Overview
Our NCOA Contact Repair service provides updated mailing addresses for any of your contacts that may have changed their address with the USPS.
Each month we'll check your contacts' addresses against the USPS National Change of Address (NCOA) database. If any of your contacts have moved, we will then update those addresses in your Donor Management System.
With approximately 10% of US citizens moving per year, this is a great way to ensure that your contact information stays up to date!
Frequently Asked Questions
When do you process repairs and how long does it take?
Our NCOA Contact Repair process takes place monthly. We begin the NCOA Contact Repair on the 15th of the month. For example, January 15, 2022, was our first NCOA Contact Repair export for the year of 2022. It then takes around 5-8 business days for us to receive any updated information back and then we will begin preparing your system for the updates.
Does NCOA Contact Repair include Canadian and/or international addresses?
No, we currently receive all updates using the United States Postal Service's National Change of Address system, which restricts it to US based address updates.
Does NCOA Contact Repair include my organizational contacts?
No, we currently are only able to provide this service for your individual contacts.
How do you know when an address needs to be updated?
We provide the following fields to the USPS National Change of Address database:
first name
last name
email address
company name
home address
city
state
zip code
These fields are then used to determine if any of your contacts have recently updated their address in the NCOA system.
Do you keep the original address?
Yes, we do store the original address for you in a field titled, "DS Address Original". You will find this in your contact's custom field section.
Am I able to report on what addresses have received updates?
You can use Donor Management's filtering to generate a report of all contacts that have received an address update. We detail the type of address and add it to your system inside of the "DS Address Add Type" field.
Read more about building filters here.
What is the format of the updated addresses?
We bring over the updated addresses in the format used by the USPS. This format means that words like "Street" and "Northwest" are abbreviated, and the updated address includes the full 9-digit zip code. Apartment and suite numbers will be included in "Address Line 1" field.
Does NCOA Contact Repair update work addresses?
No, we currently are only able to provide updates to the primary address on the contact record of individuals.