1. Kristin Sours, Director of Client Relationships, DonorSearch
Prospect Research & Prospect Management: There Is No Silver Bullet! Presented By:
Kristin Sours, Director of Client Relationships, DonorSearch

2. Who is DonorSearch?
Premiere Provider of Prospect Research and Prospect Identification services for all nonprofits
Batch screening and modeling using wealth and philanthropy databases
Online search tools for individual research and prospect generation
Predicting capacity and philanthropic inclination
11 year old family-owned business
50+ employees
Headquartered in Maryland
4,000+ active clients
Largest database of philanthropic gift records in the nation
Our revenue continues to grow by +20% per year
donorsearch.net |

3. Introduction
Kristin graduated from East Carolina University, where she received a B.A. in Public Relations
She started her career with DonorSearch in 2014 and was quickly promoted to manage the client success team to improve support
Kristin has a passion for helping people and takes pride in her 100% satisfaction rating
Wife to Austin (also an alum of ECU) and mother to daughter, Addison
Loves to laugh, be outdoors and do yoga
donorsearch.net |

4. Agenda Why prospect research? Major Gifts
How do you identify your Major Gift Prospects?
6 Markers of Philanthropy
Prospect Management
Best Practices of the nonprofit sector
Wrap-up/Questions
donorsearch.net |

5. Why Prospect Research?
Prospect Research is essential for identifying high-impact donors within an organization’s current donor pool and in the larger community.
Different types of methods:
Screening
One off searches
Social media
Communication with donors
Self-identified
donorsearch.net |

6. Why Major Gifts?
Major gifts are some of the largest donations your organization will receive.
80% of their fundraising total coming from 20% of their donors. There’s even a defensible stance that the comparison is much more drastic, which argues that the breakdown is close to for major gifts.
Major gift programs give interested supporters guidance in the allocation of their funds.
donorsearch.net |

7. Motivation of the First Class Donor
donorsearch.net |

8. What Is Your Major Gift Size?
Amount + Purpose = Extraordinary
The first step is to define what a “Major Gift” is for you.
The term major gift means something different at every organization.
donorsearch.net |

9. How to Identify Major Players
Determine the prospect’s potential for giving
Consider wealth screening
Conduct leadership volunteer and board reviews
Place the prospect appropriately in a gift range chart
donorsearch.net |

10. Why Start with Proven Philanthropy?
$5 billion in giving
2 million individuals
400 organizations
*Based on DonorSearch study completed in 2007, with a follow-up study in 2017 that omitted the outliers
donorsearch.net |

11. SIX MARKERS OF PHILANTHROPY #1: GIVING TO YOUR ORGANIZATION

12. Previous Giving to Your Organization
RFM = Relationship or Affinity Score
It’s calculated using the following three data sets:
Recency of giving (0-100)
Frequency of giving (0-100)
Monetary total contribution (0-100)
Total RFM score ranges from 0-300
Analysis of previous giving to your organization is the single best predictor of future philanthropy
RECENCY FREQUENCY MONETARY
Last Gift Number of Gifts Total Giving
donorsearch.net |

13. SIX MARKERS OF PHILANTHROPY #2: GIVING TO OTHER ORGANIZATIONS

14. Prior Giving Elsewhere
Largest Gift
% of Donors
% of Giving
Predictive Strength
Benchmark
100%
1.00
$100,000+
0.7%
24.1%
32.67
$50,000 - $100,000
0.5%
13.5%
25.02
$25,000 - $50,000
0.6%
6.5%
11.79
$10,000 - $25,000
7.0%
10.73
$5,000 - $10,000
1.1%
5.4%
4.98
donorsearch.net |

15. SIX MARKERS OF PHILANTHROPY #3: FOUNDATION TRUSTEE

16. IRS990PF
donorsearch.net |

17. New Findings: Foundation Trustee
All User Reported Donors
All User Reported Donors Matching to Foundation Trustee (Y or M) 1
Nonprofit Users Reporting
227
192 2
User Reported Donors
684,351
14,225 (48:1 or 2%) 3
Average Lifetime Giving
$315
$1,306 4
Cumulative Lifetime Giving
$149,798,873
$13,791,182 5
Total Gift Count
2,403,282
83,290 6
Average Individual Gift Size
$87
$257 7
Per Person Average Gift Size Comparison
$1.00
$2.95 8
Per Person Average Lifetime Giving Comparison
$4.15
donorsearch.net |

18. SIX MARKERS OF PHILANTHROPY #4: POLITICAL GIVING

19. Political Giving
% of Donors
% of Giving
Strength
All Giving > $2.5K
3.8%
54.6%
14.37
All Giving > $1K
11.0%
70.7%
32.67
All Giving > $500
14.4%
74.3%
25.02
A single political gift of $250 puts your donor in the top 6% of the U.S. population
A single political gift of $1,000 puts your donor in the top 1/10th of 1%
Virtually every FEC donor with lifetime political giving of $15,000 has made a 5-, 6-, or 7-figure charitable gift somewhere
donorsearch.net |

20. New Findings: Political Giving
All User Reported Donors
All User Reported Donors Matching to Political Giving 1
Nonprofit Users Reporting
227
207 2
User Reported Donors
684,351
164,170 (4:1 or 24%) 3
Average Lifetime Giving
$315
$605 4
Cumulative Lifetime Giving
$149,798,873
$68,115,066 (45%) 5
Total Gift Count
2,403,282
757,289 6
Average Individual Gift Size
$87
$141 7
Per Person Average Gift Size Comparison
$1.00
$1.62 8
Per Person Average Lifetime Giving Comparison
$1.92
donorsearch.net |

21. SIX MARKERS OF PHILANTHROPY #5: VALUE OF REAL ESTATE

22. Value of Real Estate Real Estate Value % of Donors % of Giving
Predictive Strength
$2+ million
1.4%
25.0%
17.6
$1-2 million
3.2%
13.2%
4.2
$750K - $1 million
2.5%
5.7%
2.3
$500K - $750K
5.4%
6.8%
1.3
$250K - $500K
12.8%
8.6%
0.7
$125K - $250K
10.9%
4.8%
0.4
$125K
8.4%
3.5%
donorsearch.net |

23. New Findings: Value of Real Estate
Real Estate Value
% of Donors
% of Giving
Predictive Strength
$2,000,000+
3.5
29.6
8.48
$1,000,000 - $1,999,999
5.8
9.2
1.58
$750,000 - $999,999
4.1
6.3
1.52
$500,000 – $749,999
7.8
4.2
0.54
$250,000 - $499,999
17.5
4.9
0.28
$125,000 - $249,999
13.9
2.2
0.16
$1 - $124,999
6.2
1.7
0.27
donorsearch.net |

24. SIX MARKERS OF PHILANTHROPY #6: BUSINESS AFFILIATIONS

25. Business Affiliations
% of Donors
% of Giving
Strength
SEC | Yes & Maybe
2.0%
15.5%
7.8
Market Guide | Yes & Maybe
3.0%
19.5%
6.6
D&B | Yes & Maybe $5+ million
0.6%
5.1%
9.0
D&B | Yes & Maybe $1-5 million
0.7%
2.5%
3.5
D&B | Yes & Maybe
6.5%
21.5%
3.3
donorsearch.net |

26. Prospect Management
Identify a staff member for ongoing prospect management
Assess needs for skill building and plan appropriate training
Document Prospect Management Practices for the full Development Team (staff and volunteers)
donorsearch.net |

27. Prospect Management In Practice
Set up systems in donor database to support prospect management
Decide which research results to upload into the donor database
Decide how many “good prospects” needed to meet goals
donorsearch.net |

28. Motivating Your Potential Donors
You cannot motivate people – they are already motivated. Your job is to find out what motivates them and give the messages and create the environment for involvement that will help their interest flourish and engage them with you.
Listen (two ears, one mouth ratio) to what donors say and ask; observe who they gravitate towards at events
Most of all, listen for the nearly audible “click” when your program’s values combine with theirs
donorsearch.net |

29. Best Practices Clearly stated mission
Donors respect the fundraisers and staff
Prospect research & wealth screening
Demonstration of sound business teams
Board Members engaged and strong leadership
Everyone understands philanthropy
Trained fundraisers with an appetite to learn – CFRE, ACFRE
Where do you fall?
donorsearch.net |

30. LETS CONNECT!
Kristin Sours
(443)