Every year educational charities turn students into alumni and add a new cohort of students. Many charities also have regular schedules of welcoming new supporters and managing changing relationships en mass. In this exclusive, original post on Propper Fundraising, Adriana Williams presents an essential guide to managing this data process.
Trigger warning: this post is mainly aimed at those working in educational charities and gardening enthusiasts. If you work in a non-educational charity, check out step 2, as this might be the most relevant for you!
When looking at the natural patter of the academic year, the summer holidays are a busy time for data enthusiasts. It is when we welcome new people into our community, and new data into our database.
It’s a crucial time. Those precious relationships, lovingly fed, watered and germinated by the admissions team in the warm, sheltered potting shed of the admissions process, need to be re-planted into the busy garden that is your school community. The aim is for it to feel seamless, effortless, for the families and their data to glide in, unaware of the disturbance to their environment.
The reality is, of course, that a seemingly effortless slide means a lot of hard work and preparation behind the scenes. Space needs to be made, the ground prepared, and then, of course, the move itself!
I use three steps (and nine lists) to prepare and then make the move.
- Making space – saying goodbye to the graduates
Must-have lists/queries:
- Students leaving this year before graduating
What’s it asking: what students are leaving ‘early’ (i.e. before the rest of their year group ‘graduates’)?
Why it is important: they will need to be rolled over from student to alumni. They may have to be treated differently from other alumni, for example in schools if they are under 18.
- Graduating class – left at graduation
What’s it asking: who is graduating this year?
Why it is important: they will need to be rolled over from student to alumni, and may have different stewardship from students who left early.
- Current parents becoming former
What’s it asking: who are the parents/families of this year’s graduates/leavers?
Why it is important: they will need to be rolled over from ‘current’ to ‘former’ parents.
These queries will make using a mass/global change functionality into your database straight-forward, rolling these groups over to their new home in alumni community.
Top tip for step 1: roll over your leavers (families and students) before you add new families. It gives you a great sense of accomplishment and also will help you to start ‘thinking like a database’, which will help in the next steps.
- Preparing the ground – create the import files
Must-have lists:
- What data is in your admissions database?
What do admissions actually ask for?
- What data do you need?
What do you need for community relations and fundraising purposes? It’s unlikely, for example, that you will need medical records: don’t accept everything ‘just in case’.
- What spaces there are in your database for those items?
What are the fields you use to ‘house’ these data pieces? Do they match up to the fields available in the admissions database?
Mapping out what data goes where will ensure it is entered consistently and in such a way that it can be easily found. A clear data map will also help avoid any retyping (which could lead to the scary-yet-unavoidable human error!) Database providers will often have template files you can use to see what fields are out there, and will help you import more easily.
Top tip for step 2: save the import file you use this time for next time. It will save you reinventing the wheel every year.
What if admissions don’t ask for what I need? Meet with the admissions team and see if the data you need can be added to their processes. For example, they may not ask for job title and employer name as it’s not vital to the student admissions process. This request could be added to place acceptance forms, which would make life easier for you and for the families themselves, as they won’t have to be asked for this information on the first day of school.
- Planting your seedlings – making the move
Must-have lists:
- Test record
Always use a test record for any new import to check that everything is going into the right place. It will allow you to tweak any anomalies that come up. I usually use “Adriana TEST” as the name so I can find it again and delete it.
- New parents this year
Once you’ve imported the new families, make sure you group them in a list so that you know who they are. This is useful because you can welcome them effectively as a new group to your community, and if you find any errors in the import process afterwards, you know which group will be affected.
- New students this year
The same goes for students. Although in schools they may not be welcomed by the development/ advancement office, you want to keep this new cohort together to ensure you can keep an eye on them as they grow in your database.
Top tip for step 3: go into this part of the process with a growth mindset – mistakes are opportunities to learn, and if you write them down, then you won’t make them next time. Frustration will only lead to more mistakes, so take a step back if you feel overwhelmed!
I hope these steps are helpful when looking at this cumbersome but very important process. Don’t underestimate the time it will take the first time, and let me know how you get on in the comments below and share your top tips with me on LinkedIn.
Propper Fundraising 