Written by: Elizabeth Roma, The Helen Brown Group, APRA-Carolinas President-Elect

Whether you are new to the field of prospect development or are a seasoned veteran, chances are you’ve been asked to research a foundation. Maybe you discovered a family foundation in the course of researching a new donor, or took a deep dive into the activities of a trustee’s company foundation in order to better understand how her business approaches philanthropy, or were asked to create a list of foundations that seem likely to support your organization. If you haven’t done this type of work already, you can just about bet that you will be asked to do it at some point, probably in the not too distant future. According to Linsey McGoey’s book No Such Thing as a Free Gift, almost half of the roughly 85,000 private foundations in the US were started in the past fifteen years, and new foundations are being created at a rate of about 5,000 each year.

In many ways foundation research can be a dream assignment for prospect researchers. Foundations are created exclusively for the purpose of philanthropy, and in the US they are required by law to provide a high degree of transparency about their operations through detailed reporting on their assets, grantmaking, and personnel. In addition to what they reveal explicitly about the philanthropic activities of their founders, foundation filings can often give us clues into the lives of our prospects that we might not get from other sources.

I recently recorded a video podcast with Helen Brown, founder and president of the Helen Brown Group, in which we discuss the basics of foundation research, including what to look for when researching foundations, how to navigate the Form 990, ways to approach identifying new foundation prospects, and how to make connections with foundations through your own constituents. If you could use a primer on foundation research, settle in with a fresh cup of tea and have a look. I hope you’ll learn something new and pick up some new tips!

Written by: Abigail Mann, University of South Carolina

In November 2015, the Prospect Research Department at the University of South Carolina received a request from one of our professors based overseas. They were planning an alumni event for the coming year and wanted a list of university alumni living in France and Germany. As our team’s international analyst, I was handed an early Christmas present.

My initial plan was to conduct a search on LinkedIn (LI) filtered by school and location and compile these results. The search was successful, but there was a catch – I was working with a basic account, which meant that nearly all of the alumni in my search results were named “LinkedIn Member.” So what’s an analyst to do with a deadline looming and a project budget of free resources only? Below is a methodology as well as tips, tricks, and work-arounds I discovered as a result of this project. It may not solve all of your problems, but you’ll still be surprised by what you do find along the way.

Start with What You Have

My first step was to regroup and start closer to home – specifically, what did our CRM have to tell us. If your CRM is anything like ours, then you tend to take your international data with a grain of salt. Foreign regulations and privacy laws make it difficult to verify and update contact information, screen for capacity, etc., so this data isn’t always as current as what we have on file for our domestic alumni. I also knew that there were going to be gaps in my data. For example, my LI search for alumni in France returned over 300 results while our CRM listed only 140. A smaller dataset for each country actually ended up being an advantage, since I was going to have to do some research on each constituent individually. (Short of being tied to my desk chair and put on a caffeine drip, there was no way I was going to be able to reverse engineer the results for the 300+ alumni in France, not to mention the nearly 500 LI said were in Germany).

Utilizing our CRM’s dashboard, I exported spreadsheets containing education and address information for alumni in each country and combined the data via an Access database. Once I had my master list, constituents were checked against three main data points – address/country of residence, e-mail address, and social media.

Verify Your Data

In addition to designations for home, business, etc., addresses in our CRM are further coded as “Good”, “Bad”, and “Deceased”. Deceased individuals had been excluded from the dataset, so I was dealing only with “Good” and “Bad” addresses. Regardless of whether an address was coded good or bad, there was little I could do concerning the postal address itself. I could, however, reasonably verify that they were still in the country in question via social media. For the sake of convenience, I utilized LI rather than other social media platforms, since it was most likely to have additional education and employment information that might be missing from our constituents’ records. I ran searches for each name on the lists, applying additional filters for education and country/location as necessary. Though this took time, it proved to be a helpful work-around as it let me find through individual searches profiles for constituents who displayed anonymously in my initial master search. Additionally, if a constituent had an e-mail address on file, these were checked to see if they were valid (mailtester.com is a great free resource for this).

By this point, my spreadsheet was a festive sea of color coding that would have made catalogers at libraries everywhere jump for joy. There were constituents with good postal addresses (so far as we knew), valid e-mail addresses, and who followed the university on LI, constituents with bad postal address but good e-mail addresses and no social media presence, and constituents for whom all we had was a bad address, as well as every other combination of these criteria and a partridge in a pear tree. From these results, I refined the datasets for each country down to those alumni who, to the best of our knowledge, we had a viable means of contacting.

Constituents were included in the final lists based on the presence of one or more of the following criteria:

• ·         A good postal address
• ·         A valid e-mail address
• ·         A LI profile wherein they referenced attending and/or followed the University of South Carolina
• ·         Any combination of the above

Those who only met the social media criterion were included based on the rationale that the professor could make arrangements to promote the event through this platform. As followers of the university they, as well as those alumni who got lost in the “LinkedIn Member” shuffle, could still be made aware of the event. Rows for these constituents were highlighted on the spreadsheet while all other contact and education information was displayed in columns.

Data Integrity and Data Mining

An unexpected result of this project was that we were able to improve the integrity of the data we had on file for a number of these international alumni. In some cases, we discovered that our “Good” addresses weren’t so good after all. For example, a constituent we had every reason to believe was living and working in Paris had since relocated to Oslo, Norway. Other constituents had been promoted within their company or now worked for a different company altogether. This meant that some of our e-mail addresses were likely to be invalid now, since they were business e-mail addresses reflecting a past employer. Any necessary updates were made to constituents’ records and static URLs to their LI profiles were added as well. Again, this took time, but we are now able to point to collection of international records in our database and say that the information is reliable.

Additionally, it is our hope to use this data to help find international proactive leads for our fundraisers.

While fundraising strategies and donor appeal vary by country, the profiles of several alumni on our lists showed some of the characteristics we commonly look for in domestic donors – affinity for the university, interest in/support of particular causes or initiatives, and job titles suggestive of disposable income. We are curious to see if these factors hold true across the Atlantic as well.

Written by: Krystal Wilson, Assistant Director of Prospect Management & Research at Appalachian State University, and Past-President of APRA-Carolinas

In honor of #ResearchPride month, as we advocate for our profession, I’d like to share a few tips on how to advocate within your own organization.

1. Step up and take initiative. Don’t wait for things to happen to you. For example, review gift reports daily or weekly to look at new donors, determine a threshold that works for your shop, and screen them. You may find a donor that has given $25,000+ to similar organizations… can you say ‘research win’?
   
2. Don’t just pull up a chair to the strategy table; own it. Speak up, ask questions, and let your voice be heard. Whether in meetings or in an email with the typical research that you provide, share your opinion or insights (ex: patterns you’ve noticed in a prospect’s giving) as it can change the solicitation strategy.
   
3. Increase your presence. Check in with development officers on a regular basis with a phone call or stop by their offices.  This may open the door to get more information than by only reading contact reports. If possible, volunteer at events so you can meet prospects and donors. Some people will share their life story or maybe that tidbit of info that you haven’t been able to verify. Score!
   
4. Track your work. Create (or ask your lovely report-writer colleagues to create) a report to show the number of prospects you rated, or number of records that you added or updated research, or number of prospects you identified.
   
5. Build your network within your organization, your local APRA chapter, and in APRA International. APRA is truly a community of learners that empower one another; so, I strongly encourage you to get involved. Through APRA, I learned how to be an information strategist, how to enhance a prospect development program, and have met many amazing people that I have the honor to call friends. #IamAPRA
   
6. Last but not least, be positive and have fun! Having a positive attitude can increase productivity and creativity, as well as lower stress.
   

Feel free to share your tips on how to advocate. Thanks for reading! #ResearchPride

Written by Beth Inman, Senior Director of Prospect Management & Research Analysis
University of South Carolina
President, APRA Carolinas

In last month’s post about the University of South Carolina’s recently concluded portfolio consultation project, I examined why we bothered doing the project and what we learned from the process. Since then, I have been thinking a lot about everything we’ve been doing since it ended. The project is over, right? We even made a toast to the project’s ending! So, why are my team and I still working on it?

After reviewing approximately 3,500 manager assignments and releasing about half of those assignments, we realized we needed a way to know which prospects were released in the database besides simply ending the manager relationship (manager relationships are assigned on the Relations screen in our database). We changed a lot of data in the system as a result of this project and wanted it to be clear in a constituent’s record if they had been released from a portfolio. It doesn’t mean the constituent isn’t a major gift prospect for another division, but information on being recently released from a portfolio should be helpful if the development officer decides to proceed. Some constituents look great on “paper,” but what we didn’t want was the constituent to look great to another development officer and they start the qualification process unnecessarily.  We made the decision to add ‘released prospect’ information on our Actions screen (where we document contact reports, manager requests, etc.) to briefly explain the prospect had recently been released from a portfolio. We recommended they communicate with the formerly assigned manager for more details or to contact my team for info on why the prospect was released.  This screen is a common one  referred to (or it should be!) when development officers are reviewing a constituent’s record. Also, putting the ‘released prospect’ information on the Actions screen means it will appear on our portfolio reports staff can pull from the database.

Another aspect of our portfolio consultation project was streamlining our manager assignments. We used to have 5 different categories of manager assignments. It was a lot for everyone to keep up with; this many options made it easier for a manager to have too many prospects but it also made it easier for some prospects to have too many managers. From the development officer perspective, there could be ‘analysis paralysis’ trying to determine how the constituent should be assigned. For example, was the prospect capable of making a major gift in the next 2 years or would it be more than 2 years? Had the prospect made their ultimate gift and they just needed stewardship? Also, the admission that it was too easy for them to forget about prospects who weren’t in their primary portfolio made it easy to proceed with narrowing the prospect manager assignment options.

To rewind briefly, something to think about during a portfolio consultation: it is important to review the constituent’s record when ending a prospect manager relationship. This likely sounds like an obvious suggestion, but it is easy to try and save a few clicks when dealing with a high volume of updates.  Review the constituent’s record for any open stages and close them. Review the status of any asks that may still be open and close them. Are there any remaining assigned managers? If so, what is the assignment and should they remain assigned? Taking the time to do this will help to ensure your pipeline reports and your aging reports are accurate and will prevent you from going back and doing this after the project is over. Trust me, I speak from experience.

To each portfolio consultation meeting, we brought copies of the portfolio spreadsheet with the reviewer’s notes. There were always questions and always things to follow up on after the meeting. The notes we took helped to make sure we didn’t forget anything post meeting but also helped us to spot check for accuracy. When all of the consultations were over, we split up the spreadsheets and made sure what the development officer wanted was what we had changed (or not) in the database. We try to be paperless as much as we can, but these printouts have been valuable in every phase of the project. For the record, what the development officer wanted to do with the prospect was noted and the spreadsheet was updated with this information and saved. After all of the changes were made, the development officer’s portfolio was re-run and emailed to them along with the final stats on what % of their prospects were kept and released.

I am sharing these suggestions and our experiences because, in some cases, we learned the hard way some tasks should be done during the project, not after.  If I can help anyone save some time, it would make me very happy.

You might be asking yourself what’s next for our development officers’ portfolios and how can we keep the momentum going on the progress we’ve made so far? I am currently drafting a schedule of consultations for the next 18 months for members of my team and me to meet with the development officers. Their portfolios will be reviewed again and we will meet with them to discuss any changes, strategies and ways our team can help them. Stay tuned for an update on the progress of our regularly scheduled consultations!

Written by: Beth Inman, Senior Director of Prospect Management & Research Analysis, University of South Carolina and President of APRA-Carolinas

Picture it: the year was 2015 and the University of South Carolina’s $1B capital campaign, Carolina’s Promise, was coming to an end. And, one of our development officers had 300 prospects in her portfolio.  Yes, 300. I can hear the collective gasps as you read this and wonder how a portfolio could be that big! In the development officer’s defense, there had been turnover in her department and she inherited a lot of prospects.  That being said, 300 is an unreasonable amount of prospects in a portfolio and it was one of the primary motivations to get started on a large scale portfolio review project.

In the past, portfolio “reviews” in my shop were very one-sided and there was very little actual reviewing going on. A list of their prospects was sent to the development officers requesting they review it and let us know if there were any changes. You can imagine how many changes were sent back to us; not many. I knew the process wasn’t working but I honestly had a hard time wrapping my head around how to do a project like this for 40 development officers. We decided reviewing one prospect manager category for each development officer was a good beginning; every Primary Manager assignment (approx. 3,400) would be reviewed.

In February 2015, I convened a Prospect Management Committee to discuss the idea of a portfolio review project and came to the meeting prepared with stats to illustrate the project’s importance. I created graphs to show the total number of Primary Manager assignments and from there, broke down how many of those were individual constituents and how many were corporate and foundation constituents. To help make my case, I also included the % of constituents who had not been contacted in the last 12 months (28%) and, without sharing names, included the high and low number of prospects in the portfolios. In proposing the project, I shared that the Primary Manager assignments would be reviewed and one of three recommendations would be made: keep, release or needs attention. The committee saw this as a positive step in helping them manage their portfolios and suggested that my team approaching it from a positive approach would go a long way in the project being successful. At that point, we made the decision to refer to the review process as a ‘portfolio consultation.’  Getting the support of this committee was a huge boost to getting the project started officially.

One lucky development officer agreed to be our guinea pig; we did a practice review of her Primary Manager assignments and scheduled a meeting with her to discuss. For each Primary Manager assignment, each record was reviewed for information in the contact reports, total giving, date of last gift, # of years giving to Carolina and the status of any major gift asks. We also reviewed the constituent’s philanthropic giving outside of Carolina and their gift capacity rating was reviewed for any changes. This first consultation clocked in at an hour and a half because we discussed every prospect on her list. While this was very informative, we knew it wasn’t logical for each consultation to last 90 minutes. From there, we made the decision to sort the spreadsheet by the recommendation for the prospect – the prospects recommended they keep would be grouped at the top, the prospects needing attention would be grouped in the middle and the prospects recommended for release would be grouped at the bottom of the list.  This helped with the efficiency of our reviews; we would only discuss the ‘keep’ prospects if the development officer wanted to release a prospect we recommended they keep.  This way, our time was spent delving into the ‘needs attention’ and the ‘releases.’

Other time savers were to have a template email to send out to the development officer when it was time to schedule their consultation meeting and a template in Excel for the review and its results/recommendations.  In the email, we explained the project overall, what data was being reviewed and what we were requesting they do prior to the meeting.  The Excel template ensured the data and recommendations we were providing were aesthetically and analytically consistent; an example of the template is pictured below.

This project took approximately 7 months; we met with 39 development officers and reviewed 3,545 manager assignments. We recommended that 61% of the manager assignments be kept and 39% of them be released.  After the project was complete, we calculated that, in the end, 59% of the assignments were kept and 41% were released.  It was validating to know that the development officers agreed with almost all of our recommendations.  From the development officers’ view, they often told us how helpful this process was and that they really appreciated our input on their prospects. There were even some who said they had forgotten about a few of their prospects.

Why bother with a portfolio review project? We learned a LOT! By meeting with every development officer about their portfolio, there was valuable dialogue about their prospects and their strategies and we also heard some really great stories!  We updated a lot of solicitations, we adjusted manager assignments when the development officer felt like their prospect was better suited for another division, we updated a lot of records with information on divorces, deaths and we now have a much more accurate picture of the total number of real prospects under management.  This helps with gift forecasting, campaign planning and staffing requests.

This project was also a good opportunity for my team to show how valuable we are to the division of development. We have access to a lot of information and we are the experts on finding, interpreting and analyzing this information.  Our hope is the directors of development will continue to utilize our expertise and view us as the valuable partners we are in the University’s fundraising efforts.

*This project would not have been possible without Kristin Richardson, Vicki O’Brien, Abigail Mann and Matt Bundrick.  This was an enormous project for my team and they were invaluable throughout the entire process.

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.

 

 

 

October's post comes to us from Mary Collin, who is the Director of Research/Alumni Relations/Special Projects at Central Piedmont Community College.

I have been very fortunate in my professional career in prospect research. In my early career, my employer brought in two power-house women who at the time were working for a consulting firm. They helped me set up shop, trained me on the available tools, and ignited my already abundant curiosity. They helped me refine and deliver gathered information into a workable, cohesive format that would come to define me as a solid and reliable prospect researcher.

I have watched the stellar careers of both these women over the years. How fortunate I was to have been schooled, tutored, and mentored by these women.

One of the most important lessons I learned during training was to ask questions. I proudly delivered a project to a development officer only to have it handed back with a note that it was not what was needed. When I called the consultants, I got this sage reply, “You gave her what she asked for, but it was not what she wanted. Did you take the time to ask her what she needed, how she was going to use it, or what the overall project was?”

Keeping those questions as my focal point has helped me through the years. It keeps me humble, reminds me that while we are all working towards a common goal, the delivery of research goods needs to be in a usable format for the development officer receiving it. As a single-person shop, that means I sometimes have to append my delivery to meet the audience.

Am I spoiling my development officers? Maybe.

Getting to know the development officers, their personalities, and needs, gets me invited into their inner circle. I get called into strategy meetings to weigh-in and offer opinions based on findings. I have learned to trust the development officers and they have learned to trust me.

Developing relationships with the development officers also led me to join the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and to gain certification as a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE.) Was this necessary? No.  What it did, was to give me insight into the dynamics of fundraising and the challenges of being a development officer. I believe it made me a better researcher. It helped change my mindset, and chinked away at the wall that sometimes separates “us” from “them.”

The great thing about our profession is that we all have the opportunity to be great, to find our niche, our specialty and to create a dynamic working relationship that will advance the field and the profession. So take the chance, strike up a conversation with the development officers and ask what they need from you. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I will always be indebted to Karen L. Green and Diane Crane, for their knowledge-base and mentoring skills that helped launch my career.

 

September's post is from Tania Drummond, Director, Prospect Research at NC State University, Raleigh, NC.

Most prospect research professionals probably describe their work to others something along the lines of this statement, which is part of the information presented about the prospect research office at my institution:

Prospect research professionals conduct research on people, companies and foundations. They collect, evaluate, analyze, organize and disseminate publicly available information in a way that maximizes its usefulness in making decisions for development operations.

Prospect Researchers have always been responsible for analyzing data in order to put it to practical use in fundraising efforts. One type of analysis might include sifting through large volumes of information, understanding what the data may be telling us and determining which pieces of information should be included in a report and which should not.  Another type of analysis might be applying the results of a predictive giving model to suggest potential new gift prospects for discovery pools or to inform development officer travel. But whatever the variety of projects on which prospect research professionals are asked to work, much – if not most - of our value lies in our ability to analyze data.

The availability of data to development personnel, free and purchased, and how easily we can get that data has changed tremendously in the last decade or so. It’s far more common now for nonprofit organizations to be able to purchase wealth screening data and predictive giving models from a wide choice of vendors. People who don’t do the work we do, however, often don’t understand that getting all this available data and using such tools as screening and modeling, while helpful and valuable, aren’t turn-key solutions to informing development strategy. The data gleaned from such projects as screening and modeling can’t be implemented and used effectively without having someone analyze that data in conjunction with the organization’s internal data, in context, and make sense of how it all can be used together and applied to the project or problem at hand. It’s the prospect research professionals who do this analysis, and who make sure that the organization is getting the highest return on the investments made into purchased data and data services.

I think those of us in prospect research should look for every opportunity to showcase and highlight that which is unique about the work we do and to display, in all the ways that we can, our ability to objectively analyze and evaluate information to come to an informed decision or judgment. We can do this not just in the prospect research work that we do, but also in the choices we make in our office operations, our budget proposals, and our project and staffing plans. Our critical thinking and problem solving abilities should be on display in everything we do, and we should always be able to answer the question of “why” – why we made that choice, why we made that decision, why we suggested that strategy. In doing so, perhaps we’ll better the odds that we’ll never have to answer the question, “why is prospect research important?”

Our August post is from Chris Nuckols, Senior Donor Identification Analyst at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC.

In 2014, I completed a project which involved the “holding pool” prospects at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.  These are prospects who were previously managed, but can still be reactivated.  Over the years, our holding pool gradually increased to over 1,300 prospects.  As a result, the size of the pool was becoming difficult to manage.  This increase was due to factors such as the following:

• Development officers determined that some of their managed prospects were too young
• Development officers determined that the circumstances were not ideal at the time
• A prospect had strong connections to our medical center, but a meeting could never be arranged

Since the holding pool had grown from a “kiddie pool” to an “Olympic size pool,” the prospect management team decided we needed to dive in and explore the situation.  I was chosen as the lead diver for this project and was ready to become the next Jacques Cousteau.  After carefully analyzing the background of the 1,300+ prospects, I resurfaced and divided the group into three new mini-pools:

• Ready to Assign Prospects: These are very worthwhile prospects, but have not yet been contacted by a development officer (portfolios are full).  This would be the equivalent of the kid who jumps into the neighborhood pool as soon as he arrives.
• Delayed Prospects: These prospects have been contacted by a development officer, but are not ready to give a major gift now.  They could become major gift prospects at some point in the future though (after they are more established in their career and/or when children have graduated from college, etc.).  This would be the equivalent of a young adult who goes to the pool on a 75 degree day, and the pool is a little on the cool side.  So, this person would take his good ‘ole time getting into the pool.  Additionally, the development officers provided review dates (typically 2-4 years out) which will prompt the prospect research team to evaluate for possible reassignment on that date.
• No Response Prospects: These are good prospects who were assigned to a development officer, but did not respond to multiple attempts to meet.  This would be the equivalent of a kid asking his mom or dad several times to jump into the pool, but the parents would rather sit poolside soaking up the rays and enjoying a beverage of their choice.  For these prospects, a one year review date was added for evaluating and possibly reassigning the prospect.     

In addition to the prospects who were placed into one of the three mini-pools, several prospects were deemed not viable and were subsequently removed from the holding pool.  Also, many were reassigned, reactivated, or marked as deceased. 

I now act like David Hasselhoff (portrayed a lifeguard on Baywatch, for those a little younger) and monitor the three mini-pools on a regular basis.  When either a delayed or no response prospect comes up for review, I will reevaluate the prospect.  Depending on the circumstances, I will extend the review date, place the prospect into a different mini-pool, reassign the prospect, or permanently remove from the holding pool.

The goal for this project was to restructure the way prospects are assigned from our holding pool.  We now have much more reliable and useful categories of potential prospects when a development officer’s portfolio needs to be replenished or increased (for a new development officer).  With the completion of this project, the way we manage prospects has become more efficient and effective.      

July’s post comes from Tracy Martin, the Advancement Services Coordinator at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business

In the world of donors, of course, not all donors are created equal. However, using the savvy information included in this article you can capitalize on donors of any size. I hope you find it both entertaining and informative.  

You might be a student leadership donor if…….

You have influence over your classmates and can give a dollar!  Leveraging the information from student applications is helpful by reviewing engagement with non-profits and fundraising positions. Students in these roles already get the importance of philanthropy and therefore can help further spread the philanthropic mindset through peer solicitation. Oftentimes you can also capitalize on student leadership to ‘infect’ the rest of their classmates with their philanthropic spirit. With this group in particular, playing up participation rather than dollar amount is key.

You might be an annual fund donor if………

You can give a dime that you found on the ground to the organization of your choice. This is a tricky, yet simple, category of donors. The simple answer is, no matter what organization or capacity to give, everyone engaged with your organization should be an annual fund donor. By supporting your cause, program or school- each donor is saying with affirmation that they agree with your mission and they want you to continue to succeed in all you are doing.  Generally speaking, these are your first time donors, young donors and perhaps your aging donors. These are likely your donors that give more of their time and talent perhaps because they cannot give much past their annual gift. This only shows their passion for your organization!

However, it’s not as sexy as say naming a building or having a professorship named after you. What you can glean out of your annual fund donor lists are the following things. Trends in increased giving levels over time can indicate deeper engagement and loyalty. By examining the times of their giving, you can estimate the appropriate time to solicit them once instead of inundating them with continual solicitations and save your organization valuable dollars. Focusing on time and amounts can reveal that they may be a potential planned gift prospect also. This will be discussed in the planned gift segment. By combining this information with birthdates of their children, you can also anticipate increased giving as their children approach coming to your school or upon graduation from college.

Even when a donor is being solicited for a major gift, continue to keep them in your annual fund pool unless they have declared they are not interested. When you continue to keep them as an annual fund donor, you can also leverage their standing in your community to demonstrate to other annual fund donors their potential to grow.  This goes back to the old Fabergé shampoo commercial. “Then you tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on and so on…” (Yes, I realize I am dating myself greatly!)

You might be a major gift donor if……………………..

Your passion is matched by your capacity and inclination.  I’m sure everyone is well versed in how to identify a prospect with the potential and having given to similar organizations like yours. That’s the easy part.  But what else can a major gift donor do for you?

As mentioned in the section above, they have the potential to influence other annual fund donors and potential new major gift donors. Do they have a nice office space or second home or connections to an upscale country club? How about an interesting collection of art or cars? Have them host an event where they declare they are going to lead a challenge to assist you in securing new major gift donors. Let them throw down that gauntlet! If your organization gets 50 new donors giving at your major gift threshold, this leader will give a larger than usual gift to commemorate the occasion. Keep in mind that this is different from a matching opportunity in that no one that gives at the new level will receive any credit, soft or otherwise, from your leadership donor’s gift. This will keep the accounting simple on the backside.

Leverage these donors with higher capacity to host a small event to include potential new major gift level donors or assist in stewarding a circle of annual fund donors. Again, using awesome space can only enhance the mood.

You might be a planned gift donor if…………………

You are approaching the 72 year mark where gift planning can be counted in full. Many of them have been sitting quietly at the lower threshold of your annual fund pool for years without raising any eyebrows. However, their steadfast giving speaks for itself. Some may be your worker bees who have worked diligently beside your staff for many years in eager anticipation of the next time they can give of their time to your cause.   Still others will be those that made their money quickly and planning is essential to them while they still have a large sum.  This is another category of prospects that should be considered with all donors, at some point.

There has been a noticeable increasing trend of prospects in their mid-forties who have begun looking philanthropically at their estate planning. While you might be able to capitalize on the value, you can capitalize on the timing. Eventually this will pay off for your group.

Once they become a planned gift donor, no matter the age, treat them special from your annual fund donors. They can also be leveraged as you would your major gift donors by inviting their friends to special events, and so on and so on.

You might be a worker bee prospect if…………………

You just can’t resist when the call for help arrives. These are the steady Eddies that are always there for you, rain, shine, sleet or snow. They don’t mind pitching in by mentoring, helping with events, speaking at an information session or cheering for your leadership.

These are your core people who will give more when they can, but you should always value the fact they give of their time and themselves! They likely will have you in their will, speak kindly of your group to anyone they know and will be there when the chips are down.

They will give annual fund gifts; some even major gifts. These are the people for whom Distinguished Awards are created! Give the people what they want!

You might be a connector if……………………….

You are a mover and a shaker in your industry, circle of friends or community. These are the “who knows who of the who’s who.” They are seated on several boards, chairs of committees and can influence many with a few tweeted words. Use them to open doors that might otherwise remain closed.

Ask them to make introductions, host dinners whereby you may meet future prospects interested in your organization or even ask them to submit a list of friends they’d like to invite to something honoring their service to your organization.

You might be sour grapes if…………………………

You claim you’ll never give another dime unless they bend to your wishes or complain about everything the organization does even when they do get it right!

It’s hard to do, because we are ever hopeful. However, sometimes you just have to know when to quit. If they never take a call or meeting, or when they do- it’s to complain about something that was on Facebook or other social media about your organization; it’s time to just back off and leave them alone.  You can’t win them all.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick and dirty way of sorting your prospects into apples, oranges and pears.  May you enjoy the fruits of your labor and there be few sour grapes!

Joyfully submitted,

Tracey Martin