Use the Alternate Addresses feature
Here in southern Arizona (location of the FundRaiser training office), they are affectionately called "snowbirds". They leave their main homes and "fly" south when the weather becomes cold and bitter, and tend to return in the spring, at least until retirement. When I lived in Florida, vacationing Canadians were given the same nickname. The populace of the United States is a very mobile one, and keeping up with any one person can be difficult. FundRaiser Select and Professional have a feature that will help you keep up with your "migratory" donors and prospects, and it's called Alternate Addresses. If you have FundRaiser Spark, or Basic, you may want to check into moving up to Select or Professional here.
1. Store all known addresses for a donor/prospect
Many folks have permanenet vacation addresses. Many don't. For those who don't, try to get email addresses and you'll still be able to reach them no matter where they are. For those who DO have permanent alternate residences, simply enter them in the Alt Add tab in the Name Details section of their name record. One thing to note is that there are two (2) different ways to tell FundRaiser which address should be used at any given time. When you enter an alternate address, you have the option of assigning a code to the address, which can be handy for different "types" of addresses, like work vs. home, or current vs. previous, but you also have the option of assigning a date range to show when the alternate address will be occupied. This is a much better solution , in my opinion, for vacationers, when you have a good idea what that date range will be. You might want to store previous addresses, and, when someone moves, you'll be able to "save" the old address as an "inactive" alternate address, too. You can pull an alternate address into the primary address page just as easily, from the Alt Add tab.
2. Set up your Alternate Address Preferences
In the Mass Mailings section of the print menu, and in the Thank You Letters section of the Automated Correspondence section of the print menu, there is a little button labeled "Alt Address". It's on the Specifics page in Mass Mailings, and in the bottom left corner in the Thank You letter window. Clicking on this button opens a window containing the settings that tell FundRaiser how you want to go about applying alternate address rules, like so:
By default FundRaiser uses date ranges, not codes, to determine whether or not an address should be used. You can change this behavior, however, for just the current operation, or until you decide to change it in the future. It's up to you. Depending on the reasons for looking at the alternate addresses, you may want to choose by code only, or by code and then by date range, or by date range only (the default). The point is to be able to reach your people no matter where they are living at the time you are doing your mailing. Be aware that the Date Range option looks at your computer date, and compares it with the date ranges of any alternate addresses it encounters, and it's very literal. If you are doing a mailing today, and someone's date range for vacation starts tomorrow, it's not going to catch that, so keep it in mind when assigning date ranges to addresses, too.
3. Ask your donors for their help in keeping current
Since people move more often these days than ever before, you'll want to get your donors to help you keep up. One of the easiest ways is to include an address update form in all your communications with them, whether printed or emailed. It doesn't take much to include something like that in a letter or newsletter, and perhaps you can collect some email addresses along the way. A simple-to-answer-and-submit form is the key, so that the donor can quickly fill it out without much effort. Also consider mailings once a year that include the postal service notifying you about bad addresses, forwards, etc. They can be more expensive, but that extra cost can save you money in the long run. To find out more about alternate addresses, don't hesitate to call the training office (800-880-2997) Tuesday through Thursday, or Tech Support, or drop me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.