Not to Be Indelicate, but …

Plug the holes
Chicca D’Agostino, president of Focus USA, a Hackensack, N.J.-based list firm that maintains myriad compiled files on donors, likens her job to hurtling down a highway in a big rig carrying precious cargo.

“This is how all fundraisers should view their donor files,” she says. “Your database might contain gift amounts or charitable-trust information and should be seen not just as a collection of names and addresses, but rather as a file of precious information about individuals that must be protected at all costs.”