Saving Prospect Research Time this Fall

Published

It’s almost that time of the year again when we “fall back” on November 1^st. What are you going to do with that extra hour? You might use it for some extra sleep (like I do). In the spirit of Community, I thought a little about how we might save some time in prospect research as we start to get busier towards the end of the year.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the requests you might have on your desk for prospect research. Prioritizing those prospects by their place in moves management may streamline your time management.

Start by identifying a prospect’s place within a traditional moves management pipeline. Prospects in the “solicitation” phase are your first priority, because they should soon be receiving a gift proposal or solicitation visit from a major gifts officer. To ensure the success of that visit, you should confirm you have most up-to-date research on the prospect. These prospects are worthy of the time you spend producing detailed research profiles.
Second, review your “cultivation” phase prospects. These are people who have been qualified as warm prospects and have expressed an interest in your cause. A major gifts officer has them on a roadmap for eventual solicitation and may be cultivating them for an “ask.” At this point, providing your officer background information will help facilitate contact to determine a prospect’s interests.
Finally, consider your “identification” phase prospects. Using traditional methods of a screening with public domain sources to confirm assets by employing the use of middle initials and/or spouse names may provide your major gifts officer with the justification to begin cultivating a prospect.

Time spent prioritizing your prospects allows you to feel confident you are allowing the time for the proper level of research on the appropriate prospects. Oh, and make sure you get that extra hour of sleep....

What are some of your time saving tricks? Share below!

News ARCHIVED | Blackbaud Target Analytics® Tips and Tricks 09/13/2015 9:14pm EDT

Added by Kate Breck

7 Comments

Barbara Shreffler Oct '15

I've been spending time visiting with my major gift officers and going through their porfolios focusing on specific segments such as all constituents in the solicitation phase for example. The effort has offered a bonus in that I often find out a good bit earlier about upcoming meetings and their specific dates. This information helps me plan ahead for preparing proflies and saves me a lot of last minute requests. It doesn't matter what stage the constituent is in to get this particular benefit. It has worked very well for me.

Laurette Sirkin Oct '15

I love this post! I just got stuck recently in Analysis Paralysis as Ashley Oates, the trainer called it - and this article is super helpful!

Jill Goldman Oct '15

Samuel Lufi had a great post on this in August. In general, we (no prospect researchers - we are "do it yourself") try to limit ourselves to 15 minutes unless we're about to call on someone for a major gift. 15 minutes is usually enough to go through the tabs, qualify them, and determine level of interest - or the importance of further research. But we can't go down the rabbit hole with every prospect - it takes time away from asking!

Evelyn Cox Oct '15

As our staff has become busier and each of us is having to maximize all our efforts we are developing formal levels of research. We are defining how much time and effort should be put into the research for each request. First level is only the ResearchPoint report, add that report to RE record Media tab and add ratings. The next level is to add a few more checks and searches. The highest level will be as indepth as I can attain. For now all of our information is attached to the prospect's record but at some point we will need to look at a process such as Jessica Wade describes for Appomatic. We have not yet tied our tiers to status levels of prospects but that is a planned part of the process.

Crystal Bruce Oct '15

Hey Betsie! This is a great question for our Fundraising Best Practice category. Can you post there - so people can respond? Thanks!

Jessica Wade Oct '15

When we create research profiles of prospects, we place them in a shared folder that is accessed through a Magic Folder app through Omatic Software's Appomatic. This is connected straight with the constituent's record in RE. When the record is open and magic folder is already installed on the computer, you click a button to take you to that person's file in our system's shared drive. This saves tons of time. In the past, staff created profiles for prospects who had already been researched recently. After we installed this app a year ago, we no longer duplicate profiles and hence save ample time.

Betsie Chilton Oct '15

I am a new Prospect Researcher and would love to gather some handy tips from the masses! Anyone, what helped you the most in those 'early days' confirming items after a wealth screen? What is your best tip when everything comes back '0'??