AddressFinder - Data cleanup before running

Sharon Campbell

We are getting ready to run AddressFinder for the first time. We've read lots on here about how to do it, what to watch out for, pros and cons, etc. We have certainly learned a lot. But as for the data in RE itself, are there certain things that should be checked/corrected before running AddressFinder? We have moved the Apt, Suite, etc., number from its own line below the address line to the end of the address line. We've moved the name of business, estate, farm, etc., to precede the street address. Are there other things like that we should check?

Heather MacKenzie

What a great question! Following. You've already done what I would have suggested.

Karen Diener 2

There really isn't too much prep to do, aside from what you have done. I am curious about this statement though: "We've moved the name of business, estate, farm, etc., to precede the street address."


If the first line of your address block is the name of someone's employer, that is an indicator to me that your addresses are not set up correctly. It probably doesn't matter too much in the end, only because it is pretty rare that AddressFinder would even match someone's business address. It primarily relies on the postal service National Change of Address (NCOA) data, and most people don't file a "new address" as their business address.


I personally recommend running this in database view and not webview. My biggest issue is that if the preferred address is no longer valid, and any of your alternate addresses have the "send mail" checkbox marked, webview will not mark the record as "has no valid address". This might be one of the cleanup items you want to undertake, if you choose to use webview.


If you have not seen this webinar on AddressFinder, I definitely encourage you to review it and compare some of the specific details against your own data so that you make the best decision and feel confident about the data.


Karen

Faith Murray

Karen has some great suggestions. It also sounds like you've done your homework already. Incidentally, we also include business name on first address line and have not had any issues. (I'm sure that you, like us, have your org donors entered as org records, but these are instances where your individual donor actually lives at a "business" -- as in the case of a retirement home or a parish priest.)


The only thing I would suggest is to watch out for frequent movers who are close "family". Some enhanced addressfinder services rely on more than USPS forwarding requests and also include real estate property records, home sales, and Whitepages data. In these services and even in the NCOA service, old addresses can resurface for people who move around every year. For example, Blackbaud's Addressfinder (one of the more accurate services) employs the USPS NCOA Link service. This NCOA Link brings up address changes that may date back 48 months, or 4 years. If your college alumnus submitted a forwarding request during his freshman year, but then moved back home after graduation without submitting a new request, the NCOA may consider his old request current. The same applies for a mission pastor or military serviceman who moves around every 2 years but may keep a permanent mailing address in addition to their temporary residence.


I guess what I'm saying is, long story short -- if you have a demographic that you know moves very frequently, and you have the ability to locate those addresses manually (through alumni membership groups, etc.) those addresses should be queried and double-checked after any addressfinder update.

Jeannie Goings

Karen Diener‍ and Faith Murray‍ have provided solid advice. From my experience, being ready and knowing you will have the time to review the results is very important. We ran address finder shortly after conversion and did not have the bandwidth to review the data. Best wishes. :-)

Dariel Dixon 2

Karen Diener:


I personally recommend running this in database view and not webview. My biggest issue is that if the preferred address is no longer valid, and any of your alternate addresses have the "send mail" checkbox marked, webview will not mark the record as "has no valid address". This might be one of the cleanup items you want to undertake, if you choose to use webview.

I cannot agree with this more Karen Diener‍. Please, for whatever is good in the world, run this in database view.


I would also like to mention that international addresses are not impacted by AddressFinder, for obvious reasons. One of the issues is that I have is if the change is something minor like a CART or DPC change, it will create a new address even if the actual address doesn't change. I'd also advise in creating a query to look for any addresses with the new address info source (this will be created when you run the process), and the NVA checkbox. This will allow you to easily find any addresses that were updated that may have changed to have a new address that may be valid.

Sharon Campbell

Thanks, all! This community it invaluable!

Chris Fedor

I am looking into running AddressFinder. From everything I'm reading, it looks like it's best to use database view. Has anyone created a guide they use when they run this?