While there is a variety of ways to qualify (or disqualify) an individual as a major gift prospect, all approaches need to be able to answer five questions.
1. Who is this person?
This tells us where a person grew up, attended schools, worked, if she created an organization or organizations, about her family, political and religious affiliations, and indicators of age and health. It can also include descriptions of a person’s personality — gruff, garrulous, inquisitive, self-centered, differential, self-confident, guarded, and so forth.
2. What does this person care about?
Finding out what a person really cares about is essential to determine if he or she cares about your organization specifically and in comparison to other organizations or other interests. However, if a person is not asked about her career or about the business she founded, she may not bring it up. If the business is privately owned, a prospect researcher may well not be able to find any information about the business. Sometimes an individual will “share” this information through their LinkedIn profile but many people do not have LinkedIn profiles. A good fundraiser (and prospect researcher!) want to know what drives a person. What do they really care about enough to do something about it? The prospect may care about fishing and loves to talk about it. He may really care about vocal music and sings in two or three distinct groups. She may love learning about faculty research or prefer “doing something” as opposed to saying, “Something should be done.” Giving is motivated, intentional behavior. When someone makes a gift there is an expectation that something good will happen as a result. Anticipating the impact of a major gift is, in large part, what motivates gift behavior. A donor may also anticipate being appreciated, being thanked, being recognized—all of which are important psychic rewards.
3. Where does what this person care about overlap with what your organization does or would like to do?
Sometimes this can be discovered through secondary research. More often it is discovered by directly talking with the prospect, by asking good questions, listening carefully and probing more deeply, where appropriate. If a person cares about the welfare of cats and dogs and your organization provides outdoor leadership experiences there is no match no matter how much money the person has. In general, that person may be a great prospect for the SPCA, but not for your organization.
4. What is this person’s gift capacity?
People give in relation to what they believe they can afford to give out of their income, their wealth, or both. They may or may not have a budget for their philanthropy, but they always have a sense of what they can afford. If they have funded a Donor Advised Fund (DAF) or created a foundation, they will know what percentage of the DAF or foundation’s overall worth they are willing to expend and, of that, what fraction they are
willing to give to your organization. A rule of thumb is to start with five percent (5%) of your estimate of their wealth or income and figure they are distributing that over several charities. A person may be very interested in your organization and a regular donor but not have the financial wherewithal to make a major gift commitment to be fulfilled during her lifetime. However, she might have the ability to make a major gift through her estate, so understanding if and how many children and, especially, grandchildren she has will factor into her overall gift capacity.
5. Will this person engage?
A person is not a major gift prospect if he or she qualifies based on the first four questions but will not respond to or declines requests to interact. Note that this is different from the prospect who has interacted in the past but has either become recently nonresponsive or sporadically responsive. When selecting which prospect to pursue for major gifts, avoid going after the low- hanging fruit, i.e., those always willing to meet but with modest income and or wealth scores. While you might be able to influence a person’s willingness to give, you are highly unlikely to be able to make her richer!
Prospect qualification is a system that combines art, science and execution. The art is in asking good questions, actively listening, understanding and designing a major gift strategy. The science is using the informational tools to help round out a prospect’s profile. The execution make brings your work to fruition and make it happen!
Contact us if you would like to talk with us about your current prospect qualification system and how it might be improved or give us a call at (630) 986-9884. We look forward to connecting with you!