Sparks is the children's medical research charity. They fund pioneering paediatric medical research across the spectrum of childhood diseases with the mission to help babies be born healthy and stay healthy throughout their childhood. 'As a small charity, we rely on the support of our network of supporters, fundraisers and volunteers,' says Catryn Ladd, trust fundraising manager for Sparks.

Currently Sparks has approximately 42,000 records stored on its fundraising CRM database system, Raiser's Edge. It has been undergoing a major project to reorganise the database and create new procedures to increase use and consistency across the organisation. 'With limited charity funds available, it is vital that our database is up to date and accurate to ensure that we are reaching the right people with the information at the right time,' says Catryn. 'Out of date information could potentially cost us a lot of money in unnecessary mailouts.'

Sparks chose Royal Mail's Bureau Services to help clean its data as 'it offered value for money and we welcomed the individual attention that the team was able to give to us throughout the project,' says Catryn. To start, Royal Mail's data consultancy recommended assessing the quality of data by running a data health-check, which was completed in January 2011. They advised on the best way to improve the data and the budget required to run this processing.

Sparks carried out a mailing to around 13,000 supporters in April, sending a newsletter with a reader survey and opportunity to give. The aim was to engage supporters with its latest research outcomes, reach out to families affected by the conditions that Sparks supports research into, and let people know about upcoming events and new projects. 'The reaction to the mailing was incredibly encouraging, sparking a good response to the reader survey, volunteering requests and individual donations,' says Catryn.

Good data delivers good results.