Guest put up by Sarah Tedesco, Executive Vice President of DonorSearch
As a nonprofit skilled, there have seemingly been many occasions once you’ve taken a have a look at your nonprofit’s fundraising outcomes and questioned, “How could we do better?”
Of course, there are a number of the way to enhance your fundraising technique, from monitoring and evaluating marketing campaign metrics to experimenting with new methods of standing out on social media. But one of the efficient strategies to get higher fundraising outcomes is to enhance your main donor choice course of by means of prospect analysis.
Prospect analysis, often known as prospecting, is the method of reviewing people’ affinity and capability markers to establish viable prospects who your nonprofit can then domesticate relationships with.
Too typically nonprofits let their strategy to prospect analysis go stale. Don’t let this be the case to your group—as an alternative, make an effort to constantly be taught and implement new methods to discover extra worthwhile donors. In this put up, we’ll provide help to get began by protecting three issues to know if you need to improve your prospect analysis course of.
Ready to get higher fundraising outcomes by refining your prospect analysis efforts? Then let’s start!
1. There’s a definite relationship between prospecting and wealth screening.
In discussions about prospect analysis, you’ll typically see the time period “wealth screening” or the extra common “screening” come up. Some organizations deal with the 2 processes as fully completely different, with wealth screening targeted on donors’ monetary capability alone, however that is an outdated mind-set about them.
In actuality, wealth screening is a type of prospect analysis, and each processes bear in mind:
- Capacity or wealth markers: Capacity markers let you know {that a} donor is in a monetary place to give a big present. These embody wage, internet price, actual property possession, enterprise affiliations, SEC transactions, and political giving historical past.
- Philanthropic markers: Philanthropic markers present the donors’ historical past of giving to philanthropic causes, indicating they’re individuals who care about charitable causes. These markers embody issues like earlier donations to nonprofits (hopefully nonprofits with comparable missions to yours!).
- Affinity markers: Affinity markers let you know how seemingly it’s a donor will give to your particular group. These embody the people’ nonprofit involvement historical past (like volunteering or board service) and their private info, reminiscent of their values or pursuits which might be related to your trigger.
The purpose you’ll have a look at capability, affinity, and philanthropic info when prospecting or screening is that capability alone doesn’t essentially point out {that a} prospect needs to give to your nonprofit, simply that they’re in a position to give a big present. You want all three sorts of info to be taught whether or not or not your prospect is inclined to help your particular trigger and is a philanthropically-minded particular person.
Ultimately, your aim when researching your donors by means of these processes must be to get a fuller image of who your supporters are and how one can strengthen your relationships with them and encourage giving.
2. AI may help you qualify prospects.
You’ve seemingly heard the recent buzz about AI with the rise of instruments like ChatGPT and Bard. But do you know that there are additionally prospect analysis instruments on the market that leverage high-quality AI capabilities to provide help to discover, qualify, and attain out to prospects?
According to DonorSearch, the precise instruments may help you prospect successfully by:
- Enriching your current information with extra info
- Identifying and segmenting high-affinity prospects with excessive accuracy
- Predicting the time of yr that a person is most probably to give
- Predicting how a lot somebody may give utilizing capability info
- Predicting the simplest strategy to participating every prospect based mostly on particular person preferences
Consider the prospect analysis AI options available on the market and discover the one that most closely fits your group. You’ll need a device that’s exact, scalable, and user-friendly, and that comes with many different capabilities, such because the performance to provide help to discover out extra about your donors’ social media presences so you will get to know them on a deeper stage.
In addition to prospect analysis options with AI performance, you’ll seemingly use many different instruments to establish prospects’ capability and affinity markers, like SEC funding information and your nonprofit’s CMS.
3. Data from prospect analysis may help you construct long-lasting relationships.
Prospect analysis produces a wealth of data that may provide help to get began reaching out to newly-discovered prospects. After all, when you’ve discovered a prospect, you already know just a little bit about them, together with their pursuits, giving capability, and philanthropic historical past. But information factors alone received’t lead to donations and sustained involvement—solely robust relationships will!
Here are some suggestions for kickstarting your relationship-building efforts utilizing your prospect analysis information:
- Personalize your outreach. Everyone has completely different communication preferences. Some of your prospects might want to work together with you through social media, whereas others would possibly favor a name on the telephone. Use what you’ve discovered about their communication preferences to make sure you’re sending your communications by means of a channel that resonates with them.
- Spend time getting to know prospects as individuals. Prospects are individuals, not information factors. Reach out to them with the aim of getting to know them as people with households, social lives, and careers. Ask them what they get pleasure from studying, how their youngsters are doing in class, and what hobbies they love doing on the weekends. Doing so will assist your group come throughout as extra real.
- Tailor your donation asks. Once you’ve developed your relationship with a prospect to the purpose the place it’s time to make a donation ask, it’s best to spend time fastidiously catering your asks to particular person prospect preferences. For instance, you would possibly draft a donation ask that aligns along with your prospect’s passions, or plan to problem your ask on an vital anniversary like their two-year mark of volunteering along with your nonprofit.
- Add to your donor prospect profiles as you go. Donor prospect profiles are your nonprofit’s supply of fact for every prospect interplay. This is the place you retailer all the data you gathered within the prospecting course of. But it’s also possible to add to them as you construct relationships with these prospects, making notes on vital interactions and new insights. This implies that anybody at your group can rapidly stand up to pace on particular person prospect progress within the donation pipeline.
- Express gratitude all through the method. That’s proper—even earlier than you’ve secured a donation from a prospect, it’s best to make certain they know you’re grateful for his or her effort and time spent getting to know you and your group. Fundraising Letters recommends sending digital playing cards. These highly-visual and customizable playing cards could be a fast method to talk how a lot a prospect is valued by your nonprofit.
As you’re employed to construct relationships along with your prospects, keep in mind that retention and continued involvement is the aim, not only a one-time donation. Do every part you’ll be able to to invite your prospects to get entangled in a number of aspects of your mission, out of your volunteer program to your deliberate giving society. This will be certain that their connection to your trigger deepens and so they grow to be an increasing number of invested within the success of your mission.
A fine-tuned prospect analysis course of is likely one of the finest instruments your nonprofit can use to enhance its fundraising outcomes. After all, main donations are an enormous supply of nonprofit income, and prospect analysis may help you establish extra main donors.
Use the three insights we’ve walked by means of at present to get began bettering your strategy to prospect analysis. Doing so will repay as you elevate the income wanted to do extra to your mission. Good luck!
Sarah Tedesco is the Executive Vice President of DonorSearch, a prospect analysis and wealth screening company that focuses on confirmed philanthropy. Sarah is chargeable for managing the manufacturing and buyer help division regarding shopper contract achievement, growing retention charge and buyer satisfaction. She collaborates with different staff members on quite a lot of points together with gross sales, advertising and marketing and product growth concepts.
