Data management best practices
Updated 3 months ago
Use Gratona as a trusted source of donor, giving, program, and relationship data by defining ownership, validating imports, and maintaining consistent records.
Choose the source of truth
Decide which system owns donor identity, gifts, accounting categories, email activity, and program data before connecting integrations. Document the direction of each sync so teams know where corrections belong.
Prepare imports carefully
Clean a copy of the source data, preserve the original export, and test a small representative sample before importing the full file.
Use stable external identifiers where available.
Standardize dates, currency, country, state, phone, and email formats.
Separate donor identity from household, gift, designation, program, recipient, and commitment data.
Confirm how recurring records and historical transactions should be represented.
Follow How do I import data into my account? for the Gratona import workflow.
Maintain donor identity and households
Review duplicates before merging or creating records. Keep personal and organization records distinct, connect household members intentionally, and record communication preferences on the correct profile.
Protect sensitive information
Grant access according to role and program responsibility. Record consent and communication restrictions, and avoid placing sensitive personal data in free-text fields when a controlled field or permission boundary is available.
Record relationship activity consistently
Keep meaningful notes, tasks, calls, meetings, email activity, and ownership changes connected to the relevant record. Use agreed categories and naming rules so teammates can understand the history without guessing.
Monitor data quality
Review missing contact details, duplicates, unmapped imports, failed integrations, inconsistent designations, and records without an owner. Resolve systematic issues at the source instead of repeatedly correcting reports.
Use reports as a verification layer
Reconcile donation totals, recurring activity, program counts, and accounting mappings after imports or integration changes. Save repeatable reports for routine quality checks and document any intentional differences between systems.