Constituent data is a critical resource of every nonprofit. Without it there would be no fundraising campaigns. Our programs would be spontaneous activities, not ongoing efforts year-after-year. We would lose the ability to communicate with any scale or sophistication. And we would be making decisions in the dark – unaware of where we had success in the past.

But, once an organization decides to begin storing constituent data it also accepts significant responsibility. An organization is now obligated to protect that data. An organization must ensure legal and ethical compliance in handling or sharing of data. An organization will need to manage and protect the integrity of the data. And an organization must strive to honor the wishes – both stated and implied – of constituents as to how their information will be managed, retained, shared or otherwise used.

A thoughtful data management plan is something that every organization should have in place. Its existence, integrity and adherence to is an important step in honoring the responsibility we have to our constituents.

The following are key ingredients to building a thoughtful data management plan:

• Guidelines or Principles

Rather than trying to anticipate every circumstance, an effective data management plan should provide a framework that will help ensure data is used in line with the principles of the organization as a whole.

• Goals & Objectives

Documenting goals and objectives will help ensure clear direction is provided as to how data is to be managed and stewarded – and what you hope to achieve through data management. Goals should ensure seek common ground between the needs of the organization (ex. fundraising) with the expectations of the individual (ex. privacy).

• Security Model & Governance

The security model should clearly describe roles and responsibilities among users of the system. Attention should be paid to sensitive data and how data will be shared throughout the organization. A governance procedure should describe how the security model will be applied and enforced (when necessary). Governance would typically also describe how change in the system will be managed. Change will often be managed through a Data Governance Committee or comparable entity that represents a cross-section of the organization and can weigh the needs of specific units in support of the whole organization.

• Data Integrity and Data Management Practices

Your data is constantly in motion. New records are added, fields changed and activities updated. As a living system, processes need to be established and documented that will ensure this constant movement of data does not undermine data integrity. Data integrity and data management practices are likely to include processes for regular de-duplication, code-table clean-up and other system maintenance.

Most organizations will also augment their data with updates from the postal service, append with information that will indicate propensity to give or newly found contact information such as email or phone numbers. Capturing these processes will help ensure data is managed to best support the goals and objectives of the organization.

• Data Sharing Conditions

If your organization chooses to share data with external parties such as a list brokerage, it is imperative that sharing is done with clear direction to ensure alignment with your organization’s values. For some organizations these conditions might limit data sharing narrowly to “sister” or peer organizations. For others, data exchange is a critical and common component of direct marketing efforts – and is therefore an open, market-driven process. Regardless, such disclosure of data should operate within terms established by your organization and strictly adhered to by the recipient of the data.

• Vendor Expectations

Most organizations will use external consultants to assist in data management or data augmentation. Within your data management plan you should provide clear guidelines to be shared with external vendors. Signing a non-disclosure agreement is one common practice. Another common practice is to ensure confidentiality clauses for those that will have direct access to your system.

• Inventory of systems, integration and running processes

A CRM system is rarely a single database. More often, your CRM represents a central database that interfaces with external marketing tools (ex. Website, donation forms, and email tools), data augmentation tools (ex. WealthEngine or WealthPoint), a General Ledger and others. Taking inventory of these systems, integration and any processes – automated or manual – that interact with the system is a critical ingredient in your data management plan. These interfaces often impact large volumes of data on a regular bases.

Summary

In future posts we will unpack each of these ingredients and help you assemble a Master Data Management Plan. For now, the key takeaway is a Master Data Management Plan is not simply a list of rules or mapping of the intersection points across data sets. How you manage data should reflect the overall philosophy and business practices of the organization. A approach is one that reconciles technical understanding with the real-life impact on the constituents that make our work possible year-over-year.