Alumni database cleanup before a giving campaign: a checklist

Export the whole database before touching it. Save the file with the date. If a merge goes wrong, this copy is how you recover the records, the gift history and the notes that staff typed over many years.

Then write down your matching rule. Same roll number is a certain match. Same name with a different email is only a candidate. Same email across two names is often a couple sharing an address.

Agree the rule with whoever signs off on the campaign. Fixing records without a rule produces arguments later, usually in the middle of the drive.

Duplicates come from event sign-ups, old spreadsheets, a name typed as Ravi K and as Ravikumar, and a married name that replaced a maiden name. Sort by phone number and by email first. Those catch the obvious pairs.

When merging, keep the oldest record as the survivor and carry across every gift, event attendance and note. Never delete the other record until its history sits on the survivor.

Leave doubtful pairs for a human to review. A wrong merge is harder to undo than a missed one.

Graduation year drives almost every reunion list, so errors cost you. Alumni often enter the year they joined, not the year they left, and a batch of fifty wrong rows can scatter a reunion list across the wrong decades. Cross-check against the registrar’s records.

Programme names change over time. A department renamed in one decade may appear as three spellings. Pick one name per programme and map the old ones onto it.

Fix the batch before the individual. A single wrong value in a drop-down can ruin hundreds of rows.

Before any appeal goes out, record who agreed to be contacted, by which channel and for what. An alumnus who is happy with a reunion invitation may not want a donation email.

Add fields for do-not-call, do-not-email, preferred language and the date consent was given. Your regulator’s rules vary by country, so check yours or ask your institution’s data protection officer.

Carry opt-outs across every merge. A suppressed address that reappears from an old duplicate causes a complaint within a day.

Only now do you rank. Use simple signals: past giving, event attendance, years since graduation, role at a known employer and responses to earlier mail.

Divide the list into groups with different asks. Recent graduates may be best for a small class gift. Long-standing donors may be best for a personal call from the head of department.

Finish by sending yourself the first list as a test. Read twenty names aloud. If you spot a duplicate or a wrong programme, repair it before the real send.