Outsourcing your database means that you use an external company to manage your database operations. This can be at a number of levels from storing donor/member information and donations and sending acknowledgement letters, through to subscription management through to hosting the database. The cost is likely to depend upon the size of your database and/or level of transactions. Such services can be used instead of buying your own fundraising software package (or they can complement such pacakages for a specialised part of your fundraising). Whether it is a possible solution for your organisation will depend on your actual fundraising operations and cost considerations.