Major donors are a critical source of revenue for almost every philanthropic organization. Because of this, organizations like yours are consistently looking to fill the pipeline with new major donors who will become partners in your effort to transform lives, impact communities, and improve the world.
Wealth Screening Isn’t Enough.
For many years wealth screening solutions have been the primary source to identify new potential major donors. In recent years, some organizations have added publicly-available data to enhance these efforts. While these traditional approaches have, without question, helped us identify prospects who would have otherwise gone unnoticed, they have also created a new set of challenges.
Here are some of the common challenges we hear from the organizations we serve across the country. Can you relate?
- We know the donors on our list have the capacity, but we are not sure if they are truly interested. Because traditional wealth screens are based solely on financial data, many organizations feel like they are chasing the most wealthy prospects and trying to cultivate the same wealthy individuals as other nonprofits.
- The data feels inaccurate or misleading. Development officers don’t trust the data, so they go with their gut or stick to cultivating donors they already know.
- Considering capacity alone doesn’t seem like enough. Realizing that a person’s motivation for giving is more than just financial, organizations require insights based on more than a single category of data points.
- With so much information to consider, we are suffering from analysis paralysis. For most nonprofits, the sheer volume of information from wealth screening reports is overwhelming. It’s virtually impossible to act on the information as it’s coming in.
As a result, we are constantly asking, “How can we accelerate revenue without going back to the same pool of major donors? Are we spending time cultivating the right prospects? How can we really know if our current portfolio is truly interested in giving more?” For organizations looking to maximize time, energy, and resources, these screenings are simply no longer enough.
While the traditional approach to wealth screening is the norm for many nonprofits, more and more organizations are finding that it is not sufficiently addressing these challenges.
We Believe There’s a Better Way.
In our work with diverse organizations across the country, we have found three key ideas that innovate on historical approaches to wealth screening and help nonprofits transform data into actionable insights:
1. Identifying Potential Major Donors Should Be Multi-Dimensional. We want to know as many facets of prospects as possible. What do they care about? How do they interact with similar organizations? How civic-minded are they? No doubt, wealth and prior giving are critical metrics, but other elements are important to consider for a holistic approach.
2. Considering a Donor’s Interest Matters. Our success in serving many of the nation’s leading nonprofits has demonstrated that a donor’s engagement and interest is a driving indicator of their likelihood to give. In some ways, it is more telling than wealth. With today’s technology, we can look at a donor’s interest and engagement – essentially getting inside their heart and mind – which presents a far greater opportunity than wealth alone.
3. Data Should Provide Actionable Insights. Traditional wealth scoring is transactional. As an agency committed to providing data-driven solutions developed by fundraisers for fundraisers, we approach wealth screening as a two-way dialogue with clients in which we discuss how to apply the information, improve it, and optimize it. Not only does this help you to drive your major gift revenue, it also allows you to optimize the effectiveness and culture of your entire team.
Are You Ready for a Better Way to Identify & Upgrade Donors?
In today’s world, where access to information and data is more abundant than ever, organizations have the opportunity to think beyond traditional scoring models. If you’ve been looking for a better way to identify and upgrade donors, we’d invite you to learn more about our approach by clicking on the link or button below.
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