Prospect Management "Classification" Field

Beth Dunning · September 2021

I'm looking for input from other organizations as to how they are using the “Classification” field on the Prospect Management tile. What sorts of values are in your drop down list?

Dan Snyder · September 2021

@Beth Dunning we just started using that field again and ours are based on ask amount for the year so basically listed from lowest (Annual) to highest (Principal) and we have some famous alumni who are not necessarily financial prospects so we have the Non-Financial Engagement for those folks.

Annual Gift

Associate Gift

Leadership Gift

Major Gift

Principal Gift

Non-Financial Engagement

Faith Murray · September 2021

We also use it for ask type: Monthly donor, Major Donor, Planned Giver. However, it hasn't really been a very useful field for us, because it can only contain one value - and some prospects fit multiple values. You have to prioritize the most significant value for this field, but that means that you must still record the other values elsewhere in RE, such as an Attribute, Constituency, or Membership, in order to include them in targeted communications.

As an example, we have Donor Doe who is a member of our monthly giving society, has included us in her estate, and makes a major gift every 2-3 years for campaigns. We have to prioritize one of these fields for her “Classification”, and of course, it will be the Major Gift class. However, she must still be marked as a planned giver, monthly member, and portfolio member elsewhere so she can receive our monthly donor stewardship mailing and our planned gift newsletter.

As a consequence, we almost never pull from the “Classification” menu for lists. I would be grateful to discover a more useful application for it.

Graham Getty · October 2021

We use Prospect status (a numbering system 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) in conjunction with Classification (A, B, C, D) where the numbers for Prospect Status is the amount we think donors are likely/capable of giving to our organization and the letter for Classification is how inclined we think they are to give. This allows us to use various Prospect Research tools and peer screenings, etc., and it's great to have all those ratings on file and available in Research Point and other places in the database. However, at the end of the day, once someone is an actively managed prospect our front-line fundraisers need to be able to gauge the strength and depth of their portfolio of assigned prospects and our leadership needs to be able to know the overall ratings of the active pool of all prospects. So @Dan Snyder might be in our database and go through usual prospect screening, become a prospect get assigned to me, and I might give him a Prospect Status of 5 (let's say able to give a $100,000 major gift) and a Classification of A (very inclined to give).

The status and classification can then be surfaced on RE NXT lists (screenshot below) as well as database view, queries, and reports.

Each prospect manager knows the status of their assigned prospects (wow, I've got 30 folks who are 1 A (high ability to give, high likelihood to give) in my pool of 200) and the leadership knows if they need to refresh / add to overall prospect pool (we need more folks with a Prospect Status of 3 and Classification of A or for this upcoming campaign.

Each organization can right-size what range of gift the Prospect status corresponds to for their typical giving levels:

Prospect status

1 = $5M +

2 = $1M - $5M

3 = $500K - $1M

4 = $250K - $500K, etc.

…and what the Classification letters mean

Classification

A = Very likely to give

B = Somewhat likely to give

C = Needs cultivation

It's a very subtle and efficient way to view and investigate your active prospect pool.

Plus, if a listing or classification is ever exposed the values are not listed, so all a donor would ever see is 1 A, 2 B, 1 C, etc. next to their name.

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Beth Dunning · October 2021

Thank you, Graham - this is really helpful. I appreciate everyone's feedback. It helps us think through options for using the fields.

Faith Murray · October 2021

@Graham Getty that is an interesting way to use the fields that we had not considered. We do currently track that info – in a similar way, 1A, 1B, etc. – but under Ratings. However, Ratings are limited in their ability for filtering with Query and Export. We like keeping Prospect Status for moves management, especially as it includes time-prompts in NXT, but I may have to reflect on this idea of repurposing the Classification field for a well-used Rating system. Suppose you could even purpose it to an in-house RFM calculation.

Nicholas Murphy · October 2021

We use the following for Classification options:

Not Assigned - Constituent has not been assigned to any classification yet.
Annual Fund - Constituent is targeted for direct appeal by mail, e-mail, or phone for gifts under $1,000.
Leadership Annual Fund – Constituent is targeted for direct appeal by mail, e-mail, or phone for gifts over $1,000.
Recurring Gifts - Constituent is targeted for multi-year commitments totaling $1,000 - $24,999.
Major Gifts - Constituent is targeted for multi-year commitments totaling $25,000 - $249,999.
Principal Gifts – Constituent is targeted for multi-year commitment totaling $250,000 or more.
Planned Giving - Constituent is targeted for planned giving or some other deferred gift.
Volunteer Only - Constituent does not wish to contribute but is interested in assisting with fundraising efforts. [Prospect Status should be null with this Classification]
Disqualified - Constituent has expressed no present interest in contributing or volunteering. [Prospect Status should be null with this Classification]
Do Not Solicit - Constituent has requested not to be solicited for contributions. [Prospect Status should be Not Viable with this Classification]

We use the following for Prospect Status, and they typically work closely with the Classification.

Prospect Pool - Constituent has been added to the pool of prospects through some data analysis or ranking criteria.
Identification - Constituent has been identified as a prospect for future work based on rankings and geographic location.
Qualification/Research - Constituent is at a stage of being qualified as a prospect through research into potential interests, affinity, and capacity.
Strategy Development - Constituent has been researched, and a strategy is being developed to cultivate.
Cultivation - Constituent is being cultivated to confirm or adjust strategy and working to an eventual solicitation.
Advanced Cultivation - Constituent has been in the cultivation stage for at least six months, and a plan is in place with 2-3 next steps to advance the relationship
Pre-Solicitation - The cultivation process is progressing, and the constituent is ready and willing for solicitation but waiting on the availability of all parties involved.
Solicitation - Solicitation is scheduled.
Negotiation/Close - Following up after solicitation, working with the constituent on the gift proposal to close.
Stewardship - Constituent was closed on gift proposal and is being acknowledged, and ongoing stewardship activities are commencing.
Renewal - Constituent's current gift commitment is nearing completion; cultivation and solicitation activities should resume.
Deferred – Constituent's deferred commitment to a specific follow-up time, research/strategy/cultivation should be re-evaluated based on that time.
Declined - Constituent declined commitment with no timeframe for follow-up, research/strategy/cultivation should be re-evaluated periodically.
Low Affinity - Through conversations and outreach, the prospect has let staff know they have low affinity for the organization.
Not Viable - It is determined that the constituent is not a viable prospect.

Prospect Management "Classification" Field

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