December's blog comes to us from Barbara Chadwell, Director of Prospect Management and Research at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC.
When an organization has a change in leadership positions there is often a mixture of excitement and uneasiness in the air. Existing procedures, protocols, and reports will be used or seen for the first time by new players. Assembling information that will help assess the soundness of your fundraising operation will be a given. Those of us that work in prospect management and research should be among the most important go-to persons because we have one of the best “big picture” views of the fundraising operation’s strengths and weaknesses. We see the work of most everyone and we know the ins and outs of the giving and prospect data.
During times of transition, hopefully it is revealed that your prospect management system is one of your organization’s most important assets and not one of your weakest links. Many of us have spent a great deal of time establishing and refining a prospect management and reporting system that captures the basics: prospect ratings, assignments, external screenings, contact histories, solicitation data, and action items. We have reports that can be sliced and diced numerous ways to reveal the big picture for anyone who will take the time to review them. The system shouldn’t be complicated. It just has to be kept up to date! If you haven’t been successful in eliminating shadow lists and gotten your leadership to support the idea that “if it isn’t recorded in the database then it didn’t happen” then your big picture view will be incomplete. The database must be the central point of information sharing; otherwise accountability and progress reporting will continue to be a difficult and time consuming task.
To this end, one of the most fundamental things you must stress with every new member of the fundraising team is the importance of documentation. Be specific about your standards. Share examples. Give them feedback. Show them the work of the person that does this the best on the fundraising team. When you see gaps, keep after them to do better. In our respective areas we all have a responsibility to record value-added information and leave a plan of action for the person that may come after us. Without a shared trail of activity, you can have potential chaos when a key position becomes vacated. You will lose momentum and you may even run the risk of looking unprofessional because you’ve let something important fall between the cracks. Why risk that happening?
We should never quit being among the loudest advocates for recording and centralizing information. When you have a simple prospect management system that everyone buys into and leadership commits to reporting from, then there is no angst in accurately answering questions such as “How many major gift solicitations did your team make last year?” or “What asks are currently outstanding?” In the end, the prospect management system that you maintain on a daily basis will be an everlasting gift to your organization.
