Data Management for Organizing

Is managing data giving you a headache? Need a lead list of people to target from your organization’s list who are likely to be the most responsive to your ask…and can’t get it? Looking for ways to save time and integrate your data so it’s reliably up-to-date and accessible? This course is for you.

To win campaigns we need to build and manage email and text message lists, addresses, donation histories, action histories, ratings, and sometimes lots more. Data is usually collected in multiple different tools and sometimes by hand, which can make data management a massive challenge.

Yet effective organizing runs on data. We need to be able to segment our lists so that we can target members who’ve shown interest in something for follow-up; or proposition active members to take the next step; or challenge donors to give at the next level; or welcome newcomers effectively; or pull up those with a particular rating. We need to be able to reach people where they pay attention – email? SMS text? WhatsApp? – and the data needs list goes on.

What's Covered:

• Building a data culture
• Tips for manually syncing data across tools, including SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) development
• Examples of automations that can save time in syncing
• Limitations and cautions in using automation tools
• Comparison of automation tools including Zapier, IFTT, and others
• Integrations: what it means, how to test, limitations, what to watch out for
• SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) development for periodic data review and cleaning
• Safeguards and backup plans for when automations glitch
• Some of the data sources we reference:
  • CRMs: Action Network, EveryAction, NationBuilder
  • Texting: Hustle, Call Hub, Spoke
  • Union tools: Unionware, Action Builder

Photo credit: UAW members’ strategic rolling strikes result in major contract wins across U.S. (2023, J. Kowalsky/Bloomberg/Getty)