➕ This feature is only available to Givebutter Plus users.
Givebutter Plus is a paid subscription service that gives you access to buttery advanced features to help you raise more. Read more about Givebutter Plus →
Ensure your donor records are accurate and up-to-date. We verify addresses, validate contact information, identify errors, and help you maintain clean and reliable data.
About data hygiene 🧼
Data hygiene is the practice of ensuring that information is clean, accurate, consistent, and up-to-date while maintaining data integrity. Data hygiene activities include:
Removing errors, inconsistencies, and duplicates
Verifying the accuracy and completeness of data (validation)
Ensuring data is formatted consistently (standardization)
Identifying and removing duplicate records (deduplication)
Clean data drives accurate analytics, targeted marketing, and better fundraising results. It ensures your organization makes informed decisions and maintains a positive brand reputation.
Contact deduplication is free and accessible to all – you do not need a Givebutter Plus subscription to resolve duplicate contacts in your account.
Emails 💻
Email addresses are routinely checked for validity and for bounces via Engage communications, receipts, or other notifications. Emails can be flagged as (and filtered by):
Invalid email – This email is not deliverable, possibly due to wrong information or a nonexistent email address, such as a string without a domain or containing other errors.
Bounced email – A bounced email address is due to either the recipient's inbox being full, the email being blocked by the recipient, or the domain not existing.
Phone numbers 📱
Phone numbers are routinely checked for validity and for bounces via text message communication. Any number recognized as invalid will appear in the table below for correction. Additionally, primary phone numbers must be mobile numbers in order for text message communications to be valid. Landline numbers are flagged so you can quickly enter a mobile alternative for that contact. Phone numbers can be flagged as (and filtered by):
Invalid phone number – This number is either not deliverable, or is a disposable number. It may not be deliverable because it includes wrong information or the phone number does not exist.
Bounced text – A bounced phone number is due to a text delivery attempt being blocked or sent to an incorrect number or landline.
Landline number – Landline numbers as primary phone numbers are flagged so that a mobile number can be added for text message communications.
Addresses ✉️
Addresses are routinely checked for validity. Addresses can be flagged as (and filtered by):
Invalid address – This address is not deliverable, which may be due to wrong information or the address not existing.
Change of address – A change of address is initiated by the recipient a Notice of Change of Address is submitted to USPS.
Potential issue – This address is deliverable but is missing additional details or has unnecessary or incorrect information.
Updating flagged information 🚩
To update flagged emails, phone numbers, or addresses, all you need to do is fill out the section below the current (flagged) information. Click Update to save.
Saving updates for later 💾
If you want to make an update, but don't have new contact information to hand, you can also save updates for later. Click Save for later at the bottom of the record you want to save.
Updates saved for later can be found by clicking the save/flag icon for each separate data type (emails, phone numbers, and addresses). This icon is located to the right side of the search bar.
Ignoring updates ☁️
To temporarily remove a record from your list of flagged data to update, you can click Ignore at the bottom of the record instead of updating. Clicking Ignore will remove this record from your Data Hygiene records for 90 days, after which it will appear again for review.
You cannot ignore a record indefinitely or override the 90-day cycle. To continue ignoring flagged records, you'll need to mark them as ignored in the future.
FAQ 🤔
Are data checks instant? How often does this feature check for issues with my contact information?
Data validation is not instantaneous. This process involves many concurrent data checks, which run at different intervals in the background. We'll let you know when your data needs attention!
What information is scanned? All contact information, or just primary information?
Givebutter’s data hygiene tool checks the accuracy of the primary address, email, and phone number for each contact. It doesn’t check secondary information unless it’s marked as the primary contact information. If a secondary contact becomes primary, it will then be checked for accuracy.
Can I initiate a data check for specific records, or at a specific time?
Not at this time – data checks are performed as background tasks, and users do not have direct access to these processes. Data hygiene checks run automatically.
Is contact duplicate detection still free?
Yes – our contact deduplication feature is still free for all Givebutter users. Data Hygiene is a separate feature available for Givebutter Plus subscribers.