What is Data Stewardship?
Techtarget does a pretty decent job summarizing this - https://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/definition/data-stewardship
Data stewardship is the management and oversight of an organization's data assets to help provide business users with high-quality data that is easily accessible in a consistent manner.
We define it somewhat differently in the context of non-profit organizations because there's another level of stewardship we find extremely important, and that is - Transparency.
So what are these "data assets" anyway? Most commonly, these are related to contact data, like Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and contact information like mailing addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers. We've done a lot of work on providing a high-level view of these assets, and here are the main categories of assets everyone should care about:
- Metadata - data (entities, attributes, and relationships) that defines the data we store or interact with - what attributes are part of what we call a "Donor"?
- Standards and Compliance - of the data we store, what standards and compliances are required? Mailing addresses - before we store these, are they standardized? If we're mailing to these, are we in compliance with the USPS? Email address opt-outs? What policies do we publish ourselves?
- Coverage - do we have email addresses on everyone? What goal have we set? What does it cost us when we don't have an email address? What does each email address save our organization?
- Quality - do we have high quality data? Just because we have email addresses on file doesn't mean they are correct. Are the syntactically correct? Are they valid? Is there an active MX host? How often do we review the quality of our email addresses?
- Usage - Are we sending too many emails to the same people? How many emails do our contacts receive in one month, year, and lifetime?
- Transparency - do we have rules about the types and level of detail of each data attribute that determine what we share and with whom?
What are TrueGivers' Data Stewardship Services?
The Data Stewardship Services are integrated processes that run daily to help you become the best data steward possible. We have created customized services for each CRM that include the following features:
How Can My Organization Get Started With Data Stewardship?
Simple! Depending on your CRM, you can activate your instance right away - and for FREE. Just click https://app.truegivers.com/Applications/Integrations, find your CRM, click "Activate" and follow the provided instructions. You'll get immediate access to the following features:
- Full-featured Data Stewardship Dashboard that shows you a snapshot of quality and coverage of your data, as well as the number of moves, deceased individuals and households, and a complete demographic analysis.
- Customized Stewardship Tasks that show you what work needs to be done to become an expert data steward in minutes.
If you need any help, just email us - support@truegivers.com