Everything but the Kitchen ... Sync!

2. Get executive-level buy-in. This can happen before or after establishing the business goals, but it is important to have before beginning work.

3. Create a working group that focuses on the sync. Depending on your organizational structure, this group should include a knowledgeable member of the offline database team (potentially more than one if there are multiple offline databases), the same for the online database/ECRM and fundraising staff — with emphasis on the heaviest users of the data (likely the direct-response team).