Why Nonprofit Executives should care about Master Data Management (MDM) | 7wData

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Do you struggle keeping 2 or more sources of data up to date with name changes, address changes, email updates, phone number changes or more? The reality is that most of us do. If you have 3, 4 or more data sources to integrate, then you know the challenge increases geometrically. If this is your donor world, Master Data Management can help.

Master Data Management (MDM) is not just a technology. It is a strategy, it involves people, it has standard processes and it is also a technology.

MDM is based on the premise that a nonprofit must have a single master copy of donor data or a single version of the truth.

MDM is not just about technology and MDM program managers should use a business driven framework to ensure that all the component parts of MDM are addressed. MDM programs need to align with the business vision and strike the right balance between technology and governance and organizational issues.” ~ Saul Judah, Research Director at Gartner For our purposes, we talking about master donor data. There is also an enterprise approach that includes other data like finance and human resources. Departments that will be interested in this approach are development, marketing, donor service and others. Nonprofits should consider a donor MDM approach when you are large enough and have several significant donor data bases to integrate and analyze.

With donor MDM, you want to create a master data file that keeps track of differences in donor data from multiple systems. As you integrate two or more donor systems, you may have addresses that don’t match for the same donor. In one case, you may have a maiden name and in the other system the current name. In one system, you may have a home address and phone number while in the other you have a work address and phone number. In one system you may have a first name of Pat and in the other Patricia. All of these differences make it extremely difficult to create and maintain a single set of master data and can throw your donor analytics out of whack.

It is common to think that Master Data Management (MDM) and Data Warehousing (DW) are the same and can accomplish the same results. They are in fact remarkably different and nonprofit (non technical) staff should appreciate, at a high level, the distinctions. Nonprofit goals for creating amazing donor experiences, are at stake. Donors do not tolerate bad and duplicate data. It is a common source of complaints at call centers. Great donor journeys can be derailed because of simple donor data problems. Executives who are obsessed with donor experiences will appreciate that attention to donor data detail is critical. If staff see duplicates in a donor system like CRM, they will not tend to trust analytics in a business intelligence solution.

Different Goals – The primary Goal of a DW is analytical in nature. It looks at historical transactional data. The primary goal for MDM is to establish a single version of the truth for a donor from one or more donor systems. MDM requires solving the root cause of the inconsistent data, because master data needs to be propagated back to the source system in some way. In data warehousing, solving the root cause is not always needed, as it may be enough just to have a consistent view at the data warehousing level rather than having to ensure consistency at the data source level. Different types of data – MDM looks primarily at donor data but not transactional data.