Officials can't easily tell whether a donor has given in multiple ways. "When we don't seem to know they've given in all those areas, donors think we don't appreciate them," White said.

Even the Salvation Army's best estimate for its total number of donors in the West -- 2.7 million -- is tenuous, acknowledged Dona Romine, director of direct mail and fundraising at Salvation Army West.

To fix that, White is overseeing the $2 million rollout of a software package called Portfolio from Peabody, Mass.-based Amergent Inc. Portfolio will centralize all of the disparate donor databases in the Western Territory, while still allowing local organizations to maintain some control over their donor information.

"There are a lot of turf issues, but Portfolio will allow us to keep data in one place and let people still have ownership," White said.

Such a pragmatic strategy is smart, according to Charlie Hunsaker, president of RI Arlington, a technology consultancy to nonprofit groups.