EP11: The Case for Data Leadership with Tracy Van Solkema
Building on our previous conversation about CRM with Ashley Faison, in this episode we're talking about data leadership with Tracy Van Solkema. Tracy is the Research and Data Services Specialist at the Grand Rapids Community Foundation. When it comes to the topic of using data to advance the work of your organization, you'd be hard-pressed to find a person more passionate about this topic than Tracy.
Why is a CRM or donor database important for a nonprofit or foundation?Tracy emphasizes CRM (Customer or Constituent Relationship Management technology) is a key differentiator. An Excel spreadsheet can work as a database just storing data. However, what it can't do is manage relationships well. CRM goes to the next level, allowing an organization to manage relationships, analyze and report on data, and create data-driven insights.
Defining data and common data points to trackIn this context, Tracy defines data the information you store about your donors, prospects, volunteers, and the data related to how they interact with your organization.
Tracy recommends ensuring your basic biographical data is tracked consistently as a starting point. This means ensuring you have data entry processes and procedures in place for what needs be entered and how it is entered in your CRM.
When it comes to tracking additional data, Tracy starts with the end in mind. She asks, how will we use this data? Will it inform our fundraising or marketing strategy? If not, maybe it's not necessary. She also suggests not wasting time tracking a data point you can get from other data (e.g. tracking current donor when this information is obvious by their gift history).
Tracy lives by a quote hanging above her desk: "One key component to fundraising success is to know that information is power and that power resides in your database!"
An example of using the power of your database is using your data to segmenting appeals. Use your data to create appeals with messaging specific to the audience. Segmenting may be based on past gift history, relationship to the organization (i.e. volunteer, board member, etc.), philanthropic interest, or age. On the topic of age, Tracy provides great examples and shares how to access this important information.
A relationship endowment—Tracy's philosophy about database managementTracy thinks of the database as an endowment. As data is added to the database, the information and the depth of information grow in perpetuity, and through this growth, relationships can flourish for the organization now and into the future.
When you think of your database as your "relationship endowment," you can see the value of maintaining it and monitoring it with high standards, just as you would a financial endowment. The people who manage and oversee your relationship endowment should be well trained, and your board and leadership should take interest in this endowment. Your relationship endowment is the foundation that backs your personal connections over time.
What is data leadership?Embracing the management and use of data across an entire organization starts with leadership.
Tracy says that four key things make up data leadership:
Tips for organizations getting started with data:
If you are a database manager:
If you are a development/fundraising person:
Tracy Van Solkema is the Research and Data Services Specialist at the Grand Rapids Community Foundation. In this role, she administers the Foundation's research activities on prospective donors, manages and analyzes the database to inform development strategy, leads database training and collaboration with other departments and manages annual giving activities to help raise funds to support the Community Foundation's unrestricted endowment.
She is a bCRE-Pro (Blackbaud Certified Raiser's Edge Professional) a designation she earned and has maintained since 2016. Tracy has over fifteen years of experience in the nonprofit sector in the areas of philanthropy, arts, higher education and human services. Tracy truly enjoys helping nonprofit organizations build meaningful relationships and make successful data-driven decisions. She has a passion for sharing a vision for data leadership and best practices for how Community Foundations can use Raiser’s Edge to cultivate donors and create strong relationships with various constituencies. She has led conference sessions on relationship and database management in 2017 and 2018 at Blackbaud’s premier tech gathering for social good.
Tracy has a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Relations and Advertising from Grand Valley State University.
Find Tracy at:
Grand Rapids Community Foundation
Resources:
Data-Driven Nonprofits Blog
Cool Data Blog
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