Data can be harder to find than the proverbial needle in a haystack if a sourcecode isn’t properly assigned and entered into your database. A sourcecode tracks donor-specific and campaign-specific information that is vital to almost every action taken when it comes to marketing and fundraising.

The process starts with you deciding what you want to know about your donors, such as giving behavior and preferences. You need to gather information and then operationalize it. 

Those were key elements of the session “Cracking the Code: Unlocking the Potential of Your Fundraising Program through Source Coding” during the Bridge to Integrated Marketing and Fundraising Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. The session speakers were Jennifer Deerr, executive vice president of K2D Strategies, Stephanie Musser, senior account director of K2D Strategies and Leslie Mazeska, senior director, development at the Air & Space Forces Association.

Deerr told the audience to “start with what you want to know about donors and build backwards to help you determine the source code structure that will be most useful to your specific data collection.”

When you sourcecode, you might want to know the following about your donors:

* Giving behavior

* When do they give?

* How they prefer to make their gift — online, offline?

* How often do they make a gift? Annually? 2+ times? Monthly? 

* How much do they give?

* To what do they respond? Appeals? Renewals? Newsletters? 

* What subject/programs interest them? 

* How do they interact with your organization? Volunteer? Member? Other? 

Musser added, “Once you determine what you want to know it’s important to connect with all internal and external stakeholders.”

 When you operationalize your sourcecode structure, you need to include the development team, the database manager, cage/data entry coordinator, the list broker, the agency, and the data processor. 

Here are a few questions to answer: 

* What documents does your data entry coordinator/cager need to look up the donor?  

* Does your cager/lockbox require a scanline? 

* What are the rules for building the scanline? 

* Are live samples required for testing? 

Once you have your sourcecode structure and you are consistently applying it and gathering information, you are ready to use that data to improve your direct response fundraising, according to the speakers. The data can help you to refine your audience selects for each campaign by removing donors less likely to respond, reducing costs, and improving net. You can track individual cohort performance over time to identify and address any segment specific challenges.

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