A donor research profile template can help you capture the most important giving capacity and propensity indicators of your target audience. Here’s what you should collect during your donor prospect research.
Donor Research Profile Template
A donor research profile template contains details that allow you to create an outreach strategy for your donor prospect. Be sure to add these sections in your template – or better yet, use a wealth prospecting tool like WealthEngine to manage all of this information for you. It will enable you to follow prospect research best practices.
General Contact Details
General contact details for your donor research profile include your prospect’s name, primary address, age, gender, and phone/email. It is important to know their primary address for your outreach efforts. Don’t confuse it with a vacation home that they visit only a few times a year.
Family Information
Gathering family information as part of your donor prospect research is important because they influence your prospect’s decision. You can also research family members for connections to your organization.
For example, if your donor prospect’s spouse has given to a particular cause, you may be able to influence your prospect by making a meaningful connection to that cause.
Professional and Social Affiliations
In donor research, identifying your prospect’s affiliations, both professional and social, gives you tremendous insight into what they find important. As with family connections, you may find connections with their affiliations, too.
If your prospect is on the board of an organization that shares similar goals to yours, they may be more open to your messaging. Using wealth screening tools, such as WealthEngine, you can find and cultivate meaningful relationships with potential donors and their circles of influence.
Interests
An important part of your donor research profile template is a section on interests. Your prospect may have the capacity to donate to your organization, but not the inclination. If there is no history of related activities or expressions of interest in something related to your cause, it can mean that the donor prospect isn’t the best fit for you to pursue.
Real Estate and Stock Holdings
A very strong indicator of wealth capacity is personal property. One of the most predominant markers is the number and value of their real estate holdings. Wealthy people often have expensive homes and have vacation residences.
If they own a large amount of stock in a public company, they may be required to disclose when they sell. In your donor prospect research, keep tabs on this information so you know when they have a surge in cash.
Luxury Items
While not all wealthy people buy luxury items, many of them do. If they own expensive jewelry, a boat, a jet or even a jet contract, it suggests that they likely have a large amount of disposable income.
Giving History
Past giving is a strong indication of future giving. Your donor research profile template should have a detailed section that outlines your donor prospect’s prior giving history. This includes which organizations they have given to and the amounts.
Giving Capacity
It’s one thing if a donor wants to contribute to your cause. It’s an entirely different thing if they have the capacity to go beyond everyday giving of smaller amounts.
You may be wasting your precious marketing dollars to generate $100 or $1000 from a donor who could contribute $50,000.
Instead, do smart prospecting. When you use wealth screening tools, like WealthEngine, that include numerous data points on your donor prospects, you will know who warrants a more personalized outreach effort.
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Donor Prospect Research
Gather all of the information for your donor research profile template can be very time consuming. WealthEngine can provide you with all of this information instantly so your donor prospecting process becomes much more efficient.
Additionally, you can tag the donor prospects you want to monitor. This helps you stay on top of any changes that may affect your nurturing efforts.
Another key factor that many prospect researchers overlook is how to use the data in your donor research profile template to extrapolate a model to find “look alike” donors who are not yet on your radar.
Smart Prospecting
WealthEngine’s modeling tools can create a profile of your best donor and scan it against 250 million records to find your next best major donors.
This saves you time and money and hones in on the exact audience that will enable you to achieve your donation goals.