Tech Tip: Why We Need Your Data

by Russ Alman, Communications Director

​For this month’s Tech Tip article, I'm going to flip the script. Typically, I provide information to you to help you navigate technology. But this month, I’m asking you to give us more information. ​

Russ Alman
Communications Director

Demographic Information. Recently, I added some new fields to both the printed and online version of our membership application, including your household income level, race and ethnicity. I know that many of you are hesitant to share this type of information and your participation is voluntary. However, the reason we are asking is to improve our chances of receiving public and private grants to fund both building operations and our capital improvement project.

In order to qualify for many grants, applications must provide demographics like the location of the population served and how many members live in low-income areas or outside of the city limits. Qualification can also depend on the average or mean income, gender, age and race makeup of the membership base.

We already know where you live, but we need to update our records with this basic demographic data. The more of our members who are willing to supply this information, the better the odds that we will qualify for funding. We ask that when you next renew your membership — or sooner if you are so inclined — please provide us with this additional information. 

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Email Addresses. I’m excited to announce that as part of my role as Director of Communications, I have finally brought the Senior Center into the 21st Century! In early May, I sent out a welcome email to introduce our members to The Spark, our new electronic newsletter. We chose this name to be complementary to the printed publication, The Livewire. 

We are now sending out The Spark as a weekly e-newsletter to keep you up to date in between The Livewire mailings. Please make sure that we have your current email address so that you can receive a copy.

My intent, at least for the foreseeable future, is use The Spark as a supplement to The Livewire. We have heard loudly and clearly from you that you still want The Livewire in print, and we want to continue to provide this service as long as it’s financially feasible to do so. At the same time, a month is a long time between issues, and we want to keep you current with scheduling updates, reminders about special events and time-sensitive information, like unexpected closures. Expect to see a weekly email from The Spark with additional updates for “breaking news.”
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I sent the initial Spark to all of members for which we have valid email addresses (1,054 as of this writing) and I'm happy to say that over half of you opened the email, which is a very high “open rate” for an e-newsletter. 

However, there are another 1,000+ of you for whom we do not have a valid email address. I'm asking that you please provide us with your email address if you have one so that we can send you the latest updates from the Senior Center.

Cell Phone Numbers.  It’s hard to believe that 30 years ago, cell phones were the size of a backpack and cost a dollar per minute to use. Advancements in technology have shrunk this down to a computer that you can hold in your hand and make calls and access the internet from just about anywhere. As a result, most people have forgone their traditional “landline” phone and rely solely on their smartphone. In fact, I suspect that within the senior population, you use your smartphone to send and receive phone calls and text messages more often than you check your email. 

Your access to cell phones provides us a unique opportunity to stay in touch with you. Our membership management software, MySeniorCenter, provides us with tools to directly send you text messages from within the software. It also allows us to send broadcast text messages to groups. We can, for example, send a text to everyone who is registered for lunch if there is a last-minute change of menu, or even to the entire membership to let people know we are closed due to inclement weather. We plan to use this tool more in the future, but it will only work if we have your cell phone number on file. 

How to provide the information. The sooner we receive this new information, the more effectively we can communicate with you. To that end, we will have updated membership forms available at:

• our front desk
• your tables during lunch
• your activity groups and classes

Just enter the items that have changed and then check the box that says “Information Update Only”. There is a copy on Page 31 of The Livewire that you can clip out and mail in or drop off at the reception desk.

We will also expand the renewal form we send out in the mail to collect the information. 

Finally, I have created a Member Update Form that you can access from your computer or mobile device to securely submit the information to our office. You can access the form at wvsac.link/memberupdate. Note that this form is abbreviated and only for sending updates.

What we do with your information. I want to stress that we are asking for this additional information solely to provide better services to you. We will only share the aggregate information we collect for fundraising purpose: We will never share any of your personal details outside of the Senior Center. 
Thank you for your help in updating our records. Your information will allow us to serve you better through improved communication and hopefully access to additional grant money.