Data hygiene is fundamental to responsive nonprofit organizations, but it's easy for even the cleanest data to get stale over time. Virtuous' data append services are designed to promote the health of your CRM's data integrity. Having ages and birth dates for your supporters will lead to better connection and more appropriate engagement. The easiest way to ensure your donor base data includes birth dates is by running an age append. This guide provides a general FAQ on the age append process.
Table of Contents
- What Is An Age Append?
- How Can An Age Append Help My Organization?
- What Is The Process To Append Birth Dates?
- Will I Get Results for Every Record I Submit?
- How Long Does It Take?
- Can I Append Birth Dates From International Supporters?
- How Are We Billed?
- What Is The Zip File Sent To Me After The Age Append Runs?
- Why Is Address Information Included In An Age Append?
What Is An Age Append?
An age append is a service that adds missing birth months and years through public and private sources to enhance your existing CRM data. An age append uses address, email, and phone number data to find dates of birth where possible.
How Can An Age Append Help My Organization?
An age append helps your organization connect with supporters that’s in a way that’s relevant for their stage of life. With birth date information, you can segment audiences by age and life stage, so you're sending the right message to the right people—for example, student-specific appeals, campaigns aimed at donors in their peak earning years, or legacy giving conversations. Age data makes it easier to match people with volunteer opportunities and events they'll actually want to participate in, like family events, peer-to-peer fundraising roles, weekday volunteering for retirees, or other activities that fit their stage of life. And recognizing donors on their birth months is a great way to create touchpoints that aren’t specifically an appeal.
What Is The Process To Append Birth Dates?
The process to append birth dates includes:
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Create an Individual Query in your database and name it Data Append: Age Append – DOB. Filter for:
- Birth Month > Is Not Set AND Birth Year > Is Not Set
- Any other groups you wish to exclude; for example, deceased or anonymous individuals.
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Export your Query as CSV. Select the following fields to be included:
- Contact Id, Contact Type, and Contact Name
- Individual Id, Title, First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, and Suffix
- Primary Address Line 1, Line 2, City, State/Province, Postal, Country
- Phone
- Open a support ticket with the Virtuous Support Team that includes the type of data append you want (for example, an age append) and the exact name of your Individual Query. Click here to learn more about submitting support tickets.
- The Virtuous team member will confirm your request and billing, if relevant. They will use your Query to export the Contact and Individual Information to search public and private data sources for appending birth dates.
- Once records are matched, the update will be made to your CRM. Our team will follow up with your results, noting the number of Individuals submitted and the records that were successfully matched with birth dates. The Virtuous team member will also send a zip file of the raw data containing line by line information on what was submitted, what was updated, and how it was updated.
Will I Get Results for Every Record I Submit?
No. Match rates may vary based on the completeness and accuracy of your data. Incomplete or outdated records, such as missing or business addresses, partial names or anonymous names (like Friend or Default), partial names or anonymous names (like Friend or Default), may result in fewer matches. In some cases, an Individual's data simply isn't available in the public and private sources we use.
How Long Does It Take?
Data appends typically take between 2-3 business days to process after your list of Individuals has been submitted. Timing may vary based on weekends and holidays, or if any questions arise.
Can I Append Birth Dates From International Supporters?
No, age appends only consider US data sources.
How Are We Billed?
You are billed per age record returned, not per record submitted. This means if you submit 6,000 records for a date of birth update but only 2,000 are returned with results, you will only be charged for the 2,000.
If your Virtuous subscription already includes a set number of data appends per year, you will not be billed. If you'd like to add data appends to your contract in the future, contact your CSM or reach out to customersuccess@virtuous.org.
What Is The Zip File Sent To Me After The Age Append Runs?
After the Age Append is processed and the updates are made to your CRM, you will be sent a zip file of the raw data containing line by line information on what was submitted, what was updated, and how it was updated. This zip file does not require any action, however, it may be helpful to use these files to spot check the updates the Virtuous team made to ensure all records have been updated correctly. Some organizations keep these files for a few months as a backup of their original data. The file contains the following reports:
- File Layout Report: Explains every field in your output file so you know what each column represents, including the appended date-of-birth field and any related matching details
- Address Quality Report: Summarizes how well your addresses matched USPS data and highlights any issues with deliverability. Address validation is required before demographic matching for best results
- CASS Summary Report: The official USPS certification form confirming your addresses were processed with CASS-certified software. Often used for compliance or record-keeping
- Data Quality Summary: A quick, high-level snapshot of your address accuracy, DPV results, and other quality indicators
- Demographic Report: Shows how many records successfully received an appended date of birth, along with overall match rates
Why Is Address Information Included In An Age Append?
Age (DOB) matching relies on accurate name and address data, so the the Virtuous team must standardize and validate the addresses first. These details are included so you can see exactly how the match was made. Address information returned here will NOT be updated in Virtuous. To make the address updates in your CRM, please request a NCOA if you would like to fully validate address data. Click here to learn more about NCOAs.
Need hands-on help cleaning up your data? Virtuous Professional Services offers solutions to optimize your CRM data and improve data hygiene through deduplication, Pledge & Recurring Gift clean up, and data appends. Click here to learn more about our Professional Services offerings, or contact your Customer Success Manager to get started!