World Vision New Zealand - Case study

Data Quality Programme
Case Study: Realising benefits of data quality in a not-for-profit organisation
Customer: World Vision New Zealand

World Vision New Zealand is a humanitarian organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice.

Given its not-for-profit status, the organisation is always keen to minimise expenses in order to maximise the amount of funding sent to its partners within the developing world.

With several mailings being sent out to around 100,000 sponsors and potential donors every year, World Vision New Zealand asked New Zealand Post how it could reduce its mailing costs - as well as its returned mail.

As an account customer, World Vision New Zealand already receives bulk mail rates.  However, to continue receiving discounted rates beyond 1 July 2008, the organisation had to start taking steps towards meeting the envelope and addressing layout standards, effective from this date. It also had to ensure that, from the same date, at least 85 percent of the addresses on each of its mailing lists would be accurate - when compared against the New Zealand Post Postal Address File.

Realising the cost benefits of meeting the new standards – as well as using good quality data – World Vision New Zealand quickly set to work.

Lisa Cescon, CEO, explains:

"We knew that by having incorrect information in our data files we were risking our mailings not reaching the intended recipient - who could well be an existing or a new donor - as well as potentially having to pay more in postage from July next year. For us, every cent counts so we decided to be smart, save money and make the investment in improving our customer address information."

World Vision New Zealand enlisted the help of its Australian counterpart to develop a new Donor Management System. This was integrated with addressing software to facilitate real-time address updating as well as address washing. The organisation now intends to run quarterly data washes to ensure address accuracy is maintained.

"Only by ensuring that our address information is accurate and complete can we effectively segment our mailing database," says Miss Cescon. "In fact, we now use the new postcodes as a basis for some of our business reporting - so it is essential that these are up-to-date."

World Vision New Zealand's investment in data quality means that it now operates its mail outs more efficiently - with minimal returned mail - is on target to continue receiving its bulk mail rates from 1 July 2008.

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