Fundraising Intelligence:Strategies for Building the

Prospect Pipeline

with Caroline Oblack and Tracey Martin

Facilitator: Caroline Oblack

• Director of Client Service,

WealthEngine

• Author of Report: 2010 Best

Practices for Prospect Research in

Healthcare Fundraising

• Former prospect researcher with

American Red Cross, National

Headquarters, Rady Children‟s

Hospital and independent consultant

Facilitator: Tracey Martin

• Prospect and Research

Coordinator, Duke University - The

Fuqua School of Business

• Co-President of the APRA-Carolinas

Chapter

• Eight year volunteer for the

American Red Cross in Henry

County, VA

Agenda

• Fundraising is a Group Effort

• Benefits of Prospect Research

• Leverage Your Resources

• Data Enhancement Strategies

• Building the Pipeline in Other Areas

• Measuring Success and Return on Investment

Fundraising is a Group Effort

• Prospect research is involved at every stages of the donor cycle

Identification

Qualification

CultivationSolicitation

Stewardship

Fundraising is a Group Effort

• Prospect research and major gifts is a partnership

– Understand communication style differences

– Elicit feedback on research information provided

– Tailor (when feasible) research to match needs

• Ensure you have a set schedule for prospect discussions

• Review organizational goals and priorities regularly

– Align research goals to match those of the organization

– Develop research projects to help meet identified needs

Best Practices

• Successful prospect research operations…

– Have a plan of action

– Align research goals with the

organization‟s strategic plan

– Balance proactive and reactive research

strategies

– Work closely with development team

– Maintain confidentiality with research

findings

Proactive vs. Reactive

• Definitions:

– Prospect research is the skilled process of collecting and

analyzing public information about individuals, corporations,

and foundations in order to raise money for your

organization.

•Proactive research can be described briefly as taking the

initiative to find new prospects.

•Reactive research can be described as responding to a

specific request to profile a specific individual, group of

individuals, a business, or a foundation.

Benefits of Proactive Research

New Prospects

Personal Challenge

Vary Daily Research

Become a Fundraiser

Refill Prospect

Pool

Diversify Prospect

Pool

Develop Relationships w/ other Dev.

Members

Update Donor/Client

database

Leverage Your Resources

• Donor management system

• Central files

• Development staff

• Other staff members of your organization

• Volunteers

• Events

• Current lead donors- who can they connect you to?

• Free and paid research tools

• Other data enhancements

Using Your Donor Management System

• Leverage the data you already have

– Before worrying about what you don‟t have in your database, determine what you do have and can work with initially:

•Contact information

•Business information

•Gift information

•Ages/Graduation Dates

•Relationships

•Research results/rating information

Sample Increased Giving Query

Prospect

Name

Current Gift

Amount

Current Gift

Date

Largest Gift

Amount

Largest Gift

Date

% Increase

Jill A. $1,000.00 11/15/10 $100.00 1/3/09 90%

John C. $500.00 11/2/10 $250.00 12/15/09 50%

Mary F. $5,000.00 11/14/10 $250.00 6/5/10 95%

Andrew O. $1,600.00 11/7/10 $500.00 7/3/08 69%

Ruth R. $10,975.00 11/25/10 $3000.00 3/1/09 72%

Data Enhancement Strategies

DataMining, Modeling, & Analytics

Sift through current database by:

Title (President, Founder, Owner)

Consistent donors

Sudden blips on giving history

Wealthy zip codes

Living and/or working outside U.S.

Using „Top‟ Lists to compare those in database

Leverage Lead Donors & Volunteers to:

Identify prospects in metro areas

Identify peers in other circles of their contacts such as business,

philanthropic interest or other boards

Through attendance at events- self identify by interest

Wealth Screening

Purchase of Vendor

Supplied Screening

Peer Screening

3 Prong Approach to Data Enhancement

Strategies

Case Study

2,647

1,441

1,182

937

Wealth Screening Results

from

The Fuqua School of Business

Submitted Returned Information- 54%

Never Rated Before- 82% of return $100K+ Rating- 65% of return

Predictive Modeling

Current Major

Donors

More likely to have

given higher first gift

More likely to have

attended event

More likely to live in

200** zip code

Fit Major Gift

Profile

Prospect

Universe

Not

Major

Donors

Strategies for Annual Giving

• Include a donor survey in direct mail

solicitations and use the information to

enhance research

• Query repeated givers at lower levels to

grow the annual giving donor base

• To establish an endowment annual giving

program, review donors at slightly higher

giving levels for multiple years

Strategies for Planned Giving

• Know your planned giving programs and

capabilities

• Group current donors by age

• Individuals are retiring earlier (50s rather than 60s)

• Identify planned giving individuals before they retire

• Do a query for your planned giving officer:

– Widows and widowers

– Those who hold their property in trust

– Older constituents

– Those who never had children and/or never

married

Strategies for Cause Marketing

• Request a copy of your organization‟s vendor list and review for

opportunities to partner

• Subscribe to your local business paper/journal

– Look for branding or partnership opportunities with local

businesses

• Use a resource such as ReferenceUSA (available through most

local libraries) to conduct complex searches for new partnering

opportunities

Strategies for Corporate &

Foundation Relations

• Subscribe to the local paper and read the

business and social sections

• Review your area‟s Book of Lists for new

corporate supporters.

• Subscribe to one of the foundation

databases.

• Grant and RFP alerts

• When looking at corporations and

foundations, remember to look at the

leaders/employees as well.

Using the Web and Other Sources

• If you are not already doing so, use push technology (email

alerts) to receive emails any time there is a mention of your

institution in the news. This will help you to find marriages,

promotions, obituaries, etc.

• Some possibilities are:

Personal News feature in Lexis/Nexis

Alerts using:

www.alerts.yahoo.com

www.google.com/alerts

What About Social Networking Sites?

• The latest means for individuals to connect to other individuals,

groups, companies, etc. via the web

• Never use a false identity to contact, or “friend” a donor or

prospect

• Be wary of taking any information from a social network site at

face value

• Do not include information gleaned from a social networking site

in official prospect/donor records for your institution without

independent verification

Time for Ethics

Ethical Prospect Research

Confidential Accurate

RelevantHonest

Information “Need to Know”

• Keep everything in-house

• Only development professionals

• Be careful of volunteer requests

• Develop organization policy to institutionalize information

protection

Putting your plan into action

• Find new prospects

• Keep track of how they were found

• Code them to your watch list in your database until they can be

thoroughly researched

• Research thoroughly

• Give names to MGOs (with a connection!)

• Get feedback (if you can!)

• Do an analysis of the most effective method of finding new

prospects

Create a Tracking Process

ROI Example –

New Prospect Identification

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 3rd Qtr 4th Qtr

Database

Relationship

Screening

Online Datasource

Unsolicited Gift

Staff Identification

Other Tracking Measures

• Did these result in additional gifts?

• Are they feeding the pipeline?

Assigned

Cultivated

Solicited

Total Prospects

Final Thoughts

“Do what you can, with what you have,

where you are.”

~Theodore Roosevelt

“There is always a better strategy than the one you have; you just

haven't thought of it yet.”

~Sir Brian Pitman, former CEO of Lloyds TSB

For More Information…

• WealthEngine‟s Best Practices Reportswww.wealthengine.com/knowledge-center/best-practices

• Measuring Fundraising Return on Investment and the Impact of Prospect Research Whitepaperwww.wealthengine.com/knowledge-center/whitepapers

Questions?

Contact Us:

marketing@wealthengine.com

Resources

• APRA International and its chapterswww.aprahome.org

• Association of Fundraising Professionalswww.afpnet.org

• Association for Healthcare Philanthropywww.ahp.org

• Chronicle of Philanthropywww.philanthropy.org

• Chronicle of Higher Educationwww.chronicle.org

Resources

• Forbes Most Expensive Zip Codes -http://www.forbes.com/2010/09/27/most-expensive-zip-codes-2010-lifestyle-real-estate-zip-codes-10-zips_land.html

• CNN/Money.com Million Dollar Zip Codes –www.money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/million_zips/index.html

• CNN/Money.com Six Figure Zip Codes –www.money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/high_income_zips/

• Fortune 500 Company List 2010 –http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/full_list/

• Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Indexhttp://www.bls.gov/cpi/

• NNDB, Relationship Mappinghttp://nndb.com/

• Sperling‟s Best Places, Cost of Living Calculatorhttp://www.bestplaces.net/col/

Resources

• PRSPCT-L –

http://listserv.apra-prspct-l.org/wa.exe?A0=PRSPCT-L

• Alert services

– Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts

– Yahoo! – http://alerts.yahoo.com

– Marketwatch – http://www.marketwatch.com/

– Forbes People Tracker –

http://www.forbes.com/cms/template/peopletracker/index.j

html

– Yahoo! Finance – http://finance.yahoo.com/