Active Portfolios

One great tool that we have at The Citadel Foundation is active portfolios, which means they are always changing, moving, increasing or decreasing.

Our research office is made up of only two staff members, myself, Lisa Ukuku, Director of Research and Libby Davis, Director of Prospects Management & Research therefore it is challenging to maintain several gift officer's portfolio.

We have found that having quarterly meetings with each gift officer and reviewing their list and discussing future travel plans is a great way to keep in tune with their constituent activing.

What we have begun adding to this process is tracking the last action and highlighting constituents who haven’t been touch and asking the gift officer what next steps they will develop for this prospect.

Also quarterly we have begun to send out a spreadsheet exported from Raisers Edge that shows all prospects assigned within the 1st quarter of the year and the status of actions or contacts.

We highlight the constituents who have been seen within 90 days of their assigned date.

We congratulate the gift officers and also indicate who still has not been seen in an effort to encourage discussion on where the gift officer should focus when reviewing his or her portfolio.

This process encourages gift officers to determine if the constitute should remain on their list or if there is another gift officer who may have a better relationship or reason to assess the prospect. Our objective is to have an open, positive discussion about portfolios and foster the idea that a portfolio should not be still and stale but always “refreshing and active” with the best prospects and donors in different phases of the gift cycle.

Just because someone has been assigned to you and on your list for two or more years doesn’t mean that you should continue to keep them if no activity has been noted to cultivate or steward the relationship.