Do You Know Who Your Donors Are?
If you want to be successful at Major Gifts fundraising, a crucial step is to identify who you will ask.
We’ve already gone over some of the other “getting started” steps, including committing to getting more major gifts (i.e., taking the Major Gifts Challenge), and determining the size of a major gift at your organization.
Hopefully you’ve also done some work to prepare your stewardship program in advance of receiving your first gift.
Now, it’s time to identify prospective major gifts donors for your organization. The goal is to get a list of your top 20 prospective donors with whom you will work this year.
How to Identify Your Major Gift Prospects
There are several ways to identify major gift prospects (prospective donors).
The first and best way is to check your database. A database is a list of your supporters, which includes contact information and records for each time they’ve donated. Hopefully you have a database with donor history going back at least two or three years. (And if you don’t have a donor database, never fear — keep reading.)
When checking your database to determine your best prospects, you’re looking for two things:
Your Largest Donors
Run a report to identify those who have given the most, cumulatively, over the last two years. It is important to use cumulative giving as criteria, because if you simply look for anyone who has given over $1,000 (as a one-time gift) you may miss donors who come to every event and donate smaller amounts throughout the year.
Your Most Loyal Donors
Run a report to identify anyone who has given at least seven times during the last ten years. This group is significantly different from your largest donors group, because there’s no minimum gift amount required to make it onto this list. In other words, this list can include individuals who give $10 per year, but do so consistently, year-after-year. The reason your loyal donors are important is that they are your best planned giving prospects, in addition to the fact that loyalty is uncommon these days in fundraising. It is more important to me to have a low-level committed donor, than one who gives once and never gives again.
These donors (the largest and your most loyal) are going to be your best individual giving prospects, because they already have an affinity for the organization and are showing it by donating money.
Action Item of the Week — 2 hours or less
Make a list of your top 20 prospects from your database.
This list should be comprised of your 15 largest donors and your top 5 most loyal donors. If you need help narrowing your lists, consider things like volunteer work (are they engaged with your organization) and connectedness (how are they connected to your organization).
Reminder: You are looking to increase your INDIVIDUAL giving. If your list is primarily comprised of corporations and foundations, you’ll want to start again.
Starting from Scratch
If you don’t have a donor database to work with, or all of your prospects are corporations and foundations, you still need to come up with a list of 20 individuals to work with this year.
Use the simple spider chart below with your board and staff members to come up with a list of people you know. The list should include board members, former board members, volunteers, friends and family, etc. Think outside the box to come up with a good, long list.
Two Characteristics of a Good Prospect
Once you have your list and are ready to narrow it down to your top twenty, there are two key characteristics of a good prospect:
1. Capacity
Capacity is the ability to make a gift. You’re not looking for people with the wealth of Bill Gates, but you do want people who have a job and some disposable income.
2. Inclination
Inclination refers to an interest in your organization, mission, or cause. A person with all the money in the world isn’t a good prospect if they have no interest in giving to you. However, inclination can be grown and nurtured, while capacity cannot.
If appropriate, have a meeting with staff and board members to help narrow your list to your 20 best prospects.
Recap: Determine Your Prospective Donors
So this week you’ll want to spend a couple hours working on your list of the top 20 prospects for your organization.
What sort of obstacles do you think you’ll encounter as you create your list? Share your concerns in the comments and I’ll uphold my end of the Major Gifts Challenge by providing the guidance you need to see this task through!
This post is part of Amy’s Major Gifts Challenge. Read the entire series to learn how to solicit major gifts by spending just a few hours each month.
Amy,
A simple way to also keep track of those top 20 donors is to set up a free Google Alert on their name. Don’t forget to use quotation marks around their name. Then, allow Google to push you relevant news/other info about your prospects. Decide on whether you want this news pushed to you daily or weekly. It’s very efficient and might provide you with another opportunity for a touchpoint with this donor.
~Maria
Great suggestion. Thanks for sharing, Maria!
Amy,
I have my top 15 prospects based on cumulative giving but we have an old database program which doesn’t allow us to run reports of frequency of gifts per year or if they gave 7 of the last 10 years. Any other suggestions on getting 5 other major gifts prospects from the loyal group?
Thanks,
Ezra
Hi Ezra,
If you’re using a true database, I would be surprised if it can’t do it for you. That being said, if you don’t have any way to extract donor history, then simply add another 5 top prospects to your list. And, moving forward, you may want to consider switching to a databse that can let you extract the type of information you need. I know it’s not helpful in the short run, but better switch now so you’re in a better position a few years from now.
Would love to hear suggestions from others.
I’m looking for the best donor database option for a small nonprofit. I’ve looked at the range of options, many of which are outside of our financial capacity. Right now we are inefficiently exporting donor info from Quickbooks. Do you have any recommendations that might work for us?
Susan,
You might look in GiftWorks my Mission Research. It’s under $600 to but the basic package and only $40 a month for all the tech support you need. And they are very customer oriented,
Joanne
Hi Susan,
I’ve not used it myself, but I understand that Salesforce has a free nonprofit package. Have you looked at eTapestry and Donor Perfect?
Thanks for the great suggestion, Joanne!
Both donor perfect and etapestry are good and economical but make sure you get the server based program as it is much more user friendly and allows you to connect to internet to search for donor related information.
Amy,
The good news is that my board members show up in both lists: my top givers and my most loyal givers. The other god news is that I have a few other donors who are bigger givers and many loyal givers.
The bad news is that the database is not very big.
My interpretation of the data is that I have a really good prospect list for major gifts. And that I have even more prospects from from the loyal donor list.
And that I need to embark on donor recruitment activities.
Joanne – Good news all around! Great job! Yes, in addtion to working on major gifts, it’s time to grow your base of supporters.
It was pretty easy to get a top 20 list going, surprisingly. The data base was my best source and then our ED knows most of the top donors! One difficulty is that many of our Board members give gifts through their businesses so they don’t show up as individual donors. I will have to take the time to straighten that out.
Good point, Kathryn. So glad you were able to develop your list.
I like how your top 20 list is comprised of big givers and loyal donors. At my organization, our local campus has only been in existence for just over 3 years, so it is easy (and fun) for me to identify and re-connect to our loyal donors!
If a consistent donor starts to not respond to thank you notes and updates from an organization, for how long should one keep sending materials to them? The organization that I volunteer for typically sends materials for another 2 years and then lets the donor alone, assuming that they can’t or aren’t interested in donating anymore. Is there a better timeline? Thank you!
Ann,
Just to clarify – the donor is no longer donating, right? Have you called them to check in? I think wait three or even four years before taking them off your list. You never know if someone hit a rough patch – unemplyment, and may get back on their feet.
This took me forever! My poor database is so unhelpful – between not performing the searches I want it to run, and previous users not keeping the database tidy – what a mess! Anyway – I have it done and its a good list.
What do you suggest when you “inherit” a database full of partial entries, no deceased persons marked as such, gift entries of $0, and so on? I’d love to get better functionality out of my records but have no idea where to start!
Amanda,
That is a huge challenge! You seem to have 2 issues – the system itself and the data in the system. Fixing one alone won’t help the other. Can you add it to your budget to get a new system and clean the data this year? It will help your fundraising moving forward.
Amy, I’m working to develop our top 20 list based on reports run from our present database. We have said for sometime that we need to expand our data base and find additional prospects, not wanting to only depend on our present donors. Can we add potential new prospects in with this top 20 list, or will those come into the mix at a different time?
I admit that I already feel a bit anxious about talking to our present, faithful donors about giving more, and feel it will be easier to expand the data base with more donors, than asked present donors to give more. But, I know it’s our job, and I know good can come out of this!
Thanks
Hi Cindy,
Thank you for your honest feedback. Yes, feel free to include a few prospective donors on your list. However, if you add them to your list, you need to have some reason to believe that they will become donors.
And, it’s completely normal to be anxious about asking your donors for additonal or increased funding. You do want to be mindful not to offend them. Be sure to adequately thank them for their previous donations and make certain they know how their gift was used and that it was truly appreciated, before asking them for another gift.
Keeep me posted. I know this will pay off in the end.
Amy,
We’ve identified our 20.
5 of the top ten giving more than $10K per year, almost all loyal and consistent as well
5 of the next 20 giving between $4K and $10K per year, almost all loyal and consistent
5 of the next 20 giving between $2500 and $4K per year, almost all loyal and consistent
5 of the other 150 who give less than $2500 per year yet are all loyal and consistent.
Monday (August 19), time to start making phone calls and setting appointments.
BTW, I just signed all the thank you notes for July (yes, they’re a week late). While signing, I made personal notes on many of them. Then I went back and for all those I will be calling, I included a note that it would be good to get together soon. I hope it primes them for a meeting.
John.
These are all “getting to know you” and advice visits. Hoping to be completed by September 30.
John,
Sounds great. You’re on the right track. Let me know how it goes!
Dear Amy,
I am the President of small nonprofit charity organization by the name of OASIS for Children, Inc. Although the kids at the orphanage are safe and well, we are financially struggling. We are trying to focus on the fundraising part of the organization and can sure use some help from an expert like yourself. What ever help you can give us will surely help.
Luceanna
Hi Luceanna,
My books and blog are specifically for small nonprofits, so keep reading. 50 Asks in 50 Weeks is a development planning tool, so if you need a plan, it’s a great place to start. My other book, Raising More with Less, is how to set up your systems, processes, and procedures, for a small development shop. I also work with all size nonprofit organizations as a coach, consultant, and board retreat facilitator. If this is of interest, send me an email and we’ll schedule a time to talk.
Good luck and keep me updated.
Does the organization need to be a non profit to get major gifts? Also, is it appropriate to contact public figures if one thinks they have the inclination for the cause? It seems that setting up a meeting would be difficult with someone that gets a lot of requests. Great information. Thank you.
Iam pastor Amos from Uganda. I have an orphanage school known as Pacific Junior Orphanage Centre which has got 475 children who need help from people of God who may enable the to continue with their Education. Thank you if I can get donors for this project.