Prospect Research

All Donors As Major Donors

How Long to Hold a Lead
I wrote earlier this week about “What’s a Lead” and today I’m going to talk about responding to these leads. When you come back from an event you attended, what do you do with your leads? Does it take months before any of these people ever hear from you again? I’ve found that people have very short-term memory when you first meet them. There are so many nonprofits, so many networking events, and so many people to meet. If you wait too long, people start to forget who you are. I try to send an email within a day of meeting someone new. That way they still remember who I am, and it gives us another ch

What’s a Lead
Sometimes the difference between a lead and everyone else is just a frame of mind. People connect, volunteer, and donate to your organization because they agree with and believe in what you are doing. I’m surprised by what it takes for someone at some organizations to become a prospect. Unless you have a specific contrary reason, everyone connected to your organization should be considered a lead. Staff, volunteers, big donors, little donors, board members, and alumni all are leads. It is important that you frame your message in an appropriate way to each of these groups but they are all still leads. People calling your organization, attending an event, subscribing to your e-new

Direct Mail Drop and Social Media Rise
Outside of a vibrant major gifts program direct mail is probably the number one way to raise money at most organizations. And direct mail will still be a major way to find donors for a long time to come but not forever. It appears that direct mail is on the decline. I know that I am way more responsive to an email that to any letter that I receive. I think that we are still at the early stages of social media fundraising and we will see direct mail continue to decline and social media & online fundraising continue to grow. There are already organizations that raise hundreds of thousands of dollars using social media. Every organization needs to start developing a plan around

Drowning in Agendas
Do you ever feel like you can’t get your day to day work done because you’re spending all your time working on agendas? I hate that feeling. I’ve always viewed agendas as a means to an end not the end itself. Meetings do have their value, as they are a great opportunity to enhance your relationship with those involved. I don’t think we will ever be able to get rid of meetings all together for that reason. But I do think we can be efficient, intentional, and productive with the kind and number of meetings we hold. One great way to manage your time is to make it the responsibility of a volunteer to set the agenda for your meetings. I like to have as many volunteers lead as m

Business Giving vs Individual Giving
There are a lot of new and brilliant creative and philanthropic successes in the world of business giving. Social enterprise is happening all around us doing tremendous good; Cause marketing is making us think differently about the products we purchase and the partnerships we create with businesses. I’ve been excited to see some businesses think creatively about their use of social media in connection with nonprofits. Aflac and Audi just finished Facebook causes campaigns using a matching sponsorship to raise awareness for their business and fundraise for a nonprofit? With the exception of a few large gifts tha