Strategies for Managing Duplicate Contacts in Your Fundraising Campaigns

This blog was written in collaboration with Arkus, a Classy partner and premium Salesforce consultant. With 2,500 projects completed for over 750 clients and a 4.9-star rating on the AppExchange, Arkus is the expert in resolving data quality issues.

A new fundraising page presents a fantastic opportunity for your nonprofit’s growth and engagement, potentially introducing hundreds of new records into your database. While this influx is net positive, the initial flood of information could lead to duplicate records that disrupt your otherwise clean setup.

Even with the most diligent data management solutions, though, duplicate record sets are inevitable. So how will you monitor and correct these duplicates to protect the validity of data connected to your campaigns and events?

In this post, we share top tips for keeping duplicate data out of campaigns. Once you’ve gathered everything you need, we recommend checking out Arkus’ The Do’s and Don’ts of Duplicate Management in Salesforce series (parts I, II, and III) for next steps.

Set expectations for duplicates

The truth is that you can’t entirely eliminate duplicates, but you can significantly reduce them with the right approach. Let’s explore how to outline and activate these effective deduplication practices at your organization.

Prepare a duplicate management plan

Effective preparation begins with understanding your duplicates.

Start with an audit to define what constitutes a duplicate for your organization. Then, identify where they are and their sources. This understanding will help you set targeted goals for addressing the issue.

Gathering more information and enlisting support can be part of your management plan. Whether leveraging Classy’s partnership with Arkus or creating a plan independently, the best strategies define duplicate criteria, establish specific reduction goals, and outline a timeline for regular review.

For example, you might have only a few initial duplicates in campaigns, but over time, they can accumulate. If 110 people register for each event and 10 of them are existing contacts using new email addresses, your lists can become cluttered quickly.

Once you have a sense of the issue, outline your goals. Here are a few ideas to get started:

• Eliminate duplicate contacts with old or inactive email addresses when provided with a new email address.
• Eliminate duplicate contacts from internal team members registering for events.
• Reduce bounces from inaccurate or inactive duplicate emails to zero.

With your goals set, establish the steps needed to merge records or delete duplicates and prevent them from recurring in the future.

Empower your team with training

Long-time Salesforce users at your organization may overlook knowledge gaps that others have, making it crucial to review your established plan and cleanup processes with the entire team to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Questions that help clarify and define actionable items include:

• How do team members currently address duplicate accounts?
• What duplicate rules do you currently use in Salesforce?
• Who owns contact records or is responsible for deleting or merging them?
• What filtered lists exist and where can team members find duplicates?
• Who has access and do they know where to find lists in connected marketing automation tools such as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement?
• How often do you check campaigns after or during registrations?

After establishing duplicate processes and creating specific rules, collaborate with your team to ensure they function correctly. Document the steps in a shared location for team visibility.

For example, one team member can take responsibility for weekly reviews of event registrants. They’ll filter the list and check for duplicates flagged by the established rules, deciding whether to merge or delete records as appropriate. Additionally, they’ll aim to merge whenever possible to maintain data integrity. A follow-up review will occur after each event, along with a more thorough quarterly review of contacts in the customer relationship manager (CRM) and connected platforms.

In line with assigning tasks, be sure to agree upon or delegate the responsibility of reviewing contacts added to your nonprofit. Set reminders in a trusted location, such as OmniFocus, or coach team members on setting reminders to ensure this crucial step doesn’t get missed. Empower others with the duplicate management tools and training to follow through.

Address what you can manually

During your training and plan implementation, address quality assurance (QA) tasks that you can complete quickly and easily without additional resources. One effective task is to review and simplify page layouts.

Keep page layouts and forms in good shape

Duplicates occur in two primary pathways: externally and internally. At a high level, this often looks like contact data coming in from forms externally versus contact data coming in from internal team members adding it. In both situations, a great user interface is a crucial element for teams to navigate potential issues effectively.

Don’t overlook the importance of maintaining consistent and user-friendly page layouts. Ask what criteria team members need to see, such as:

• Email addresses
• Account owners
• Accounts
• Custom fields

Streamlining data entry processes at the page level reduces errors and duplicates, while clear standards for page layouts and forms minimize confusion. Be sure to:

• Double-check check fields are visible and filtered correctly on lists.
• Avoid complex setups that can lead to poor data entry and additional duplicates.
• Maintain consistency across your campaigns with naming conventions and repeatable protocols around campaign statuses.
• Pay close attention to where duplicates come from when looking at forms and consider setting required fields and/or matching criteria.

Pro Tip: Requiring users to complete a field twice or confirming email addresses can keep out inaccurate data.

Clean data early and often

While Salesforce offers tools to address duplicates, it’s best to prevent them from arising in the first place. Centralize donor data, clean up lists, and standardize formats before importing anything.

Tools like Excel can centralize data by highlighting duplicates at the registration level, helping you filter out spam or test registrations. It’s also useful to assess how many team members use forms to register for events, as you may not need to import data for internal contacts, reducing the risk of duplicate entries.

To standardize data formats, establish a consistent format, such as MM-DD-YYYY or MM-DD-YY for activity dates, and ensure all data adheres to these standards for uploads.

Pro Tip: Always back up your system before importing data to establish a reference point. Additionally, retain a clean copy of your sheets until you’re confident you’ve imported the data correctly.

Use the right tools

In addition to manual QA, what tools can you lean on to make this process easier?

Know and use native Salesforce tools

A few key Salesforce duplicate management tools we recommend include:

• Potential Duplicates
• Matching Rules
• Duplicate Rules

When configuring these tools, ensure your configurations don’t block or lose data from third-party applications. Avoid settings that might inadvertently restrict data entry.

Some fundraising platforms, including Classy, have recommended settings for matching and duplicate rules. For example, requiring an alert for enhanced matching. Also, consider integrating Salesforce with third-party tools for duplicate management and data cleansing, like the ones mentioned in The Do’s and Don’ts of Duplicate Management in Salesforce: Part III.

For different versions of Salesforce, such as the Salesforce Performance or Unlimited editions, you can utilize Duplicate Jobs for mass scans based on matching rules. If you have a Salesforce Enterprise edition, consider voting on the IdeaExchange to advocate for broader access to Duplicate Jobs.

To achieve better data practices that reduce duplicate frequencies, you can also:

• Encourage the use of global search to search for existing contacts before creating new ones.
• Set up validation rules that ensure data gets formatted correctly and meets your standards.
• Consider setting up required fields to enforce completeness.
• Reduce the restrictiveness of validation rules.

Keep donor data clean

Accurate data is essential for effective donor outreach and stewardship. Without it, nonprofits may struggle to develop reliable strategies. These proactive measures not only streamline operations but also build confidence in your organization’s donor data management practices.

Duplicates are a persistent challenge in campaign and event management. By implementing the strategies outlined here, you can manage duplicate contacts effectively and ensure data integrity in your Salesforce environment to support your fundraising efforts and donor relationships.

If you need help eliminating duplicate data from your campaigns while keeping your community connected, contact Classy for more information about our partnership with Arkus.

Copy Editor: Ayanna Julien