Prospecting For The Endgame: Week 4
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Prospecting for the Endgame: Week 4
In last week’s episode, our Avengers assembled! …along with a bunch of other prospects from the Marvel Universe. My prospects have been Identified, and I’ve started to Qualify who I’m going to focus on. Now, it’s time to dig deeper into what we know about our prospects and find out how they can best partner with us to accomplish our mission.
Give Donors Lots of Opportunities
It’s important to have diverse revenue streams and engagement pipelines as part of your fundraising strategy. The more opportunities available, the more likely a prospect might be interested. Spiderman won’t be swinging into action for a stuffy donor event, but he might get involved with a peer-to-peer fundraising event, and I’d be lucky to get someone so young involved in my mission.
The easier you make it to give and get involved, the better your donor acquisition will be. The easier you make it to stay involved, the better your retention will be.
Size up Your Prospects
Now that I knew WHO to prioritize, I wanted to figure out WHAT kind of giving stream would be best for them. Some of my prospects, like Tony Stark, are clearly influential, have great networks to build from, and would be excellent as an event sponsor. Others, like Captain America, are known for being reliable and dedicated. I’d be remiss if I didn’t let them know about my sustainer giving program.
There are lots of clues donors give about how they want to get engaged. Understanding your donors beyond their giving history is key. Gender, age, and education can be just as meaningful to how a donor gives as assets and their personal network. My donor data is attached to this blog.
Match the Donor to the Opportunity
Based on what I know about my donors and what statistics are available about donor behavior, I could see a lot of matches between my prospects and potential revenue streams. Millennial donors are more likely to give through social media. Boomers give more. Mature donors give even more. Women are more likely to give than men. Women are also much more likely to get involved with peer-to-peer giving.
Pepper Potts really stands out as a strong prospect for just about any involvement. Shuri seems like a great fit, too. Loki seems like a strong contender for naming opportunities, but I’d want to be sure there were no strings attached to the gift offer. Here’s how they broke down:
Join us Next Week…
Our prospect pool is prioritized, so when we continue, I’ll be focusing on only my major donors. We’re down from 30 to 7. No one let me near the Infinity Gauntlet, so I’m apparently harsher than Thanos. This narrow of a pool will make building Cultivation Plans a “Snap!”
While you wait you can learn more about how to keep your donors engaged in our OBP: Fundraising – Donor Retention workshop.
If you Missed an Exciting Episode…
Here are the links to every edition of Prospecting for the Endgame!
Prospecting for the Endgame: Week 7
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5603
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 6
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5574
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 5
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5564
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 4
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5544
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 3
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5527
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 2
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5508
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 1
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5491
In last week’s episode, our Avengers assembled! …along with a bunch of other prospects from the Marvel Universe. My prospects have been Identified, and I’ve started to Qualify who I’m going to focus on. Now, it’s time to dig deeper into what we know about our prospects and find out how they can best partner with us to accomplish our mission.
Give Donors Lots of Opportunities
It’s important to have diverse revenue streams and engagement pipelines as part of your fundraising strategy. The more opportunities available, the more likely a prospect might be interested. Spiderman won’t be swinging into action for a stuffy donor event, but he might get involved with a peer-to-peer fundraising event, and I’d be lucky to get someone so young involved in my mission.
The easier you make it to give and get involved, the better your donor acquisition will be. The easier you make it to stay involved, the better your retention will be.
Size up Your Prospects
Now that I knew WHO to prioritize, I wanted to figure out WHAT kind of giving stream would be best for them. Some of my prospects, like Tony Stark, are clearly influential, have great networks to build from, and would be excellent as an event sponsor. Others, like Captain America, are known for being reliable and dedicated. I’d be remiss if I didn’t let them know about my sustainer giving program.
There are lots of clues donors give about how they want to get engaged. Understanding your donors beyond their giving history is key. Gender, age, and education can be just as meaningful to how a donor gives as assets and their personal network. My donor data is attached to this blog.
Match the Donor to the Opportunity
Based on what I know about my donors and what statistics are available about donor behavior, I could see a lot of matches between my prospects and potential revenue streams. Millennial donors are more likely to give through social media. Boomers give more. Mature donors give even more. Women are more likely to give than men. Women are also much more likely to get involved with peer-to-peer giving.
Pepper Potts really stands out as a strong prospect for just about any involvement. Shuri seems like a great fit, too. Loki seems like a strong contender for naming opportunities, but I’d want to be sure there were no strings attached to the gift offer. Here’s how they broke down:
| Sustaining | Planned | P2P | Major Gifts | Events |
| Black Widow | Loki | Spider-Man | Black Panther | Tony Stark |
| Bucky Barnes | Black Widow | Capt. America | Doctor Strange | Black Panther |
| Nick Fury | Nick Fury | Mantis | Thor | Pepper Potts |
| Bruce Banner | Vision | Star-Lord | Okoye | |
| Vision | Capt. Marvel | Pepper Potts | ||
| War Machine | Ant Man | Thanos | ||
| Sam Wilson | Phil Coulson | Shuri | ||
| Phil Coulson | Sam Wilson | |||
| Capt. America | War Machine |
Join us Next Week…
Our prospect pool is prioritized, so when we continue, I’ll be focusing on only my major donors. We’re down from 30 to 7. No one let me near the Infinity Gauntlet, so I’m apparently harsher than Thanos. This narrow of a pool will make building Cultivation Plans a “Snap!”
While you wait you can learn more about how to keep your donors engaged in our OBP: Fundraising – Donor Retention workshop.
If you Missed an Exciting Episode…
Here are the links to every edition of Prospecting for the Endgame!
Prospecting for the Endgame: Week 7
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5603
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 6
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5574
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 5
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5564
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 4
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5544
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 3
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5527
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 2
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5508
Prospecting for The Endgame: Week 1
https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/76/5491
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Organizational Best Practices Blog
04/03/2019 11:00am EDT
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