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What Is Prospect Research?
 Prospect research is the collection and analysis of public
information to identify new prospects or to further qualify known
donors with the goal to advance a fund-raising program.
Our Purpose?
The economic climate is difficult; there are more nonprofits now
than ever before. You and your organization need to be smart about
who your next potential donor is, what their interests are with
regard to your organization and how much you’ll eventually ask from
them. Asking for too much or too little can be embarrassing to you
and your prospect.
Our goal is to provide organizations with an understanding of their
potential donors by empowering them with high quality prospect
research services to enable the formation of a strong, profitable
relationship.
What Can Prospect Research Do For Your Organization?
Maximizing
Lifetime Donor Value:
Manage resources wisely and focus the efforts of everyone in your
organization on steering the right prospects toward their ultimate
gifts.
 It is important to analyze each prospect’s ultimate gift potential
so you can spend the majority of your time, money and energy on the
prospects most likely to give, while developing strategic, perhaps
less costly methods to cultivate those not as likely to give.
Market Segmentation:
Understand which prospects are good candidates for which marketing
method and message.
Direct marketing for donations is most successful when the
marketing message emotionally connects with the recipient. Because
individuals are so different, it is unlikely that a single message
will forge a meaningful connection with every recipient. It is
possible, however, to identify groups of individuals that share
certain characteristics and that will respond to a similar message.
Once you identify these market segments, you can test different
messages, vehicles and times of year to contact them until you find
the combination that brings in the greatest return.
Donor Identification:
 Keep current prospect and donor information at your fingertips —
including detailed wealth and influence information — to help you
improve relationships and increase donor loyalty.
There are three reasons that donors don’t give. The most obvious
is that they are not asked. Next is that they don’t identify with
your mission. The last is the most surprising, and perhaps easiest
to fix: they are asked for the wrong amount. Prospect research, or
donor identification, can give you the information you need to
overcome all three issues.
Prospect research helps to ensure you ask your potential donors
for the right amount. By identifying where assets are held along
with the amount of assets, you are equipped with the information to
make a logical ask that will inspire faithfulness in your donor and
improve your chances of securing a gift.
When you are able to predict a donor’s likelihood to give, you
have the confidence to ask prospects that you may not have
considered before for a planned or major gift. Having accurate
predictions of a donor’s likelihood to give can also help you extend
your reach by motivating volunteers or board members to become more
involved in fundraising.
A more difficult obstacle to overcome is when a donor doesn’t
identify with your mission. In some cases, there is little you can
do to change that, and it is best to let modeling help you decide
who to drop from your mailing list, saving you money.
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