Data Submission Instructions

As part of Scout Quest participation, you will be asked to submit the following files through a secure file sharing platform. An individual (or individuals) at your organization must be designated as the file submitter(s), and our team will set them up in our platform.

Scout Quest File Submission

EMAIL AND ACTIVITY DATA:

1) AUDIENCE EMAIL FILE: An export of every US email address in your organization’s system (whether unsubscribed or not — we’re looking for everyone in the United States). This file should be a single column of email addresses. Please exclude records from outside the US or where you are unsure of the address. Please also exclude any individuals who have exercised their right to opt out of sharing personal data (note that this is different from an email opt-out).

2) UNSUBSCRIBED EMAIL FILE: An export of every email address in your organization’s system that is currently unsubscribed (i.e. opted out from receiving email). This file should be a single column of email addresses.

3) INACTIVE EMAIL SUPPRESSION FILE: An export of every email address in your organization’s system that currently is being suppressed from being sent email on account of being considered inactive. This file should be a single column of email addresses.

This inactive file submission is optional, but will provide for better targeting and purchase options in the data we share back to you. If you do not submit an Inactive file, a proxy inactive file will be created using your other data submissions. It will be defined as:
Anyone in your audience file who is not unsubscribed, but has not taken action, clicked or opened an email in the last 12 months.

4) 6 AND 12 MONTH OPENER FILES: Two files requested: a file of everyone who has opened an email since March 1, 2025, as well as a separate file of everyone who has opened an email since September 1, 2025, or as close to those time frames as possible (we are allowing some leeway here, knowing that some CRMs may track this as a specific date, others may give a relative range). These two files should be a single column of email addresses.

5) 6 AND 12 MONTH CLICKER FILES: Two files requested: a file of everyone who has clicked an email since March 1, 2025, as well as a separate file of everyone who has clicked an email since September 1, 2025, or as close to those time frames as possible (we are allowing some leeway here, knowing that some CRMs may track this as a specific date, others may give a relative range). These two files should be a single column of email addresses.

6) 6 AND 12 MONTH ACTION-TAKER FILES: Two files requested: a file of everyone who has taken an online advocacy action since March 1, 2025, as well as a separate file of everyone who has taken an online advocacy action since September 1, 2025, or as close to those time frames as possible. If your organization does not engage in online advocacy, please let us know (in which case, this submission would not be required). These two files should be a single column of email addresses

TEXT MESSAGING DATA:

This section of text messaging data is optional. Include it in your submission if you are interested in getting data back on how your text messaging list interacts with other organizations in the co-op.

1) AUDIENCE TEXT MESSAGING FILE: An export of every US cell phone number in your organization’s system (whether unsubscribed or not — we’re looking for everyone in the United States).

This file should include TWO columns: the first column is cell phone numbers; the second column is the email addresses (where available) for the person with the corresponding cell phone number. Please exclude records from outside the US or where you are unsure of the address. Please also exclude any individuals who have exercised their right to opt out of sharing personal data.

2) UNSUBSCRIBED TEXT FILE: An export of every phone number in your organization’s system that is currently unsubscribed OR hard bouncing (i.e. opted out from receiving text, or is otherwise not reachable via text). This file should be a single column of phone numbers.

3) INACTIVE TEXT MESSAGING SUPPRESSION FILE. An export of every cell phone number in your organization’s system that currently is being suppressed from being sent text messages on account of being considered inactive. This file should be a single column of cell phone numbers

DONATION DATA:

ONLINE AND DIRECT MAIL DONATION DATA: An export of online and direct mail donations from US addresses, from January 1, 2021 – the end of the most recent month with the following fields.

Please note that when we ask for “direct mail” donations, we’re specifically looking for donations tied to a mail program, and not all offline donations. If that seems like a problem, please let us know!

Donor Email Address (where available)
Donor Cell Phone Number (where available)
Donor First Name
Donor Last Name
Donor Street 1
Donor Street 2
Donor City
Donor State
Donor Zip
Donor Country
Donation Date
Donation Amount
Donation Channel* (e.g. online or direct mail)
Donation Form Name*
Donation Source Code*
A flag for for the frequency of the donation (e.g. one-time or monthly)

*If you have a field in your CRM that denotes online gift channel (e.g. email, ads, SMS), then please provide that for us. If not, we will attempt to use the Form name and Source code data provided instead.

We will be using Donation Form Name and Donation Source Code information to attempt to identify donations that come through the Email, Advertising, and Text Messaging Channels, as well as Donor Advised Fund (DAF) donations.

When you submit your data, please email scoutquest@mrss.com with any instructions on how Email, Text Messaging, Advertising, and DAF gifts can be identified (e.g. “all Email donations have “em” in the source code”). If you have a source code generator or sourcing convention guide, you can also share that with us.

Please email scoutquest@mrss.com if you have any questions.