Let's dive into data! 

We have an internal, data mapping tool that allows us to manipulate the data on your import file.

What are the capabilities?

• Regular data merge; this will be a 1:1 translation from your data to the design.

  • Example: What comes through on the file is what will appear on the design. 

• Name combining; we are able to combine two of your columns, this is commonly used for names.

  • Example: First and last on an envelope.

• Suggested gift amounts; these can be static or dynamic values. 

  • Example 1: If your import includes giving history, our tools can look at the last gift amount and do some math to create a dynamic ask amount.

  • Example 2: If the constituents are grouped together or segmented on your import, our tools can populate different sets of ask amounts dependent on that grouping.

• Appeal codes; these alpha numeric codes are for use by your team. 

  • Example: Your advancement team can use this code to determine where the gift came from physically, or to align with a campaign, etc. Excellent for tracking those gifts!

• Designations; this one is pretty straightforward, the designation (or destination) for the gift.

  • Example: Annual Fund, etc.

The Rules:

1. Data must be in .xls or .xlsx format. Our team will not convert .csv or .txt files because information can be corrupted in the process (e.g. leading zeros in zip codes)

2. Column headers and/or sheet names cannot contain punctuation or be blank

3. No data fields should contain a forced line break (also known as a “hard return”)

4. No blank columns or rows

5. No repeated column names

6. Street Address, City, State, and Zip must be separate columns

7. All information provided to Pledgemine should be able to be sent through the USPS. Pledgemine will never request highly sensitive information such as financial payment data or personal health data. Do not provide Pledgemine with any information that could not appear on a mail piece.

The Limitations...

Yes, it does seem like we can do anything but we do have our limits!

1. Pledgemine does not open your files to make changes. After submission, any required data changes must be made to the original file and resubmitted to your Customer Operations Partner

2. For mailings completed more than one time throughout the fiscal year, all subsequent data files should conform to the same structure as the previous file(s)

   1. All column headers and data structure should be identical, both in content and spelling/capitalization

   2. Leading and trailing spaces are also recognized and should be accounted for in data headers

3. Some characters in data records are unsupported or may cause errors (for example, quotation marks, some foreign characters, etc.)

   1.  These characters will NOT work:
      '    plain single quote
          the tab character
      !    exclamation DOES NOT WORK correctly - it shows up as an underscore _
      `    plain left quotation mark DOES NOT WORK correctly - it shows up as an underscore _
      [    Left Square Brackets mark DOES NOT WORK correctly - it shows up as an left parentheses )
      ]    Right Square Brackets mark DOES NOT WORK correctly - it shows up as an right parentheses )
      ,    Comma - this causes the column to be split into two
      <    Less Than - Breaks the HTML code so the list doesn’t work afterwards. Excel has a non-breaking space and a non-breaking hyphen which are not allowed.
      Any UTF-8 Characters such as those with an accent (example À )
      Any UTF-8 look alike characters such as
      ´    UTF-8 Acute Accent
      ’    UTF-8 Right Single Quotation Mark
      ”    UTF-8 Left Double Quotation Mark
      ”    UTF-8 Right Double Quotation Mark
      ‘    UTF-8 Left Single Quotation Mark
      -    UTF-8 Hyphens, Non-Breaking Hyphen, Figure Dash, En Dash, Em Dash

   2. These characters WILL work:
      ”    Regular double quote
      @    at sign
      #    pound sign
      $    dollar
      %    percent
      ^    caret
      &    ampersand
      *    star
      (    left parentheses
      )    right parentheses
      +    plus
      =    equals   (should not be the 1st character of a column)
      ~    tilde
      \    Back slash
      {    Left Curly Brackets
      }    Right Curly Brackets
      }    Right Square Brackets
      |    Pipe (vertical bar)
      /    Forward Slash
      >    Greater Than
      ?    Question mark
      :    Colon
      ;    Semicolon

Tips 

• Whenever possible, combine your data into one file with one tab

• If there are different versions of the mailing within one project, clearly indicate the column(s) that defines each segment, we call these segment indicators.

• We discourage using different files and/or tabs for each segment; this makes it difficult for our team to work with your data.

• Make sure you check your data files for blank addresses and international records (International records must have a country column in order to be sent)