CRM Hygiene From Day One
Whatever system you inherited, make it trustworthy: clean records, simple codes, and reports you can stand behind.
Through the Faith-Based lens
Your database usually inherits two systems in one: a sacramental or membership registry and a giving record, and the two rarely agree on a family's current name or address. Fund codes here do real work: a memo line reading "for the roof" or "second collection" is a restriction, and a clergy transition is exactly the kind of turnover this lesson warns about, since the new pastor starts from zero with donors who have given for twenty years.
Continuing education
1.00 points · non-fundraising
Current and Prospective Donor Research · Leadership and Management
Learning objectives
- State the four jobs a small shop's CRM does, remember giving, remember people, find groups, and tell the truth in reports, and the two habits that keep it doing them: everything goes in, and what goes in follows the rules.
- Build a seven-code scheme covering fund, appeal, gift type, donor type, contact flags, relationship role, and acknowledgment, with year-first names and a one-page definitions sheet, and refuse sentiment and speculative wealth codes.
- Run a four-week cleanup sprint that backs up the file, counts what is there, perfects the top 50 records, merges the duplicates that matter, and quarantines inactive records under an INACTIVE tag.
- Apply a posted gift entry standard that matches donors to existing records first, honors memo-line restrictions, handles DAF, match, tribute, stock, cash, and pledge gifts correctly, and reconciles with finance to the dollar each month.
Designed for CFRE continuing education. Not yet accepted; no CFRE points can be claimed.
Lessons
- 15 min
Video lesson
Your database is your memory
II See · Current and Prospective Donor Research
- 20 min
Field guide· PDF
The minimum viable coding scheme
II See · Leadership and Management
- 25 min
Worksheet· XLSX
Data cleanup sprint plan
II See · Current and Prospective Donor Research
- 10 min
Template· DOCX
Gift entry standards checklist
V Receive · Leadership and Management
This is members-only material.
Members get every lesson, template, and worksheet in all eight tracks, plus the support to put them to work in your shop.
More in this stage
Fundamentals & Ethics
How Fundraising Works
The map you weren't given: where the money comes from, why people give, and what a development program is made of.
Major & Principal Gifts
Your First Donor Conversations
Scripts, practice, and nerve for the conversations that fund your mission: discovery visits, thank-you calls, and your first ask.
Annual Giving & Direct Response
The Annual Fund, Explained
Appeals, segments, and the giving calendar: how recurring annual revenue gets built, one season at a time.