WealthEngine Best Practices in Higher Education for Prospect ...

Best Best Practices Practices in Action
9
Effective Prospect
Management
Effective fundraising organizations have practices in place
to track their progress with prospects. This is often called
“moves management,” or “prospect management” (see
definition on page 18). Without an effective process to
track and measure progress with prospects, an organizations
investments in prospect identification, qualification
and rating will not be maximized.
Management systems vary by organization, but a successful
system normally involves:
Setting goals for actions and results as they relate to the
process of turning prospects into donors, or donors into
repeat donors
A process to consistently collect and record information
that relates to progress towards those goals
A mechanism to report this information
Procedures to analyze the data collected in order to
make corrections or take advantage of opportunities
when warranted
The overwhelming majority of survey respondents (82%)
have a prospect management system in place. This jumps
to 94% among HPOs. Fifty-seven percent have practices
in place to measure their fundraising effectiveness, which
would relate to their process for collecting, recording and
reporting this information. This figure increases to 65%
among HPOs. Over 90% of those who have practices in
place generate reports on a monthly basis, with the remainder
generating them quarterly. Types of report metrics and
how often they are included in respondents reports are
summarized in Table 9.1.
Report Metric
% of Organizations
Including Metric
Dollars raised 97%
Proposals Submitted 66%
# of prospects in each stage of cultivation 63%
# of visits/significant contacts 80%
Figure 9.1 Data captured in reports and frequency
Prospect Tracking and Moves Management
Typically organizations will begin with a simple means of
tracking prospects through the fundraising pipeline. The
simplest stages of the process are illustrated below:
5
Stewardship
4
Solicitation
Figure 9.2: The Donor Cycle
1
Identification
3
Cultivation
2
Qualification
An efficient prospect management system will track the
moves of each prospect through these stages. It may also
identify and record the actionable steps that are effective
at pushing the prospect to the next level. The system
should include a projected time for completion of each
stage in the cycle. Additionally, each stage of the process
should reflect the dollar amount for which the prospect
opportunity, or proposal, is rated. This is essential to tracking
the process from proposal to actual dollars raised.
Best Practices for Prospect Research in Higher Education Fundraising - 2nd Ed. | 33