Three Tips for Adding New Graduates (and New Students) to Your Raiser’s Edge Database

By Greg Duke

Graduation season is upon us once more! As college graduates celebrate, advancement services staff all over the country are getting anxious requests from development staff about how long it will take them to get their new alumni into their Raiser’s Edge database. Here are three strategic tips, from my experience in working in advancement services and on Raiser’s Edge, which will help you get new alumni ready for contact.

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1. Build a Good Relationship with Student Services
No matter what CRM you use, you won’t be able to get new alumni into your advancement system until Student Services sends you the data. So it’s always a good idea to continue to build bridges with your Student Services department. Know who the keeper of student data is, and make sure to help them when they need help as well. It also wouldn’t hurt to get an idea of when their busy (well, busier) times are. Sending new student data to you can be a major project, so it’s always best to contact them during their relative down times.

2. Consider a Constituent Batch

​We’ve all used Gift Batches to enter new gifts into Raiser’s Edge…but have you considered using a Constituent Batch to add a group of new constituents? You can define the fields which will be part of the data entry screen, and you can also define default fields for your new constituents—so, for example, “Class of 2017” or “Education Year 2017” can automatically be included on the data entry screen:

​Constituent Batches are most effectively used for groups of about 25 or fewer new graduates or students since the data must be hand-entered in the Batch form. For larger groups, an Import is a better choice.

3. Don’t Fear the Import
Admittedly, we’ve all had that moment of fear when we’re about to hit the “Import Now” button on an Import. But really, there’s no better or faster way to upload a large amount of information into a Raiser’s Edge database. Setting up your data import correctly will save you a lot of nervousness.

​Follow these steps:

Clean Up Your Data in Excel First
It’s a lot easier to fix problems in your data file before it’s imported. In addition, scanning over your data file first often allows you to see minor errors (an extra digit in a phone number, a misspelled city name) before you have to fix it in Raiser's Edge…or, worse, not find it in Raiser's Edge until it appears in a mailing.

Don’t Go It Alone
The Blackbaud Knowledgebase provides step-by-step instructions for importing new Constituents, or indeed any other data field. Here, for example, is the Knowledgebase Guide to importing new Constituents. If nothing else, the guides provide you with those all-important header names which you’ll need to successfully import your new records.

Validate Your Data
Don’t just check the “Validate Data Only” field on the General Tab before you do each import (although you absolutely, positively want to do that). After you’ve browsed for the file you need to import, go over to the “Fields” tab to make sure you have the correct header names in your file. If any of the fields in “Field To Import” doesn’t have a corresponding entry in “Raiser’s Edge Field,” re-check your header names.

Validate Your Data (Again)
I realize I just made this point, but it’s such an important point, I thought it should be made twice. Validating your data allows you to see when a record will be rejected from an import because a field doesn’t match the Raiser’s Edge format (for example, when a field that should contain a date contains a word or a number instead). It allows you to go back to the data to fix potential errors in the source file. As I’ve said above, it’s much easier to fix errors before the upload  than to have to chase them around in Raiser’s Edge.

I hope that these tips will help you during the Upload Season!

As always, the team here at Staupell is available for further advice on data uploads or any other Raiser’s Edge issue. Leave a comment below or email me at greg@staupell.com if you have questions.