This month’s post comes to us from APRA-C members Tania Drummond, Director of Prospect Research at North Carolina State University, and Taryn Oesch, Prospect Research Analyst at North Carolina State University.

Last year at NC State, we embarked on an ambitious project: finding ways to emphasize and track efforts aimed at discovering potential new major gift prospects in order to build a longer-term prospect pipeline (a process often simply referred to as “discovery”). Prior to beginning work on our “discovery tracking system,” we didn’t have much of a strategic or systematic emphasis on discovery work. Some of our discovery efforts that were taking place were not being adequately recorded in our database, and we had no reporting in place to keep track of our findings and help inform future decision making.

Previous to last fall, discovery prospects were included in major gift officers’ (MGOs) prospect portfolios, identified with a status code of “discovery.” Rarely was there time to review discovery prospects as part of regular portfolio strategy meetings, and we weren’t specifically addressing discovery work otherwise. We felt the first thing we needed to do to create a greater emphasis on discovery work was to remove discovery prospects from major gift portfolios – where they seemed to get “lost” - and create separate discovery “pools” for each major gift officer on campus. Major gift portfolios would continue to be managed by Prospect Management, while the new discovery pools would be managed by Prospect Research.

In a collaborative process that included leadership in central development, Prospect Research, Prospect Management, and Information Services, we worked towards a date on which all prospects labeled “discovery” in our major gift officers’ portfolios would be rolled over into new discovery pools. At the time the pools were created, we also established a new contact report purpose code for discovery, and database programming was put in place that requires an outcome code on all discovery contact reports before they can be saved; outcome codes will allow us to track interactions with potential prospects and use that data to help us make determinations about what next steps should be taken with the individuals. Our tracking system also allows us to enter start and stop dates for when individuals are assigned to discovery pools, so we can eventually track how long individuals are in discovery and we can track when good prospects aren’t getting attention and perhaps needs to be moved to other development personnel. The system also allows us to note how the prospect was identified, so we can track which prospecting methods are providing us with the best results.

At the time the new discovery pools were created, the directors of Prospect Research and Information Services conducted training sessions for all major gift officers and involved administrative personnel; in the sessions, we detailed the creation of the discovery pools and the tracking system, explained related new processes and codes, and answered questions about who was now responsible for what. We explained potential benefits of the system, shared what we saw as next steps in the system’s development, and acknowledged where we knew we had challenges and unanswered questions that would need to be resolved as we moved forward. Finally, we discussed how the initial discovery pools, having been rolled over from prospect portfolios where they were not actively managed, were, in general, too large and likely contained some prospects that were not the best possible candidates for future major gift donors. We asked all gift officers to review their new discovery pools and notify Prospect Research of the names of individuals they would like removed from their pools. When that process was complete, we would know where we needed to start work filling pools with new discovery prospects.

Fast forward to almost a year later, and we’ve found that not many of our major gift officers have found the time to review their discovery pools, and we’ve not made as much forward progress in using this new system as we would like. The Prospect Research team came together and asked ourselves, what could we do to assist our MGOs in cleaning up their discovery pools gaining some traction on moving forward with tracking our discovery efforts? We decided to conduct a few manual reviews of discovery pools (exactly what we’d expected of our MGOs), and found it was a laborious, time-consuming task – no wonder many of them had not found the time to conduct the reviews themselves! We decided we had to come up with a way to speed the process; our solution was to divide and conquer and have our IS team produce a report with about 65 data points that allowed us to more quickly review indicators to help us determine if we thought an individual was a good major gift prospect.

We took the portfolio of one of our regional MGOs, whose discovery pool numbered over 300, and we divided it among the analysts on the team.  Using our data point review, we made determinations about which individuals we felt should stay in or be removed from the pool and which might need the MGOs input to make that determination. The entire team then met with the MGO, and together we reviewed each individual one by one and made final determinations about who should stay and who should go. The end result was a pool that was “MGO-Approved” and with which she was comfortable working.

Our willing MGO who partnered with us to be the test case for our review was so happy with the outcome that she sent an email to her colleagues and supervisors recommending they all take the time to meet with us for the same review. She reiterated her comments in a monthly meeting of development officers, and we’ve since met with three more MGOs to conduct the discovery pool cleanup session and had requests from six more to schedule the sessions. While we still have a way to go to have this process done for all the MGOs on campus, we’ve reignited interest in the discovery tracking system and feel we’ve got some momentum in moving efforts forward.

So, what have we discovered on this path to creating a discovery tracking system?

·         Change is hard for most people; expect change to take longer than anticipated or hoped.

·         If the change needed is important to you, you may have to be a change agent; ask yourself what you can do impact the process in a positive way (and you may have to do this several times along the way until you get to where you want to go!)

·         Collaborate and ask for help. We made forward progress again when the Research team worked together to come up with a possible solution to our problem and when we partnered with our colleagues in IS and development.

·         If you can, find an advocate. The MGO who agreed to be our test case became a public, vocal and enthusiastic supporter. Her initial email to her supervisors and colleagues also went to our Vice Chancellor of Advancement; his immediate response was, “How can Research make this happen for everyone?” His support was encouraging to us in our efforts and served as encouragement to development officers to consider working with us (we work in a de-centralized organizational structure, so MGOs aren’t required to work with us or do this work themselves – we have to find ways to entice them to want to do this project with us!).

We’re far from finished with this project. But the development of the system, alone, has helped to increase discovery visits by MGOs, and, with team effort, we’ve managed to jumpstart stalled efforts so we can keep moving forward toward having a well-running, fully-functioning development tracking system.