Verification for nonprofit donor lists
Nonprofit lists are usually older than commercial ones and assembled from more sources: event registrations, a donation platform, a volunteer spreadsheet, and a decade of people who gave once.
The appeal that matters most is often to the lapsed part of that list, which is also the part most likely to bounce. That is an awkward combination and it is the reason to check before sending rather than after.
The year-end appeal is the riskiest send you make
It goes to everyone, including supporters who last gave in 2019. A decade-old address on a defunct provider bounces, the rate climbs past the threshold, and the appeal that funds next year's program gets filtered partway through.
The second cost is specific to this sector. Sending platforms that offer nonprofit rates are not more forgiving about bounce rates, and a suspension during the two weeks that raise a third of your annual income is not recoverable by a support ticket.
Credits here come out of program budget, which is a real argument for checking the lapsed segment rather than the whole database.
How the work gets done
The order that matters for nonprofits, rather than a generic checklist.
Verify only the lapsed segment first
Anyone who has not given or opened in two years. That segment holds almost all the risk, and checking it alone keeps the spend proportionate.
Use the free hundred to sample
A hundred checks a month, no card. Run a sample of the oldest records and you will know whether the full list needs doing before spending anything.
Keep the unknowns
An unknown result means a server would not answer, not that the supporter is gone. Deleting donor records to improve a percentage is a bad trade in a sector where re-acquisition costs more than retention.
Check registrations after every event
Event sign-up data is typed in a hurry on a phone. A small check after each event stops the main list degrading between appeals.
What verification will not do here
What it costs
A hundred free checks a month covers sampling. A full clean of a 50,000-record donor database is $89, and credits never expire, so a pack bought before the year-end appeal still covers spring.
Every tier works the same way. Unknown results and duplicates are never billed, and credits do not expire.
Questions we get asked
Is there a nonprofit discount?
The published volume pricing is what everyone pays. At $0.00178 per address on the 50,000 tier, a full database clean is usually less than a single appeal's print cost.
Should I remove lapsed donors who come back catch-all?
No. Catch-all means the domain accepts everything, which is common and says nothing about that person. Segment them and read the bounce rate on that send.
We merged a partner's list. Is that a problem?
It carries spam-trap risk that no verifier can remove, because pristine traps look exactly like working mailboxes. Verify it, send to it separately, and watch it closely.
Try it on your own list first
100 free checks a month, no card. Run a sample and read the unresolved count before you decide anything.