Every so often I get an email from Alex Evans and Barely Civil Society. Like all good commentators, he makes me think, even if I don’t always agree.
The most recent one (at the time of writing this) was about whether the sector should have a union. I’m not getting into that. What struck me was the idea that we’re all individuals. And my mind wandered to two slightly conflicting versions of that idea that I see all the time.
- Scenario 1: We often talk about supporters being individuals, but we want to group them into segments, or journeys. Isn’t that the antithesis of being an individual? Even with 100 segments, that still might mean you end up in segment 73 along with 935 of your closest friends.
- Scenario 2: Clients often say “We’re the only ones that have this issue.” You’re not. The exact details might be unique to you, but the underlying problem is usually very familiar. Something like financial coding not being structured properly in a CRM.
Is individuality the holy grail or is it a bit of a distraction?
The reality is, we simplify because we have to. If we treated every supporter as completely unique, we’d never be able to communicate at scale. If every organisation’s problems were entirely unique, we’d never be able to solve them. We wouldn’t be reinventing the wheel each time – we’d just be inventing completely new wheels.
So we group. We generalise. We look for patterns.
Not because individuality doesn’t matter – but because it’s the only way to make things work in practice. Most of the time, the challenge is knowing when to dig into the detail – and when to step back and see the pattern. I’ve got space over the coming months to help teams work through the detail – or make sense of the the bigger picture.
And if you know a team that’s a bit stuck with their data – whether that’s processes, their CRM, or just getting things to work as they should – I’d really appreciate an introduction.
#DataQuality
#CRM
#CharitySector
#DataGovernance
#Nonprofits
