One of the greatest data management challenges any association faces is keeping individual contact information up to date. As I like to tell my clients, "Your members don't care about you until they need something from you." This means they're not going to proactively tell you when their contact info changes.

So what can an association do?

One idea is to periodically ask your members to confirm their contact information. A simple email that includes a link to their online profile, with a request that they review their contact information and update anything that is incorrect.

Or better yet, show the member the important profile information in the email. Provide the link to edit in the bottom. Those who see their information is in error are more likely to update it. (Thanks to Noel Shatananda for this idea!)

Will every member respond? Of course not. Will many? Yes. And that's many more than would otherwise proactively update their contact info.

So if you want your members to update their contact information...ask them to.