you can send an email append service to utilize as they search for your supporters’ current email addresses:

• Unique ID number
• Name
• Region
• Past email addresses
• College or university
• Class year and major/degree
• Last gift amount
• Date of last donation
• Date entry was last updated

Email append service providers will know that you probably don’t have all of this information on hand, and that’s okay. Just give them as much as you have to make their job easier.

Using the data you provide them, your email append service provider will find your email appends in different online databases. To ensure that they’re accurate, most providers will perform some sort of accuracy check or scan before sending them back to your organization.

Are There Other Types of Data Appends Beyond Email Appends?

Email appends aren’t the only data append type out there. If you’re missing other data from your supporters, chances are there are appends available to help acquire that information.

Here are some kinds of data appends that data append services typically offer:

• Employer. Finding out your supporters’ employers can help you to identify matching gift opportunities. People may be more likely to donate to your cause if they know their employer will match their donation. With employer appends, you can inform potential donors of the expanded impact their donation could have.
• Postal address. Improve your direct mail campaigns with address appends. Request donations, send important updates, or thank your donors with a letter for a personal touch.
• Phone number. Contacting people by phone is a highly effective outreach strategy. Use phone number appends to host a successful phone-a-thon or text-to-give campaign.
• Date of birth. Knowing your supporters’ birthdates can help you create customized campaigns based on age. Date of birth appends also provide the opportunity to send your supporters birthday gifts or perks.

Combining your appended email addresses with other data appends can create even more value for your nonprofit. For example, you can use date of birth appends to segment your supporters by age. Then, you can leverage your email appends to send personalized newsletters to each age group with relevant organization updates and opportunities.

To knock out all your data appends at once, it’s best to find a data append service that will provide all the data append types you need. That way, they can extract all the information and import it into your CRM all at once.

How Can Different Nonprofits Leverage Email Appends?

Organizations of all kinds communicate with their supporters via email. Therefore, there’s a high chance your nonprofit could benefit from email appends by emulating the ways other organizations leverage them.

If you’re not sure how your organization could best leverage email appends, we have a couple of examples of how different nonprofits use them to assist them in their communication with their supporters.

Bear in mind that to leverage email appends to their fullest potential, you’ll need to contact an email append service provider and chat about your nonprofit’s unique needs.

To start, use these examples for inspiration:

Environmental Nonprofits

It’s important that your organization’s operations align with your nonprofit’s values. That’s why environmental nonprofits choose to communicate in ways that are better for the environment. Direct mail can waste paper that can be saved by communicating through email instead.

Email appends ensure that these organizations can stay true to their missions while still fostering effective communication with their supporters.

Schools

Schools and universities rely on their alumni for donations, volunteers, and feedback. However, once people graduate, they typically abandon their university email accounts. Additionally, young alumni may start new jobs or enroll in graduate school, acquiring new email addresses as they go.

With the help of email appends, schools and universities can make sure they continue their relationships with alumni wherever they go after graduation.

Associations

It can be difficult to reach association members through direct mail, especially if they’re spread out around the globe. Staying in contact with members through email is important because it reminds them of the perks of their membership and updates them about upcoming events and initiatives.

Cultural Institutions

Cultural institutions such as museums, zoos, and aquariums are nothing without their members and visitors. They depend on membership fees and ticket revenue to stay running. Therefore, it’s necessary to keep supporters engaged through email to encourage them to come back and check out new events and exhibits.

Political Organizations

Informing people about important issues can be difficult over the phone and through text messages. Emails from political organizations allow people to digest the information on their own time and refer back to it when it’s time to vote.

All Nonprofits

Any nonprofit can use email appends to identify matching gift opportunities. With business email appends, your organization can easily identify your supporters’ employers and research their matching gift programs. If you already know your supporters’ employers, you can leverage email appends to reach out to potential donors and inform them of their employers’ matching gift programs to encourage them to donate.

What Qualities Should a Good Email Append Service Possess?

There are lots of email append services out there, so what makes one right for your organization? If you’ve never used an email append service before, it can be difficult to know what to look for and which claims are actually important.

Here’s a list of qualities that every reliable email append service should possess:

• Verifies your email appends for accuracy. There can be some uncertainty surrounding whether email appends are actually accurate or not. Ensure that your email append service has the necessary measures in place to check for correctness.
• Offers other kinds of appends. It’s way easier to use one data append service for all of your data append needs than to hire an individual service for each one. Think about which types of data you’re looking for and find a service that supplies all of them.
• Accepts entire data files. Effective email append services will allow you to send complete data files from your supporter database and pick out the information they need. That way, you don’t have to spend time selecting certain columns or clearing out unnecessary information.
• Gets back to you quickly. Once you decide to append email addresses, you’ll probably start planning how you’ll want to implement them fairly quickly. Find an email append service that can return accurate results efficiently so you can use your new data right away.
• Provides quotes. It’s extremely helpful to know ahead of time how much a service will cost your nonprofit. Some email append services will take a look at your data needs ahead of time and offer you a quote for their assistance.

When you’re looking for your email append service, keep these qualities in mind to find the best service for your organization. NPOInfo by Double the Donation possesses all of the qualities we’ve mentioned above. They’ll be happy to assist you with email address appending!

Conclusion

Considering how widespread email newsletters, updates, and general communications are for nonprofits, it makes sense that any organization would benefit from email appends.

At their core, email appends ensure that you’re reaching your intended audience and retaining relationships with your supporters. Additionally, they’ll provide more information about your supporters, which is always helpful for guiding your decisions as an organization.

Now that you know all about email appends, you might want to learn more about other types of data appends that could benefit your organization. Check out these data append resources below:

• Phone Appends: A Nonprofit’s Data Enrichment Guide. Does your organization reach out to supporters over the phone or through text messages? Phone appends could be a useful tool for your nonprofit.
• Power Up Your Fundraising Campaign With Employer Appends. Employer appends can help you identify matching gift opportunities for your supporters. Learn more about them with this helpful article.
• What Is an Address Append? Ultimate Guide for Nonprofits. If you’re looking to improve your direct mail campaigns, you’ve come to the right place. Here’s a guide to address appends.

These days, people are glued to their phones, and most would probably consider either texting or calling as their primary form of communication with others. Therefore, making sure the phone numbers you have for your supporters are up to date is essential for smooth and effective communication with them.

Even if you know how important it is to have phone numbers for your supporters, you may not know how to go about gathering that information. Of course, you could periodically ask your supporters if they’ve gotten a new phone number. However, phone number appending is a much simpler way to collect phone numbers without bothering your supporters.

Phone number appending ensures that you have accurate phone numbers so that you can effectively reach out to your supporters and keep them engaged with your organization. Whether you’re updating contact information or missing phone numbers from several individuals, phone appends can help you round out your supporter data without your supporters having to lift a finger.

Before seriously considering this type of service, you might have some questions about the phone number appending process. Here are some questions we’ll go over in this article:

• What is Phone Number Appending?
• What Advantages Does Phone Number Appending Provide?
• What Does the Phone Number Appending Process Look Like?
• Can I Get Other Kinds of Data Appends?
• What Are Some Examples of How Nonprofits Actually Use Phone Appends?
• Are There Guidelines for Selecting a Phone Append Service?

At Double the Donation, our main focus is educating nonprofits about matching gift opportunities and software. Matching gift software makes the process of acquiring matching gifts easier, just as phone appends make gathering current contact information for your supporters more efficient. We’re happy to help nonprofits find ways to get the resources they need that will make their operations run smoother. That way, they can save time and reallocate it where it’s really needed.

Click on the questions you’re wondering about to learn more or keep scrolling to answer them all!

What is Phone Number Appending?

Phone number appending is the process of inputting supporter data into phone append software and receiving missing and updated phone numbers back.

When leveraging a data append provider, you’ll simply provide them with identifying information for each supporter. Then, they’ll use that information to correctly identify them within their comprehensive database of phone numbers. That way, you can contact your supporters using the correct information. Doing so will ensure that you’re reaching your target audience.

What Advantages Does Phone Number Appending Provide?

Your organization likely already has phone numbers for some or all of your supporters. However, people change their phone numbers all the time, so the ones you have may no longer be accurate.

Phone number appending provides several general benefits for your organization, such as:

• Updated contact information. Having the most current contact information for your supporters not only ensures that you can reach them but also that you can continue building relationships with them. Plus, you can do so without ever having to ask them to update their information.
• Less time wasted on unviable numbers. Even if your organization has phone numbers for all of your supporters, chances are some of them are outdated. Calling or texting old or incorrect phone numbers wastes your time and energy that could be used to contact the people who will lend you their support.
• Well-rounded supporter database. With any type of data, the more you have of it, the more robust and well-informed decisions you can make. Phone appends are no different. Having correct phone numbers for your supporters can help you to focus on the content of your campaigns rather than the method of communication.

In addition to these general advantages of phone appending, there are certain types of fundraising and outreach that your organization can leverage or improve with updated supporter phone number data.

Specific Use Cases for Phone Number Appends

Of course, the top advantage of phone number appending is being able to actually reach your supporters, but what does that look like in different scenarios? Here are three different areas where phone number appending is particularly useful:

• Phone banking. Calling people up and asking them to donate to your cause can be a more personal way of gathering funds. Take advantage of this fundraising method by using the most current phone numbers for your donors.
• Text messaging. While calling is a great way to reach people, texting can elicit even quicker responses and opens up the opportunity for text-to-give. With cell phone appends, you can reach your supporters and receive donations even faster than before.
• Phonathons. Schools and universities in particular love to fundraise by having current students call alumni and request donations. To reach your fundraising goals and avoid any mixups, you’ll want to make sure your students have accurate contact information for the people they’re calling.

If we’ve convinced you how important phone appends are, you might want to jump right into the process. Lucky for you, we’ll walk you through it step by step.

What Does the Phone Number Appending Process Look Like?

Hiring a reliable phone append service provider makes phone number appending a breeze. All you have to do is supply them with the supporter information you do have so they can give you the phone numbers you need.

Examples of information you can provide to a phone append provider include:

• A unique ID number
• Full name
• Region and postal address
• Email address
• Education information such as school, year, and major
• Last donation amount and date
• Date entry was last updated

You don’t need to have all of this information to go through the phone number appending process. However, the more data you give to your phone append provider, the easier it will be for them to find accurate data.

Once your phone append service provider has your supporters’ information, they can use it to find recent numbers for your constituents. In most cases, they’ll obtain the numbers from a variety of data sources online.

To help you determine how accurate the phone appends they’ve found are, some phone append providers will run the numbers through software that checks for accuracy and may even conduct manual checks. They will then rate the accuracy of each append so you know how much you can trust each one.

Lastly, your phone append service will send you the complete phone appends. From here, update your nonprofit’s CRM with the new and missing phone numbers for your supporters.

Can I Get Other Kinds of Data Appends?

Yes! There are plenty of other kinds of data appends, and most phone append services will offer them in addition to phone appends. If your nonprofit needs other data appends, check which ones your phone append service provides. Since they’ll likely pull the data all at once, they’ll probably them back to you at the same time as your phone appends.

Our quick guide to nonprofit data appends explains that there are several common types of data appends you can leverage, including:

• Employer appends
• Email appends
• Address appends
• Date of birth appends

While employer appends can help you identify matching gift opportunities, email, postal address, and date of birth appends can improve your communication with supporters. Ultimately, strengthening your database with this information will allow you to cultivate stronger relationships and push your work forward altogether.

What Are Some Examples of How Nonprofits Actually Use Phone Appends?

If you’re still unclear about whether your nonprofit could benefit from phone appends, it might help to hear some real examples of how organizations have used them in the past. That way, you can compare these organizations’ situations to your own to figure out if you should move forward with the phone number appending process.

Here are some organization types that use phone appends and what they use them for:

Universities

We mentioned before how phonathons are a great way to connect with alumni and potentially receive donations from them. Besides phonathons, universities can also use phone appends to update alumni about current campus initiatives and invite them to alumni-specific events.

Political Organizations

Especially in the midst of election seasons, it’s important to communicate your most important issues to voters and how your organization aims to solve them. However, these issues can be too complicated to spell out in a text or email. Contacting constituents over the phone presents the opportunity for you to actually converse with them about important topics and answer any questions they may have.

Advocacy Groups

If any of your supporters are young adults, you’ll want to contact them in their preferred style of communication: texting. With phone appends, advocacy groups can share information about their causes with younger supporters using SMS outreach. That way, they can be sure that they’re reaching out to their supporters in ways that work best for them.

Public Broadcasting Services

Does your organization run pledge drives on the radio or TV? Chances are, it’d be helpful to feature testimonies from real supporters. By calling previous donors and asking them to give a statement about their involvement with your nonprofit, you can encourage new donors to donate and one-time donors to convert into recurring donors.

Takeaway: Phone appends provide all sorts of benefits depending on your organization’s needs. If you’re unsure how it might play into your team’s strategies, feel free to ask your service provider about how they’ve seen other organizations leverage them. With that in mind, it’s time to find a phone append service that will provide you with accurate results.

Are There Guidelines for Selecting a Phone Append Service?

There are a couple of things to keep in mind when choosing a phone append service. After all, picking the right one could make the process quick and easy whereas selecting one that does not fit your organization’s needs or standards could be a waste of your time.

There are some guidelines for picking the phone append service provider that’s right for your nonprofit. For example, you’ll want to find a phone append provider that:

• Checks your current phone numbers. Receiving missing phone numbers is helpful, but what about the incorrect or outdated ones hiding in your supporter database? A good phone append service will check the phone numbers you currently have and update any that are no longer viable.
• Offers other types of appends. If you need multiple kinds of data appends, it’s best to get them all from the same service provider. This cuts down on costs and time needed to receive your data. To make the process easier, look for a phone append service that offers other types of appends in addition to phone appends, such as postal address and employer appends.
• Provides landline and cell phone numbers. These days, most people communicate using their cell phone numbers, but some may prefer their landlines. It’s important to find a phone append service provider that can find all relevant phone numbers no matter what type.
• Checks for accuracy. The whole point of phone appends is that they will prevent you from calling the wrong numbers and wasting your time. Make sure that’s the case by selecting a phone append service that has checks in place for accuracy.
• Finds phone appends for individuals and businesses. Perhaps your organization has some businesses they need to update contact information for in addition to individuals. A good phone append service will be able to find appends for both individuals and businesses.
• Works quickly. You probably won’t want to wait long to incorporate your phone appends into your CRM and start putting them to use. See if your phone append service can provide an estimate of how quickly they’ll be able to return your phone appends.
• Gives nonprofits quotes. It’s likely your organization has a budget for how much they’re willing to spend on phone appends. Get an idea of how much a phone append service will cost you with a quote.

Think about which of these guidelines are most important to your organization and prioritize them when you conduct your phone append service search. It’s even possible to find a phone append provider that has it all. For example, NPOInfo by Double the Donation offers everything we’ve listed above.

Wrapping Up

Communication with your donors and volunteers is what ensures lasting relationships and support. To make sure you can effectively reach out to your supporters through texts or phone calls, reach out to a phone append service and learn more about how they could help you find the phone numbers you need.

Once you have your phone appends, you might be looking for more tips that will help you keep donors and volunteers around. Check out these resources for advice on how to retain your supporters and put your phone appends to good use:

• Improving the Donor Journey with Matching Gifts. Knowing that their employer will match their donations to your cause can get donors excited about the expanded impact they can have on your organization. Make sure to use your phone appends to inform your donors of any matching gift opportunities available to them.
• Donor Thank-You Letters: What You Need to Say. Showing donors how much you appreciate them is an important part of your relationships with your supporters. Sending a simple thank-you text message or making a thank-you call can show how much you care.
• Volunteer Engagement | Strategies for Smart Organizations. The best way to keep volunteers around is to make sure they’re engaged and excited about helping your organization. This article will provide you with some tips for retaining volunteers. You’re already off to a great start with phone appends because they’ll allow you to stay in touch with your volunteers.

As a nonprofit professional, you know that reaching out to your supporters is an essential part of your fundraising and marketing strategy. You’ve built relationships with these people, and in order to strengthen them, you must stay in touch using effective communication. However, you might not have all of the correct contact information that will allow you to connect with your supporters. That’s where address appends come into play.

Donors, volunteers, and board members among other supporters have probably provided you with information such as their email addresses or phone numbers on registration or lead forms. Other information such as mailing addresses may be more difficult to obtain, especially if you don’t want to ask people outright for their addresses.

An address append will allow you to take existing supporter data to verify someone’s identity and fill in the missing postal address information. Instead of directly asking your supporters for their addresses, you can work with an address append service to efficiently obtain that information and keep your direct mailing efforts alive.

Now you know that address appends could be useful to your organization, but what exactly are they? We will answer the following questions to help you better understand the basics of an address append:

• What Is an Address Append?
• Why Are Address Appends Useful?
• How Do Address Appends Work?
• What If I’m Missing Other Information?
• How Can My Nonprofit Use Address Appends?
• How Do I Choose the Right Address Append Service Provider?

At Double the Donation, we make matching gifts easy for nonprofits. We know the importance of efficiency and easy access to the data you need to grow your organization. That’s why we’re providing you this guide to address appends to make sure your nonprofit has the information it needs to reach its supporters.

With that, let’s dive into address appends and how they could help out your nonprofit!

What Is An Address Append?

An address append when you use an online database or service to find the correct, most recent mailing address for someone based on other information about them such as their name, phone number, or email address.

With address appends, you can send direct mail to individuals without having to ask them for their mailing address. You can also use these services to verify that the past postal address you have for someone is still accurate. Therefore, address appends make it easier for nonprofits to communicate with their supporters without having to scour the Internet for the necessary information.

Explore the fundamentals of nonprofit appends in our data appending quick guide.

Why Are Address Appends Useful?

You might be wondering why address appends are important, especially if most of your marketing occurs online. However, direct mail is still an effective marketing method that your organization should leverage.

With the help of address appends, your organization could put together a stellar direct mail campaign. Additionally, address appends are useful because they can help you do the following:

• Change up your marketing methods. These days, many nonprofits solely focus on digital marketing. While digital marketing is certainly a great way to reach people, don’t forget the old-school methods of communication! Adding direct mail to your mix of marketing efforts will allow you to reach supporters in a different and perhaps more engaging way.
• Keep direct mail alive for a personal touch. Getting a physical letter in the mail is always more personal than an email or social media message sent with the click of a button. Your supporters will recognize the thought that went into sending them real mail.
• Segment your marketing campaigns. When you have a full picture of who your supporters are, you can communicate with them more effectively. Knowing more about the location of your supporters can help you customize the mail you send to them based on their location. For example, if you’re hosting an event in Atlanta, GA, you’ll likely only want to send mail about the event to nearby supporters who may be able to attend.
• Update supporter contact information. It’s possible that you already have mailing addresses for some of your supporters. Luckily, address appends also account for address changes to ensure all of your supporter contact information is up to date.
• Reduce the time you spend researching supporter data. Think about how time-consuming it would be to manually search public records and other information sources to pluck out the addresses you’re looking for. Address append services save you time that you can allocate to more important projects and tasks.
• Maximize your target audience. The more correct mailing addresses you have on file, the more people you can send mail to who could actually contribute to the cause or event you’re informing them about. Sending direct mail to people is important, but sending it to the right people is even more vital.
• Save money you could be wasting by sending mail to the wrong addresses. Not only is it a waste of time and energy to send mail to incorrect addresses, but it’s also a huge waste of your nonprofit’s marketing budget! Direct mail campaigns are naturally more expensive than digital marketing campaigns, but the investment can be worth it if you’re sending mail to people you know will give back to your organization.

Clearly, address append data can help you learn more about your supporters and in turn run a successful direct mail campaign. However, you’re probably curious about how address append services obtain the information you need. Let’s take a closer look at the process so you can experience all the great benefits of postal address appending.

How Do Address Appends Work?

As we’ve mentioned previously, an address append service can make the process extremely easy for nonprofits. Before reaching out to a provider, you’ll want to make sure you understand how the process works, so you’re fully prepared.

The way address appends work is that you first provide an address append service with the existing supporter information in your CRM. It works best if you give them as much information as possible, which could include:

• A unique identification number
• Name
• Region
• Email address
• Phone number
• College or university
• Class year and major/degree
• Employer
• Last donation amount
• Date of last donation
• Date entry was last updated

After receiving your supporters’ information, an address append service provider will match that information with the data they have in their own database or find in public records.

While the process is pretty straightforward, you may be wondering how these address append services know that the information they’re providing you is correct. The answer is that they typically ensure the information is accurate before they send it to you by performing different types of accuracy scans and checks. Some may even provide an accuracy rating so you have an idea of how accurate the data you’re receiving is.

What If I’m Missing Other Information?

You might just be missing mailing addresses from your supporters, but you could also be missing other information. Not to worry, though! Most address append services also supply nonprofits with other types of appends, including:

• Employer appends. Employer appends are great for locating corporate giving opportunities.
• Email appends. With email appends, you can improve your email marketing campaigns.
• Phone number appends. Text or call your supporters with phone number appends.
• Date of birth appends. Date of birth appends allow you to segment your supporters by age and offer special birthday perks.

If your organization is looking for other categories of information in addition to address appends, most data append services will append everything at once based on the information you provide them. That way, you can get all the information you’re looking for as quickly and efficiently as possible.

How Can My Nonprofit Use Address Appends?

The great thing about address appends is that they’re not limited to one type of nonprofit. Any nonprofit organization can benefit from address appends if they’re looking to improve their direct mail campaigns. Check out these examples of how different organizations can use this service:

Advocacy Groups

Some causes depend on having supporters located in certain areas. For example, political campaigns often target specific regions where support is strong to remind them to vote or where support is weak to see if they can capture their attention. Address appends can help you identify where supporters live so you can segment them based on location.

Associations

Associations depend on communication with their members to ensure that they keep their membership programs alive. Ensuring you’re sending mail to the correct addresses will make it easier for members to renew their memberships, stay up to date with your association, and continue to engage with your organization.

Schools

Support from alumni can really help take your initiatives off the ground. These are the people who comprise the legacy of your school and want to see it continue to prosper. By sending them magazines and newsletters, you can stay in touch with alumni and continue to foster their relationships with your school. In turn, they may be more willing to donate or volunteer when needed.

Broader Nonprofits

Is your organization having trouble retaining volunteers? Could your organization benefit from recurring donations? For most nonprofits, the answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes.

Address appends can help you to seamlessly communicate with your supporters and remind them of any upcoming opportunities available to them. Hopefully, your regular communication with them will make them feel more connected to your organization and therefore more willing to offer their help, whether through volunteering or donating.

Takeaway: No matter what type of organization you’re a part of, you can benefit from address appends. You’ll just have to find an address append service provider that is efficient and acts as an extension of your team.

How Do I Choose the Right Address Append Service Provider?

If you’ve decided address appends would be useful to your organization, the next step is to look for an address append service provider. Since you’re entrusting an external party with your supporters’ information, you’ll want to make sure you do your research and pick the right provider.

Here are some qualities to look for in an address append service provider:

• Uses accuracy checking. Address appends are useless if they don’t contain accurate addresses for your supporters. Therefore, you’ll want to make sure the address append service you choose conducts scans and checks to ensure the data they give you is accurate.
• Provides other kinds of appends. If you’re looking for address appends, chances are you could benefit from another type as well. Address append services that provide other kinds of appends will make sure that you can gather all the information you need at once and go through the process more efficiently.
• Sources data from reputable information sources. It’s helpful to know where your address append service provider is gathering their information. For example, NPOInfo primarily uses National Change of Address screenings from USPS.
• Gives address information in a standard format. Once you receive your address appends, you’ll want them to be ready for you to use right away. Look for an address append service provider that provides all of their data in a standard format that meets USPS’s requirements for bulk mailing.
• Has a quick turnaround. The quicker you receive your address appends, the quicker you can put your direct mail campaigns into action. Check your provider’s website to see if they give an estimate of how long their services take.
• Offers free quotes. It’s always helpful to have an idea of how much a service for your nonprofit will cost. Good address append service providers will allow you to submit information about your organization and indicate how much data you’re looking for so that they can offer you a free quote for their services.

While this is a long list of requirements, there are address append service providers out there that can satisfy all of your organization’s needs, like NPOInfo! After all, you’re entrusting them with your supporters’ data.

Conclusion & Additional Resources

By now, you’ve learned all about address appends and how they help nonprofits maximize their direct mail campaigns. Any information you can add to the supporter data you already have can help you to foster better, more meaningful relationships with them, and address appends are no different.

From segmented campaigns based on location to donation request letters ending up in the hands of your supporters, there are so many benefits that address appends can have for your organization.

If you’re interested in learning more about data appends, check out the resources we’ve listed below:

• The Nonprofit’s Ultimate Guide to Data Append Services. This guide covers all types of data appends so you can bulk up your data append knowledge.
• How Employer Appends Help Your Nonprofit Raise More. Looking to boost your fundraising efforts? Employer appends might be the data append your organization needs the most.
• Phone Appends: A Nonprofit’s Data Enrichment Guide. Expand your reach by calling or texting your supporters. Obtaining phone appends will open up more communication with donors, volunteers, and other stakeholders.