Making The Case - Business Credit Information

For most institutions of higher learning, the cost of not staying up to date on the whereabouts of alumni is far from being measured in dollars alone. As if financial concerns are not enough, the ill effects on institutional advancement can permeate many other areas of campus activity as well. But, perhaps nowhere is the immediate pinch more apparent than in fundraising.

Regardless of the campaign, the pressures to meet planned goals without the resources to get there spawn a multitude of problems. Predictably low morale and high turnover in the Alumni Association and Advancement Office only compounds the problem. Under such dire circumstances, how could any institution expect to keep pace with the needs and aspirations of its constituents? A clear message from the Chancellor's office, to the late-night-shift of callers in the Annual Fund should resonate with a commitment to keep constituents routinely involved in the growth process at the institution. And knowing where alumni and other constituents reside at all times is the surest way to make the connection possible. Taking proactive measures to update and maintain contact info on alumni comes at a cost though, but surely outweighs the alternative.

BCI provides several search options to update current addresses on records that have boomeranged from recent direct mail campaigns. Although our most successful searches are based on matching against Social Security Numbers, other methods are gaining popularity in reaction to many well publicized identity theft cases in the news effecting higher-ed. Clearly, times have changed for everyone. At BCI, we have already made preparations to modify our retrieval technologies and tighten up security measures. The challenge to do more with less information from our clients is one we have embraced for some time. And we expect that trend to continue.

Maintaining a controlled environment is one of the surest ways to balance the needs of our clients while protecting privacy. Our personal approach to handling data has earned the confidence of many advancement officers and development professionals. We treat every client situation as a unique experience, like it should be. But for the most part, once our methods are understood, the majority of BCI clients still prefer a full, comprehensive search that's based on all identifying information.

At BCI, our most complete search uses an algorithm based on the linkage between an individuals name, home address, and SSN. To a lesser extent, phone numbers and date birth can also help in the matching process. Once a match has been found, the ultimate verification of that match is revealed by providing the individuals full name, which BCI includes on the output file along with the new address. Of course, some differences of the name that BCI provides back should be expected due to changes in marital status, nicknames, AKA's and others.

Yet another indispensable process of updating addresses is the ubiquitous NCOALink. Best reserved for address maintenance and capturing the most recent moves, NCOALink processing is an excellent way of improving the deliverability of direct mail before the mail piece is sent. Since all updated addresses found from this process are returned in USPS Standardized format, they immediately qualify for postal discounts too.

NCOALink also provides the date of the move that is associated with an individual, family or business and plays a critical role in the process that must be considered when updating the fund raising database. Unfortunately, there’s a possibility that what appears to be a new NCOA current address may not be as current as the address you've obtained on your own. Astute data managers are well aware of this and realize the limitations of NCOA. Systematic dating of new address data is one of the surest ways to avoid the risk of wiping out existing data that’s hard to come by, and perhaps impossible to replace.