Using Lexis Nexis to update addresses, phone, email, etc. in Raisers Edge

Kendra Waddington

Has anyone used Lexis Nexis to update addresses, phone, email, etc. in Raisers Edge? If so, I am wondering if you can share your process notes with me in terms of exporting the data and reimporting changes. 

Rachel Slager 2

If you are exporting and importing, I'm guessing you actually mean that you are doing a data append?  If so, are you really using LexisNexis, or are you using a third party like AlumniFinder who will piggyback on Lexisnexis?  


Doing data appends is pretty simple when it comes to exports : export those you want to research, provide their birthdates if known, gender, last address, spouse info, etc.  The returned data confirms or updates your data in a format that is generally easy to import right back in.  Vet the data to make sure it's formatted according to your system.  Consider marking the data in some way so that you know what the info source was for the changes being made.


LexisNexis is a handy, expensive research tool and the results it returns are about as accurate as one could hope for.  Third parties do use some of the contact information from LN, but appends often rely on other sources as well, like the NCOA database, LinkedIn, and even White Pages.  I find that data appends return lots of good info, lots of current, but enough outdated and incorrect data that I see the appends as a lot of vetting on our part for something we paid too much money to get.  That's just my frustration from our most recent append nightmare....