Missy Garner, Former Director of Prospect Research
Rick Loveday, Prospect Research Analyst

Part 2: Building the Model

This post is the second in a four-part series that will outline how Clemson University’s Prospect Research Team developed a philanthropic model score.

We sent the data off using DonorSearch’s secure server and received our results within 24 hours. The file contained over 120 data points for us to digest. We wanted to verify our list of philanthropic indicators (see Part 1: Concept Development) fit with the data that was returned. In order to do this, we would need to pore through each and every data point.

The dataset was made up of our principal gift level donors, along with alumni and current parents who had estimated wealth of $1 million or greater based on our ResearchPoint wealth screenings. We reviewed the DonorSearch data for just our group of known principal level donors. This was the group that had the elements we wanted to identify as key traits. We focused on the following five key traits: a one-time gift of $5,000 or more to Clemson or other philanthropic organization; board membership, trusteeship, or other association with a foundation or non-profit; lifetime political giving totaling more than $15,000; $2 million or more in real estate ownership; and listed as an SEC insider or business executive.

Political giving quickly became the dominant trait among the principal level donors. When trying to determine who is a likely major gift prospect, looking at those who have been large political donors is one of the best places to start. Not only is political giving at high levels a knock-out indicator for wealth, but at the higher levels it is an incredibly predictive marker for philanthropy.

When charitable and political giving were combined, those that had given over $2,500 total in lifetime political giving were responsible for over 54% of all philanthropy. An individual whose life-time FEC giving is $10,000 or larger is almost undeniably wealthy. An individual whose life-time FEC giving is $15,000 or larger has almost undeniably made a five, six, or seven figure charitable donation. Out of the principal level donors, over 50% had a lifetime political giving total over $15,000.

As we filled out the model, we decided to assign one point to each of the above listed five key traits. That gave us a scoring system where an individual could be rated between 0 and 5, with 5 being the best. As we applied the whole number score, we realized that this model score did not differentiate between the different levels of giving – it merely stated whether an individual hit the minimum requirements. We had no idea if an individual gave $15,000 or $100,000 politically. We also could not distinguish between a person who gave a $5,000 philanthropic gift or a $500,000 gift. We quickly came to the realization that we had to further develop the model to account for the different range of gifts. In order to solve this, we needed to figure out a decimal-based scoring system.

The next blog post will detail how we tweaked our model score using two decimal places to highlight differences in giving.