Relationship management Archives

April 10, 2025 By Melissa Bank Stepno

The Importance of (Dis)Qualification

by: Melissa Bank Stepno, President & CEO

Many years ago, I read a study that indicated that the human brain can only effectively manage 150 person-to-person relationships at any given point in time. This statistic has stuck with me over the years, especially when thinking about some of the typical practices within our industry. While the study was focused on all relationships – personal, familial, professional, etc. – I consistently draw a parallel to the typical size of a major gift officer’s portfolio.

If you ask anyone in major gift fundraising what the average or typical portfolio size is, you will get a myriad of responses. The most consistent is: “it depends,” followed by some concrete number that usually ranges from 75 – 250. That’s a big range. And, those are big numbers.

Regardless of the specific ‘ideal size’ at your organization, it is safe to say that when you add 75 – 250 prospects to the rest of the relationships a gift officer is managing (again, personal, familial, professional colleagues, etc.), every gift officer is above the 150-person threshold.

Yet, every organization that I encounter is in the process of identifying new major gift prospects. This creates a conflict because unless your organization is planning on hiring an unlimited number of gift officers to match the prospect pool (which I bet it’s not), what are you doing with all of these new prospects?

This conundrum is exactly why I’m such a big believer that Disqualification (yes, with a capital “D”) is just as important, if not more important than Qualification. Removing prospects from existing portfolios is frequently the only way to make room for new prospects that are being identified. That is, of course, unless you are aiming for the bloated portfolio.

So, before continuing to assign new prospects to your gift officers’ portfolios, let’s take a step back and ask a few questions:

First, start with the gift officer, your overall major gifts program and your expectations of both:

What is the personal capacity of the gift officer? Is their full time role managing prospects? If not, how much time are they spending on other responsibilities? And, conversely, what percentage of their time do they spend managing prospects? The more “other things” the person is responsible for, the fewer prospects that they should manage.
How experienced is the gift officer? Newer gift officers might benefit from a smaller portfolio that allows them to gain experience, whereas more experienced gift officers are frequently able to manage larger portfolios.
What type of prospects are in the gift officer’s portfolio? Warmer, more engaged prospects may require a shorter timeline from Qualification to Solicitation, whereas colder, less engaged prospects will require more time for relationship building.
What stages of the Development Cycle (Qualification, Cultivation, Solicitation, Stewardship) are gift officers responsible for? In some organizations, gift officers are responsible for all stages, whereas at other organizations, gift officers are responsible for only some.
If you expect gift officers to make in-person visits, what is the geographic dispersion of their region? How long will it take to travel to and from and in between?
What capacity level prospects are they managing? $10K+? $100K+? $1M+? $10M+? Larger gifts typically require more time to develop and close, requiring a smaller portfolio.

Then, turn to the prospects currently in a portfolio to determine who should stay and who should go:

Has there been any recent contact between the gift officer and the prospect? If not, why? Has the gift officer attempted to engage and the prospect is unresponsive? Or, has the gift officer not even tried to engage? If the prospect is unresponsive after several attempts to engage, it’s likely worth removing them from portfolio to make room for a new prospect.
Do you have a data-driven reason to keep the prospect in a portfolio? Have you assessed the prospect’s capacity to give at the major gift level? Do you have any internal engagement scores or indicators that can help assess their inclination? Has a predictive model indicated that they may have potential to give more?
What stages of the development cycle are prospects currently in? A prospect in perpetual Stewardship takes less time to manage than a prospect in active Cultivation.
Are there extenuating circumstances that a data-driven and metrics-focused analysis cannot decipher? There may be specific reasons that an individual prospect should remain, or should be removed, from a portfolio. These circumstances should be reviewed carefully to assure exceptions reasonably fit the expectations of the organization.

Here are a few practical examples:

A small community hospital might determine that the ideal portfolio for Gift Officer Smith should include 100 prospects, split such that 25% is in each of the four main Development Cycle stages (Qualification, Cultivation, Solicitation and Stewardship). Upon review, it is determined that Smith’s portfolio has 150 prospects and more than 50% of them are in Qualification. Most have been stagnant for over a year with no contact by the Gift Officer Smith. A decision is made to remove most Qualification prospects and assign them to another gift officer with more bandwidth.
A national advocacy organization has determined that they want their most seasoned gift officer focused exclusively on cultivating $10 million+ gifts. It is acknowledged that doing so will require nationwide travel and significant coordination with the president’s office and other high-level stakeholders. It is determined that an ideal portfolio is only 50 prospects.
A prestigious research university has a very large major gifts team that benefits from a high retention rate in their development office, with many young alums joining the team and spending their entire career at their alma mater. They recently hired three new junior team members and decided to create new portfolios of 200 prospects each, all in need of Qualification. The initial Year 1 goal for these officers is not to close a gift, rather it will be to work the pool. Over time, Disqualification will naturally drop the portfolio to a more reasonable size for long term Cultivation and Solicitation.
An emerging regional arts organization with one major gift officer is launching its first campaign. After their feasibility study is completed, a gift officer settles on 90 top prospects, which includes 20 “top-tier” longtime supporters with strong capacity and inclination, 40 “warm” connections who have consistently supported the organization at lower dollar levels but have a clear philanthropic commitment to the arts, and 30 “new” prospects including community arts patrons with business and personal connections to board members.

As these examples demonstrate, there is no one-sized-fits-all answer. But, a thoughtful approach can help you determine the right size portfolio for your major gifts team, and what steps might need to be taken to ensure portfolios are optimized.

August 29, 2024 By Helen Brown

Building blocks for a solid prospect management system

by: Tara McMullen-King, Director, Research & Consulting

Tara McMullen-King

It’s no secret that an effective prospect management system can significantly enhance an organization’s fundraising efforts – and here at the Helen Brown Group, we are sometimes called on to consult with clients who are thinking about creating a new prospect management system from scratch, or overhauling an existing one. Is your organization in the same boat? If so, it’s important to carefully think through the design, implementation, and upkeep to ensure that your system will be both successful and sustainable.

A robust prospect management system typically includes some of the following:

Donor interests and demographic information
Prospect assignment, coordination, and collaboration policies
Prospect strategy plans
Relationship management tracking via contact reporting, stage, and inclination coding
Prospect development and research activities
Proposal development and pipeline management
Volunteer and committee assignment and management
Accountability standards for program and fundraiser performance
And a rich source of benchmarking data and KPIs (key performance indicators) with forecasting capabilities

But how do we get there? Before jumping into creating a new system or refining an existing one, I suggest taking some time to consider the following questions, considerations, and challenges.

What are your expectations and desired outcomes with regards to implementing a prospect management system? What issues/problems/questions are you looking to address?

Defining your expectations and goals is crucial for setting a strong foundation for your new system, helping you clearly identify what you want to achieve. Whether your focus is on streamlining processes, enhancing data accuracy, improving reporting, or addressing specific challenges, keeping these objectives in mind will guide the design and implementation of your new system. Without a clear understanding of the issues you aim to resolve, you risk losing focus and developing a system that falls short of your needs.

Who are the key stakeholders in your organization that need to be involved in the development and implementation process? Do you have buy-in and investment from your organization’s leadership and other staff?

It’s essential to identify key stakeholders and secure leadership support. Stakeholders from different departments will have different perspectives and needs, which should be considered in the design of your system. Gaining buy-in from leadership ensures that you have the necessary support and resources, and that the project aligns with the organization’s strategic priorities. Without broad involvement and support, your prospect management system may face resistance or fail to meet the needs of its users – but getting staff to adopt any new system can be challenging due to unfamiliarity or perceived difficulties. You will want to provide comprehensive training and ongoing support to encourage adoption and ensure that staff are comfortable using the system.

What is your target timeline for the development and implementation of your new system, and what resources (staffing, time, technology, budget) are you willing to commit to support the project?

It will be essential for you to establish a realistic timeline and understand the resources you have at your disposal. What is the full scope of the project, and what will it take for you to achieve your goals? Without a well-defined timeline and committed resources, you may encounter serious delays, go dangerously over your budget, and face inadequate support, all of which could seriously jeopardize your success.

Who will create your prospect management policies and procedures? Who will implement those policies and procedures? Who is going to be responsible for entering and maintaining the data? Who will be responsible for keeping the system on track once it is created?

It will be important for you to think about the various roles and responsibilities – who will be responsible for the critical tasks that will keep your prospect management system functioning effectively in the future? Without clear ownership and accountability, you may suffer from inconsistent data entry, poor maintenance, and lack of adherence to policies, leading to a decline in data quality and usefulness over time.

How does your organization currently track donor and prospect data? What data is available and how reliable is it? Aside from your CRM, are there other systems or tools you currently use to track and manage donor relationships, interactions, and solicitation efforts?

Different departments or teams within your organization may store data in separate systems, leading to fragmented information and inefficiencies. To address this, you may want to consider integrating or centralizing data across teams for a more cohesive approach to prospect management. Many organizations also rely on multiple tools to manage donor relationships and track interactions, which can result in data silos and inefficiencies. By assessing your current data, tools, and existing data management practices, you can take steps to reduce redundancy and ensure that all relevant data is captured in one place, while also making informed decisions about what needs to be improved, what can be carried over into the new system, and how to ensure data hygiene and accuracy moving forward.

What are your organization’s current prospect management processes and policies, if any? Are they realistic? Understandable? Up-to-date?

Before creating a new prospect management system, it’s important to assess your current processes to determine which are still effective, user-friendly, and relevant to your needs. Outdated, unclear, or impractical processes can obstruct efficiency and compromise data integrity. By thoroughly understanding the existing state of your policies and workflows, you can leverage what works well and address any shortcomings in the new system, ensuring it aligns with your current goals and is straightforward for staff to use.”

How do you currently identify and prioritize potential donors or prospects for cultivation and solicitation?

Achieving fundraising success requires the ability to efficiently identify and prioritize prospects, so it’s incredibly important to take some time to evaluate your current strategies for donor identification and prioritization. By analyzing the strengths and gaps in your current system, you can create a new process that enhances these efforts, ensuring that high-potential prospects are identified, properly cultivated, and solicited at the right time.

Are you currently using your prospect and donor data to inform fundraising strategies? What metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) do you use to measure fundraising success and donor engagement?

Data-driven decision-making can significantly improve your fundraising outcomes – so you should also consider whether you are fully leveraging the data you are collecting. If you’re not, your new system should be designed to better capture and analyze data to inform strategic decisions, such as identifying trends, segmenting donors, and optimizing solicitation strategies. Additionally, metrics and KPIs are crucial for assessing the success of your fundraising efforts, so it’s worth considering how you currently measure performance and whether those metrics align with your objectives. A new system could help track these KPIs more effectively, offering actionable insights to refine your strategies.

By carefully considering these questions and challenges, you can start building a prospect management system that not only addresses your immediate needs but also lays the foundation for long-term success. In upcoming posts, I’ll continue to explore additional questions to consider, offer strategic advice on data points and system design, and share some practical tips and tricks. So keep an eye out for more insights!

December 15, 2022 By Helen Brown

Spotlighting First-Time Donors at Year-End

HBG Consultant Jessica Woodbridge

The holiday season is a very special time for gifts of all types, and of course we want to make sure to say thank you for them. We also want to be sure to bring those new donors closer into the nonprofit’s circle to engage them in more meaningful ways. This week my colleague Jessica Woodbridge shares great tips on using free and low-cost tools already at your disposal to get an early new year jump on thanking and engaging. ~Helen

Your team has worked so hard all year long to meet and maybe even exceed your organization’s fundraising goals. That final push at the end of the year usually turns into an “all-hands-on-deck” situation: call-outs to donors and prospective donors, lunches paired with solicitations, and appeals with multi-tiered approaches including mailings followed by e-blasts, and more call-outs! The checks are rolling in, credit cards are being processed, and new records are being created in your database with brand new donor data.

Wow! That’s all so exciting! The question now is:

How can you turn all this data into usable information for your team?

By highlighting prospects who show some sort of wealth capacity, gift officers can begin to establish relationships with these new donors and cultivate them so they will become repeat donors and even consider upgrading in the future.

If you can, use a screening vendor to run these new names through a batch screening; that’s a really efficient and quick starting point to help filter the top prospects.

If you don’t have a screening tool or are simply interested in getting the information to your team as quickly as possible, a great starting point is to export all the new donors into an Excel document along with the following data points (if available):

Constituent ID
Name(s), including spouse and other family members, business
Address, including the zip code
Gift amount
Email address
Soft credit recipient, including business, family foundation, donor advised fund (DAF), etc.

Then you can begin to make some sense of the data:

Add some columns at the end of your data to flag your priority prospects in whatever way will help you and your team. It could be by tiers (i.e. wealthiest prospects=Tier 1, second wealthiest prospects=Tier 2, etc.) or just mark them all as “yeses”, for example.
Using Forbes Wealthiest Zip Codes (link here), you can flag your new donors who have these zip codes either by a manual process (sort by zip, use CTRL Find, etc.) or use VLOOKUP in Excel to flag anyone with a zip code from the Forbes list.
Sort by gift amount (largest gift to smallest gift).
Review email syntaxes looking specifically for anything that doesn’t have @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, etc. and instead uses a business email address (i.e. jane.smith@gs.com, jane.smith@bain.com, jane.smith@blackstone.com).
Review anyone that has a soft credit recipient listed (i.e. if it came through a DAF or Family Foundation)

You’ll want to consider sharing the top tier of prospects you find immediately with the gift officers/leadership so they can make some personal touches (i.e. a personal phone call thanking the donor, a special thank you letter separate from the tax receipt/acknowledgement). Depending on your team’s policies, you may also start to assign some of these prospects into fundraiser’s portfolios.

What you’ve done so far is to flag the prospects who show a high wealth capacity. However, your gift officers (and possibly further research) will need to assess the person’s true affinity and inclination towards your organization, but that’s for another blog post!

At this point, you’ve helped set your team up for success right off the bat in the new year and hopefully can make some great progress with donor retention and upgrades in the future!

December 1, 2022 By Helen Brown

Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be a tricky thing to measure in prospect research.

For example, how do you measure the impact of due diligence research that helped your organization narrowly miss partnering with disaster? 10 hours of research that, essentially, you have nothing to show for.

How do you track a day of research that finds that, yes, the donor prospect is capable of a major donation – they just have negative interest in or no connection to your cause.

It’s a lot easier to measure what’s easiest to track. Like:

The number of new prospects identified.
The number of reports written.
The number of screening prospects qualified.

Basic math. 1+1+1+…

Back in the day, those things were enough.

(Those things were never enough. We just weren’t grown up yet as a profession to know that they weren’t enough. We didn’t know how to set the proper expectations for ourselves. And those things were just easiest for us to track in our less-sophisticated databases, so that’s what we did.)

Also, I’m not saying that those things shouldn’t be tracked, I’m just saying that they’re the baseline. Things of interest. Not things to base the measurement of our department’s impact on.

And here is where I send out a big thank you to the very interesting (and much too short!) panel discussion on KPIs at the RiF conference this week for sharing their knowledge, ideas, and getting me thinking about this. The panel featured moderator Chris Davis (Birkbeck College) and panelists Hannah Clarke (UCL), Nidhi Fisher (Science Museum), and Ed Raichura-Brown (Marble Prospects) who each brought thought-provoking insight to this important topic.

The panel was called “Measuring and Showcasing the Impact of Prospect Research” and, naturally, KPIs factored in heavily in the discussion.

Things to consider in establishing KPIs

So, okay, if it’s hard to measure some things that may be important (but we’re not sure how important), and too easy to track other things that are just …things to count, what do we measure?

One important observation that came up in the panel discussion that we all agree on is that, in order for prospect development to have true impact, we have to set our goals according to the big picture.

What are the targets that the entire fundraising department has to meet?

What are the goals that each fundraiser has to meet? What about the unit? Department? Entire institution?

Once we’ve identified those larger goals, we can start thinking about the KPIs that we then need to set for ourselves…and then some.

Measuring the best of our energies and skills

Wildly plagiarizing from John F. Kennedy here:

We choose [the KPIs to measure our impact] not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”

For example, let’s say it’s determined that we need to identify 100 new donors at the principal gift level for a new initiative or campaign. Fine. That’s easy enough to measure – you do the project and afterwards you download a list showing the 100 folks who weren’t previously identified or assigned who now qualify as principal gift donors. But what about:

Who found them?
When were they found?
Was there a specific resource that was used to find them? (Were they found through one person’s initiative or a wealth screening, for example).
And, most importantly, did that constituent actually go on to make a principal gift? Which fundraiser was responsible for the ask?
If they didn’t give, what was the stated reason? If they did give, how long did it take?
If fundraisers and prospect researchers are paired, at the end of the year or campaign, which teams proved most effective at converting new prospects to donors? Why?

These are the kinds of questions that lead to setting KPIs that help us measure impact. Because we can now draw a line between the person who identified that prospect right through to the fundraiser who made the ask to the principal gift that came in.

We learn that Jane Researcher identified 30% of the successful new prospects – what was her secret sauce? You can bet we should do that again.
We see that when Jane’s identified prospects were given to Fran Fundraiser, 90% of the time a gift came in, so they clearly make a great team. (why? What’s the secret to their success? Can we now replicate that with other teams?)
What about the prospects that didn’t go on to make a gift? Can we look into why not so we can specifically not do that again?

Maybe you have other questions you need to have answered

Maybe your fundraising goals are tied not to finding and engaging new donors, but to retaining and upgrading current donors.

What KPIs would be important to consider to make that goal successful? What KPIs from Major Gifts, Prospect Research, Stewardship, Donor Relations, Communications, and more would all tie into it?

And that’s really it, right? All of the group moving together toward the goal, considering the questions: what do we need to monitor in order to inform us that we’re on the right (or wrong) track? Or that we were successful (or not, or could have done better, or…) when we’re done?

Because those are the KPIs that you need to set. Not just the easy things. And if the KPIs you’re currently tracking aren’t getting you to the goal, why are you still wasting the time it takes to input them?

And what about those really hard things? Or things that lead nowhere? Or that tell you inconvenient truths?

What about the projects that expended energy with (seemingly) no result? The due diligence report that took 3 days with the decision not to move forward? Should you bother to track that?

Yes. Absolutely.

In soccer, tracking saves is just as important as tracking goals, right? It’s no different in fundraising.

The hard things can tell you where you’re most effective.

February 10, 2022 By Helen Brown

The RiF Prospect Research Handbook is out today!

Lots of times we might have a brilliant idea to nudge forward (or perhaps even revolutionize) our profession, but then we think, ugh, is it worth it? That would take forever! And we go back to whatever it was we were doing before our daydream.

Fortunately for all of us that’s not what happened back in 2019 when Ben Rymer, then chair of Researchers in Fundraising (RiF), dreamed up the bold idea to create a soup-to-nuts Prospect Research how-to Handbook. In case you’re not familiar with RiF, it’s the professional association for prospect researchers in the UK. Just like Apra here in North America, RiF has a great conference every year (theirs is in November in London) as well as gatherings throughout the year.

The RiF Handbook (available today!), called Researchers in Fundraising: Best Practice Guide and Handbook for Prospect Research has been a labor/labour of love for many of us in the prospect research community. I was lucky enough to be one of the volunteer editors for a segment or two, and I was impressed at what a well-run machine it was, and what a great job that the project’s manager Ally Lee-Dudley, founder of Adcumulo, did of keeping the operation running so smoothly.

I was interested to learn more about the Handbook and the process of creating it, so I got in touch with Ben, Ally, and Chris Davis, RiF’s current chair, to find out more. Sincere thanks to Ben, Ally, and Chris for sharing these great insights!

Helen: Ben, how did the idea come about to do a Handbook for prospect researchers?

Ben Rymer: When I sent the initial proposal to the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIoF) in August 2019, I’d known for a while that a handbook/textbook/how-to guide was needed. My feeling was that prospect research was still something of a trade, rather than a profession or discipline. We have a huge amount of expertise, experience and goodwill in the community, but it had never completely crystallised into a finished product so we could build on and improve existing good practice.

HB: What was your initial plan for the scope of the project, and did that change at all as it evolved?

BR: All I knew was that the main areas of research practice should be included. Basically I wanted to create something that I would’ve found practically useful in my first job in the sector. We cast the net wide in starting, with plans for 23 chapters. The big trade-off since then has been in response to volunteer availability. All the content is crowd-sourced, and so we have to work in sequence with the expertise of volunteers who come forward … Also, Covid hit a short time after project kick-off, but we pivoted to remote working pretty well, thankfully.

HB: Ally, how did you get involved with the project?

Ally Lee-Dudley: My involvement with the project began in January 2020 when the Steering Group were looking for a Project Manager to move the Handbook from a great concept to a work in progress. At this time there were not yet any structures, processes, or resources in place so this really was the beginning of the Handbook as an active project.

HB: How many volunteers were part of it?

AL-D: To date around 90 volunteers have contributed to the Handbook, some as writers, some as editors, some as beta-readers, as some as micro-volunteers. Volunteers come from 3 different continents, and around a dozen different countries making the volunteer effort an international collaboration.

HB: How many chapters are there, and how was the decision made on which topics to include?

AL-D: At launch, 8 chapters are available for readers plus a Resource Director and Glossary of industry terms and phrases. There are another 7 chapters in progress which will be published as and when they are completed and a further 11 chapters that are yet to be started. Publishing content on a staggered basis like this means we are able to start getting useful content out and into the prospect research community far more quickly than if we wait for a ‘complete’ Handbook. The original list of potential chapters was developed through discussions between the volunteers who make up the RiF Committee. Over time several additional chapters have been added to that list as a result of suggestions made by volunteers involved with the project.

HB: Chris, as the scope of the project evolved, what changes did that cause you to make?

Chris Davis: As we added more chapters to the Handbook, we found ourselves looking beyond our immediate peer group for input and advice, to those with specific expertise or lived experience. For example, in our chapter on Strategic International Prospecting, we were aware that we needed to get as much input as possible not only from researchers with extensive knowledge of international prospect research, but also from those with experience of living or working in different countries and communities. This was definitely a challenge, but I hope we got the balance right! Similarly, when we start work on the chapter on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in Prospect Research we’ll be seeking involvement from those who are experts in the ED&I space.

HB: What surprised you most about the process, or what created the most changes or opportunities as things went along?

CD: I think I was surprised by how much content we ended up generating! I knew that the prospect research community would be hugely generous with their time and knowledge, but I was still taken aback at times by the volume of work we ended up producing. At this point I’d have to give a big shout out to our beta-reading and editing volunteers, who were a major help in clarifying and refining the chapters and getting them to where they are now.

HB: Ben, what do you think are the top 3 things that readers will find that might surprise them?

BR: 1. Reach: it is a big thing! Chapters I’ve worked on have ended up being 10,000-20,000 words long. We also have a very broad range of topics, so I think readers will be pleasantly surprised at that.

What’s still to come: by the same token, there are some big chapters in the pipeline, so reader may be left waiting for those. If anyone has suggestions, please feel free to get in touch via the Handbook website, www.rifhandbook.info.
Quality: we’ve put a lot of effort into making the content as good as it can be. For a wholly volunteer-generated initiative I think it is a solid product, but I’m biased of course!

HB: Chris, what do you think are the top things that you think readers will find most useful in the Handbook?

CD: I think that will be different depending on the needs and experiences of readers – throughout the Handbook we’ve tried to ensure that content is relevant for both those who are new to prospect research and for experienced researchers who are looking to innovate and upskill.

For early-career researchers or those who are setting up a prospect research function, we hope our New Researchers Guide chapter and the chapter on The Prospect Research Role will be invaluable. Within the Data & Skills Domain of the Handbook, there is some very detailed, nuanced, and in-depth content on estimating wealth and assigning capacity ratings – topics that we know are of eternal interest to prospect researchers and fundraisers alike!

Finally, we’ve made extensive use of case studies throughout the Handbook, drawn from the real-life experiences of researchers. We hope these will really bring the content the life and illustrate how the principles and techniques outlined in the Handbook can be applied practically.

HB: Chris, what did you enjoy most about the process?

CD: I’ve really enjoyed the experience of being involved in creating content for the Handbook, especially the early stages of this where you are exchanging knowledge with your peers. I’ve been working in prospect research for over a decade, but being involved with the Handbook has absolutely encouraged to rethink some of my settled views about the work that we do, and how we do it. I think the Handbook does reflect this process of peer exchange, and I hope that everyone who uses it will find something new and different in there that challenges their assumptions.

HB: Ally, What tools did you use for collaboration on this massive project and how well did they work? If you had another large collaborative project to undertake, would you use the same tools?

AL-D: The Handbook was always intended to be primarily a remote project, so in that sense we were lucky and the pandemic didn’t significantly affect our plans. In order to help ensure both accessibility of tools at no cost for volunteers and to help embed project sustainability by keeping the financial burden of the project low for RiF, we’ve largely drawn on tools that are available for free. As a Steering Group, our project management hub is a tool called Freedcamp, and this enables us to plot and track actions, deadlines, and milestones and assign task accountability at a strategic level.

For the Handbook’s wider volunteer community, the free version of MS Teams is our collaborative workspace. Teams provides us with a place to create, share, and store documents such as meeting agendas and action plans, and to work collectively on producing and editing content in real-time whilst being able to communicate quickly and easily with each other. Within Teams volunteers can access the web versions of MS Word and Excel so we’re all using the same tools to ensure compatibility plus there is in-build versioning history and storage back-up for those ‘just in case’ moments. We’ve recently made the switch from using Zoom for our regular meetings to using MS Teams’ video calling service; it doesn’t quite have all the same features as Zoom but it does come at zero cost rather than requiring a subscription to hold meetings for small groups for up to an hour at a time.

The Handbook itself is created using a custom-made WordPress website. We chose the route of e-publishing over hard copy for several reasons and the WordPress platform, with its almost unlimited flexibility and versatility, is the best fit to meet the Handbooks needs both now and in the future. As an e-publication it is not only much easier to keep the Handbook content up to date, it is also far simpler to ensure its availability to readers around the world who can access the content from any device with a web browser.

Overall, aside from the usual occasional IT glitch, (we’ve done the equivalent of turn it off and on again once or twice), the tools we’ve chosen have been effective and created not only a conduit for remote productivity and development, but also a space to come together a a community and experience that sense of being part of a team working towards a common goal that is so important to the Handbook.

Many thanks again to Ben, Chris, and Ally for sharing the inside scoop on the RiF Prospect Research Handbook, and for all of the hard work and coordination that went into creating it! Check out the Handbook website at www.RiFHandbook.info. If you would like to be a volunteer writer or editor for future chapters, please visit this page to learn more.

May 16, 2019 By Helen Brown

Portfolio spring cleaning

Photo by Arbitrarily0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Not that you would know it from the weather in Boston, but it’s spring out there. I washed my windows last weekend and wow, what a difference! I’m really looking forward to seeing the sun shine through them when it eventually makes an appearance.

My next task is to get rid of this huge cd rack that has been sitting in the corner of my living room since cds were a thing. There must be at least 750 cds on this rack, which is just one part of the problem.

There are too many of them
We haven’t played any of them in years (some of them never)
Since computers don’t have cd drives in them anymore, I have nothing to convert them with
We have a sentimental attachment to them
Someday they may be worth a lot of money (but seriously, probably not)
They’re taking up room we could be using for a desperately-needed additional seat

As I was standing there staring at it last evening, it occurred to me that our cd rack is a metaphor for many under-performing major donor prospect portfolios.

Most portfolios have too many prospects in them
We haven’t connected with some of those prospects in years (or ever)
We don’t have enough time or fundraisers to help convert many of those prospects into donors
We have a sentimental attachment to these prospects
Someday they may give us a large gift (but seriously, probably not)
Prospects that are never going to give (or won’t give anytime soon) are taking up the place for new prospects with higher capacity, interest, and likelihood to give.

So what to do? Well, it’s time for some spring cleaning, isn’t it?

I’m no Marie Kondo, but I do like to keep things simple if I’m going to get some tidying accomplished. When trimming portfolios, I put prospects into three categories: A, B, and C.

A – the keepers. They’re definitely or probably going to give in the next year-to-18 months.
B – prospects for reassessment. If you don’t have a prospect management director, ask your research team or your research consultant to give you a candid, unsentimental, strategic assessment. You probably don’t need heavy-duty research. The goal should be a simple “Keep in portfolio, they’re an A” or “Move elsewhere, they’re a C.”
C – these are the ones to remove. The folks who may be lovely to have lunch with but who will never make a major gift. Move them out of your portfolio to your colleagues in stewardship, annual fund, gift planning, or whatever other department/section that makes the most sense (if your organization is large enough to have them).

But whether your development shop is large or just you, it doesn’t matter – prospects that will never donate at a major gift level should be moved out of your major gift portfolio.

The goal should be to get rid of every prospect that isn’t going to move forward in the 0-24 months. I know – it’s really hard. You’ve become attached to people you’ve formed good relationships with, but when you do this you’ve moved them to a better place for them, for your nonprofit, and for your performance goals.

Once you’re finished you’ll have room for all of those new prospects that your research team or research consultant have found for you that they’ve been excited to move into your portfolio.

Which is great, right?

Say, now that we’ve cleaned out your portfolios, can I get some help schlepping these cds to donate to the library?

March 28, 2019 By Helen Brown

So you say you want a revolution, well, here goes….

Our month-long #ResearchPride focus on prospect management closes today with advice from one of the mountaintop gurus on the topic, Lisa Howley. It would be impossible to overstate Lisa’s expertise and generosity in sharing her knowledge over the years, and I’m delighted that she agreed to close out the month for us here on the Intelligent Edge to talk about creating a roadmap for solid prospect management success. ~Helen

We all want to change the world. Or at least our prospect management (PM) systems. It’s a common refrain by prospect management practitioners and gift officers alike. Walk down the hallway in any development office and you may hear someone scream in frustration ‘the system is broken!’

It can be daunting to be tasked with fixing a broken prospect management system. Sure, staff have been sharing their woes, and you have been compiling issues. But where to start? [Read more…]

March 21, 2019 By Helen Brown

What to do when your PM system needs a reboot

What do you do when your existing prospect and performance management systems aren’t working for anyone? That’s the question Misa Lobato answers for us this week in our month-long Research Pride look at prospect management. Misa and her team embarked on a serious soul-searching, data-gathering, preconceived-notion-busting, solutions-finding mission to find out what would make their system actually work. Part of what they learned is that you have to measure what matters. And what matters? Read on! ~Helen

Photo by tracyshaun

Many years ago, when I first started learning about performance management in fundraising, I noticed a strange disconnect: there didn’t seem to be a correlation between gift officers meeting established individual goals and being promoted. In fact, often the gift officers who were promoted hadn’t met their goals. As I dug in a little further, I realized no one cares about these goals.

How did we get there, to the point where goals had been established to measure performance but no one viewed them as an indicator of success or failure? It seemed to me that goals had just been handed down year after year without being questioned. Goals were standardized across titles. Some were based on questionable industry lore–a gift officer should raise X times their salary. And some just seemed to be based on what had always been done. [Read more…]

March 14, 2019 By Helen Brown

Prospect Management – Starting From Scratch

This week I’m delighted to share with you an article written by prospect management expert, Janna Holm. I was introduced to Janna at an Apra conference by Lisa Howley (more from Lisa later this month!), and Janna’s enthusiasm for our field and, specifically, her delight at building strong and dynamic prospect management systems simply won me over. I’m so pleased that Janna agreed to lay out the foundations for us in today’s blog post so you’ll get to meet her, too, if you haven’t already. ~Helen

Research Pride Month is such a special time to me—our friends and colleagues around the world come together to celebrate accomplishments and where our industry is headed. Our field has undergone some incredible transitions over the years. In my last job, I went digging for office supplies and stumbled upon a filing cabinet in an old storage closet, only to find it full of index cards holding tidbits of information and asset data on our alumni. This was their “research system” through the 1980s.

I’ve used databases built in the 1990s where cell phone and email fields were hidden away under “miscellaneous info” as they weren’t common enough to have a home yet. Now, in 2019, our conferences are full of discussions about machine learning and artificial intelligence. It’s amazing to think about how far we’ve come.

One of the biggest transitions over the years has been to incorporate prospect management into shops that historically focused on prospect research. I’ve seen and worked at organizations where prospect management was fully established and ingrained in the culture, and others where prospect management was still nascent or didn’t exist. But over the years, this has grown to become a vital part of a major gift shop. So how does it begin?

When to Begin:

Any organization with multiple staff involved in fundraising should start thinking about a prospect management system. An airport with only one flight per day may not need an air traffic controller, but the more planes you add, the more vital coordination becomes. The same is true for prospect management—when more staff and donors are involved, it becomes increasingly important to have a prospect management system in place.

To build out a strong prospect management system, you need to think not only about your constituent relationship management database (CRM), but also the policy around how you work and the procedures that delineate who does what and how that work is done.

Incorporating Prospect Management in your CRM:

Going back to our air traffic controller example, they need to know which planes are taking off and landing, at what times, and in which direction. They need to know their runways, and wind speeds, and who’s ready versus who’s running behind schedule. In order to ensure prospect management is coordinated, it helps to know some data as well.

No matter which CRM you’re using, there should be some ability to begin tracking prospect management or moves management. Most prospect management systems begin by tracking the following elements:

Who oversees the relationship with this prospect?

This could be labeled as a Gift Officer, Relationship Manager, or any number of titles, but it’s helpful to note which person is in charge of the relationship and responsible for coordinating outreach to the prospect.

Where is this prospect in their relationship to our organization?

Different organizations use different stages (see the 4-, 5-, 6-, or 7-stages of a gift solicitation), but you’ll want to know who is at each step of whichever cycle you choose.

What have we asked this prospect for previously, and how did it go?

You may refer to these as Asks, Solicitations, Opportunities, Proposals or myriad other names, but this would be a place to track what size gift you solicited, what program or project it would fund, when you asked for it, and what the outcome was.

What have we done with this prospect?

Tracking your actions or contacts with a prospect ensures you’re capturing their history. Did they attend an event? Did you send them a holiday card? What did you talk about in your last face-to-face visit? Some organizations will track every single “touch” that happens with a prospect, while others focus on more “substantive” actions that move the prospect along through the stages of their relationship to the organization.

As your organization grows in size and complexity, you may want to begin to track other things like additional staff involvement (secondary relationship managers, volunteers, leadership involvement), details about the prospect’s capacity and affinity, the short- and long-term strategy for a prospect, your metrics for fundraising staff, or more in-depth information about proposals or activities.

Creating a Prospect Management Policy:

Once you have those ideas for what you want to track, there are still some vital things to consider. Your system needs to have a policy behind it and procedures in place so your colleagues know how to use it.

Your policy document should cover questions that may arise as your colleagues adopt this new system. Those will look different based on your organization, and you can find some good examples online. It may include topics like:

How do prospects get assigned to a staffer?
When should prospects be added or removed from a portfolio?
How are staff expected to share information about a prospect?
What information are they expected to track in the CRM?
Who enters that data?
What happens if there’s a conflict about assignment, solicitation, etc.?
What information can and cannot get entered into the record (due to HIPAA, GDPR, FERPA, or ethical concerns)?
What happens when a staffer leaves your organization?

An aspect that should be incorporated into every prospect management system is a glossary to specify what each data element means—what counts as a “visit”? How are you defining “qualification”? It’s hard to stay coordinated if you don’t speak the same language, so make sure colleagues agree on how terms or data fields are defined at your organization.

Up and Running

Once a prospect management system has been crafted and implemented, it will still go through tweaks. Maybe a policy needs to change, or you’re adding some planned giving staff and need to think about their assignments differently, or you realize you need to add a new stage. Building a strong system that colleagues understand and use, and regularly adapting it are key elements of moving prospect management forward.

Our industry is dynamic and we’re progressing faster every year. Our systems should be built to track our history, but also to allow for evolution, so that in 10, 20, or 30 years, we can see a prospect’s journey from stage to stage and gift to gift (and so in 10, 20, or 30 years, we have a data set to use for all that machine learning!).

So, as we near the halfway point of Research Pride Month, I hope you all take a look at your prospect management system. If you’ve had one for years, does it need any edits or changes? If you’re just getting started, what can you do this month to move it forward a bit? Celebrate what you’ve done, and where our industry has been. Let’s keep adapting, growing, and improving!

Janna Holm is Director of Prospect Development at The Trust for Public Land. Currently a board member of Apra Minnesota and a longtime volunteer and speaker for Apra International, Janna is past president of Apra Maryland. She tweets great stuff here.

March 7, 2019 By Helen Brown

Why Prospect Management?

“Burger and Spudhenge” (c) Julie Kahn

Happy #ResearchPride month! I’m so happy to share something new we’re doing this year on The Intelligent Edge to celebrate. Our field is brimming with great talent and great ideas, particularly around the area of prospect management. This month we’re featuring four experts discussing aspects of the topic that impact most of us in the nonprofit sphere. Jessica Balsam kicks us off with an introduction on why prospect management is so important to your nonprofit’s success. Take it away, Jessica! ~Helen

I’m excited to kick off this #researchpride series on prospect management, because I get really excited about great prospect management systems. Like the bun to the burger, like the burger to the bun (in the words of the Beastie Boys), a great prospect management system exists as a perfect and necessary complement to research.

A great prospect management system is more than some tables and fields in a constituent relationship management database (CRM). It’s more than a collection of reports. It encompasses fundraiser training, portfolio building, analysis, and policy. Just like research, it requires close working relationships with frontline fundraisers and a deep knowledge of the practice of major gift fundraising.

(Oh no, did I lose you because I said policy? Come back! Policies are not scary, I promise!)

[Read more…]

by: Melissa Bank Stepno, President & CEO

by: Tara McMullen-King, Director, Research & Consulting

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