"Good cause" fundraising rarely works
A note on events canceled - long ago

"Is your event customer data backed up? Are you absolutely sure?"

During a client data mining project, the following gem came to light.

A client was conducting a customer loyalty assessment. In short, how many customers return to an annual event over five years.

If you have never run a loyalty assessment, I strongly encourage you to do so!

During the data mining process, the client organized their customer data year by year. One of the cross-checks to verify the integrity of data involves gross revenue. You add up all the individual customer transactions and compare them with the reported gross income.

By now, you might be thinking, "come on, Eugene, you mean to tell me events don't have a firm grasp on their own customer data?"

Unfortunately, they do not. And what's worse is it's a chronic problem.

In the case above, almost $500,000 USD of customer data went missing. Yet, every year the client insisted that their data was properly backed up. In this case, it was nowhere to be found.

My goal isn't to rag on clients here. It is to emphasize the point that your customer data is precious and needs to be securely guarded with vigilance.

Fortunately, there is a silver lining to the story. Thanks to NDAs and such, I had a secure backup of the client's missing data and provided them with a copy.

So, I ask you – "Is all your customer data really backed up? And are you absolutely sure?"

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