[Lnc-business] upgrade to membership database & record reduction

Mon Jan 23 13:28:24 EST 2017

Thanks, Wes!

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 12:20 PM, Wes Benedict <wes.benedict at lp.org> wrote:

> Robert Kraus, please forward this note to the state chairs and state
> database admins.
>
> LNC Regional representatives, you may want to forward this directly to
> your regions as well.
>
> ===================
>
> *SUMMARY*
>
> State Chairs and database admins:
>
> We're planning a minor upgrade to the LNC's Raiser's Edge database system
> over the next couple of months and as part of that expect to prune around
> 200,000 of the lowest quality records from our 500,000+ record database.
> No action is required from you on this, and at least in the short run you
> should not notice any changes in how we use and share data beyond the fact
> that the spreadsheets we email to you will be shorter.
>
> *MORE BACKGROUND & DETAIL*
>
> For over ten years, the national LP has used a membership database program
> called Raiser's Edge, a system provided by the company Blackbaud
> <https://www.blackbaud.com/>https://www.blackbaud.com/.
>
> For most of those ten years we've used one of the most stripped down
> entry-level versions of the software. The program is installed and run on
> servers at our headquarters office. Among all of staff's other various
> duties, those servers are maintained, backed up, troubleshooted, etc., by
> staff. New versions of the software are downloaded and installed by staff.
> Occasionally, when the servers keep crashing or what have you, and staff
> can't get things working with the help of hardware and Blackbaud or
> Microsoft tech support, we bring in other experts and pay them by the hour
> to troubleshoot them for us. The two servers we use today I believe were
> bought in 2010, back when I was frustrated over how slow our program ran.
> Those new servers made a huge difference, but are getting old again.
>
> We'll be upgrading to Raiser's Edge NXT
> <https://www.blackbaud.com/fundraising-and-relationship-management/raisers-edge-nxt>.
> The program will be hosted (or installed) on servers run by Blackbaud.
> Raiser's Edge will be "on the cloud" on servers run and maintained by
> Blackbaud, instead of on servers in our basement that are run and
> maintained by my overworked and under-specialized staff.
>
> We've recently hired a couple of people to help with fundraising. By
> having Raisers Edge hosted on the cloud, we'll have an easier time giving
> access to people outside of the LPHQ office, and those offsite users will
> experience a better user interface than what we can do for them today with
> the program in our basement.
>
> It is possible that we will be able to offer access to state leaders to
> their portions of the membership database, and also possible that we'll
> choose to add additional features in the future, but I don't want to
> promise any of that at this time. I've seen too many projects and programs
> over promise and under-deliver, and I don't want to do that right off the
> bat.
>
> Another key feature we'll gain is we'll be able to embed donation forms
> directly into our websites. Many donations will be processed directly by
> the new software, rather than having to import them from our website, or
> type them in manually.
>
> Some of our renewal processes can be streamlined. To send renewal emails,
> our current process is to download a list from Raisers Edge, modify the
> columns of data, then upload that list into our email blast service,
> iContact, send the renewal email to those contacts, and the recipients then
> donate at LP.org/membership. We then have to manually link those donations
> to the members record in Raisers Edge, which is easy for unique names like
> Nicholas Sarwark, but more difficult for the 65 John Smith's in our
> database, and the people like Robert Benedict and Wes Benedict who
> sometimes use their middle names. Additionally, it's particularly hard when
> one of those Smiths moves to a new address and we don't always know if they
> are new person, or an old member renewing at a new address. With Raisers
> Edge NXT, we'll be able to email people from directly within Raisers Edge
> NXT with links to donate that match the donation exactly with the existing
> record.  We'll save time, increase accuracy, and cut down on the number of
> customer service complaints.
>
> Our old (current) version of Rasiers Edge costs us a flat fee per year.
> The new version will be based on how many records we have in the database.
> For that reason, we've taken a close look at our records to see what we
> could purge to keep our costs in check.
>
> Our practice for decades has been to never delete a record. That means if
> someone went to our website in 1996 to request information, but never
> donated and never left a valid email address or phone number, that record
> could still be in our database. If someone added a contact as part of a
> joke in 1997, that contact is probably still in there.
>
> We don't plan to purge any records for anyone that has ever given money to
> the national LP (donors 1971-2017).
> We don't plan to purge any records for anyone that has ever "signed the
> pledge" and is therefore at least a non-dues-paying member of the party
> (members 1971-2017), unless they are deceased or have requested to be
> dropped from our membership database.
> We don't plan to purge any records for anyone that has a valid email
> address (emails 199?-2017).
>
> We do plan to purge people that were added on or before 12/31/2007, yet
> have never donated, have never "signed the membership pledge", have no
> valid email address, and have no valid phone number (around 200,000
> contacts).
>
> Purging these low-value contacts would probably be worth doing whether
> were upgrading our database or not, simply to cut out the clutter, both for
> the national LP's benefit, and for the state and local affiliates that use
> our data. Removing these contacts will save national and state leaders time
> and money by not wasting resources contacting them.
>
> Our plan is to purge those 200,000 records and save them in a spreadsheet.
> We'll have the option to re-import them later if we change our minds.
> Additionally, we'll break up the 200,000 records into batches that we'll
> forward on to the respective states.
>
> I think it's possible that if a handful of states prefer to retain the
> low-value obsolete data in Raiser's Edge, we can probably accommodate that.
> If you want to retain your old contacts in Raisers Edge, please send a note
> to Robert.Kraus at lp.org with your request.
>
> If it has been a long time since you have sent the records from your
> state's database that aren't already in the national database for
> integration into the national LP database, please send that to
> Robert.Kraus at lp.org as well.
>
> Some people may be interested in whether or not we should be sticking with
> Raiser's Edge, or should we move to SalesForce, NationBuilder, CiviCRM, or
> something else. My thoughts are that most major membership databases would
> be fine with me. At the risk of pointing the finger at myself, our staff,
> and the LNC, I don't think the data and information challenges we have
> faced over the years are due to the brand of software we use. I can use
> most any major brand of software. Our challenges are that we haven't done
> as much as we could to maintain our data, share our data, learn how to use
> our systems, train our affiliates where applicable, and add features to
> whatever software packages we use.
>
> Upgrading Raisers Edge is easier than switching to a different vendor. I'm
> afraid that if we simply switched to a different vendor, we'd be too busy
> with the conversion to focus on upgrading our actual procedures and
> practices. Garbage-in, garbage-out, garbage moved next door, or whatever.
>
> Upgrading Raiser's Edge today won't preclude us from moving to something
> else in the future. Upgrading successfully and adding some features today,
> might make it more clear in the future that something else is better for us.
>
> As we work on this, we may find the need to adjust our plans. We'll try to
> keep you informed along the way.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> Wes Benedict, Executive Director
> Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
> 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314(202) 333-0008 ext. 232 <(202)%20333-0008>, wes.benedict at lp.orgfacebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
> Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership
>
>
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