One of the most frustrating experiences as a nonprofit is to send out a carefully crafted appeal letter only to have several envelopes be returned as unable to be delivered by the post office. Not only have you spent postage and used paper and time to send the letters, but your message won’t reach your donors. How do you prevent this from happening?
NCOA, or National Change of Address, is a United States Post Office program designed to prevent non-deliverable mail. The USPS maintains a database of all permanent address changes within the past three years by people who have completed change of address cards. When you export your database and use a USPS licensed processor, they will run your donors’ addresses through this program and provide you with information such as a changed address, the complete ZIP+4 zip code, which helps with mail processing, and which addresses are not valid without any further information. When you merge the received data back into your database, it will be updated and your donors coded appropriately to help you better manage your mailings.
FundRaiser Software works with the Lorton500 format for a smooth merge process back into your database. If you don’t want to find a processor who handles NCOA Processing with the required format, you’ll be pleased to know that FundRaiser Software offers this service.
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Our software makes the NCOA process easy. When you export your data using FILE > EXPORT and choose the Lorton500 format, you’ll be able to send the data to your processor. When you receive it back, use FILE > MERGE to merge the Lorton500 data back into your database. Our support team would also be happy to walk you through the process as well.
As we move into the New Year, using NCOA on your database will help you reach more donors and achieve your fundraising goals.
For more information on having FundRaiser Software handle the complete NCOA process for your database, call us at at 800-880-3454 extension 3.
At this time, there is a Winter Special on NCOA processing at 50% until January 31, 2017