finding major donor prospects for your schoolfinding major donor prospects for our school the key...
TRANSCRIPT
Finding Major Donor Prospects for Your School
by Joe Garecht
Part Two in a Six-Part Fundraising eBook Series for Schools
In this eBook, you’ll discover how to:
Build thorough donor profiles and networks with limited time and resources
Identify and connect with major donor prospects
Cultivate relationships with potential major donors
Make effective asks for maximum support
Visit fundraising.blackbaud.co.uk to learn more.
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FINDING MAJOR DONOR PROSPECTS FOR YOUR SCHOOL
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction...................................................................................4
Chapter 1: Defining Major Donor Prospects ......................................5
Chapter 2: Giving as a Result of Relationships ..................................9
Chapter 3: Making the Prospecting Process a Scalable One .............11
Chapter 4: The Concentric Circles Theory of Prospecting .................13
Chapter 5: Creating Prospect Diagrams .........................................15
Chapter 6: Reaching Prospects with the Path of Least Resistance ....17
Chapter 7: Getting Prospects into Your Funnel ................................19
Chapter 8: Building a Fundraising Network .....................................21
Chapter 9: Building a Sustainable Prospecting System ....................23
Conclusion ..................................................................................25
About the Author .........................................................................26
About Blackbaud .........................................................................26
This eBook is for informational purposes only. Blackbaud makes no warranties, expressed or implied, in this summary. The information contained within
represents the current views of the authors on the topics discussed as of the date of this publication; it is the intellectual property of Blackbaud, Inc. and may
not be reproduced without permission. All Blackbaud product names appearing herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackbaud, Inc. The names of
companies or products not owned by Blackbaud may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Edited by Ginny Perkins. Cover art and book design by Kailie Holt.
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FINDING MAJOR DONOR PROSPECTS FOR YOUR SCHOOL
INTRODUCTION One of the most common refrains I hear from private schools is that they just don’t know where to find new major donor prospects. They know they need new major donors, but they just don’t know where to find them.
The good news is that your school almost certainly has a dozen or more major donors already in its donor universe. Every school I’ve worked with had far more potential major donors in its orbit than it realised. The bad news is that it takes work to find those donors.
The work of finding and approaching new major donor prospects is time consuming. It requires research, but more importantly, it requires building relationships. In order to find new major donors, you’ll need to get out of your office to take meetings, and pick up the phone to make calls. There’s no way to short-circuit the personal relationship aspect of major donor giving.
In this book, I’ll address ways your school can find and approach new major donor prospects without wasting your limited time or resources.
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FINDING MAJOR DONOR PROSPECTS FOR YOUR SCHOOL
CHAPTER 1DEFINING MAJOR
DONOR PROSPECTS
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FINDING MAJOR DONOR PROSPECTS FOR YOUR SCHOOL
The first key question for us to discuss is: who qualifies as a major donor prospect for your school? As you are
looking for donors to make contact with and insert into your fundraising funnel, you don’t want to waste time.
Who is truly a major donor prospect? Far too many schools think everyone is a prospect or everyone with
enough money is a prospect. This is a mistake that costs schools valuable time and resources.
Let’s be honest, your institution has limited resources. Every school does. You only have so many staff
members, so much money and so much time in a day. Figuring out which folks make good major donor prospects - and which don’t - can help you fundraise more effectively and successfully. Nothing is more
draining than constantly following major donor “hunches,” and spending time tracking people down, only to
fail at landing a first meeting.
Here are my guidelines for figuring out who is and who isn’t a good major donor prospect for your school.
Good major donor prospects have the following qualities:
Fit Your School’s Profile
Has your school set up donor profiles? Do you know what types of donors are most likely to give to your
school? Take a look at your current donors and prospects. Who are they? Where did they come from? What
are their demographics (age, gender, location, industry, interests)? Do you see any patterns? Create a number
of donor profiles for your school by asking these questions.
The good news is that most schools have a built-in base of potential supporters. This built-in base includes:
• Your alumni
• Parents, grandparents, and family members of current students
• Parents, grandparents, family members, and friends of your alumni
• Friends and colleagues of your current and past faculty members
• Your board of trustees’ extended network
Of course, just because these groups are likely to want to donate to your school doesn’t mean they will. Many
schools take alumni and families for granted and don’t put in the work required to make a convincing case
for support to these prospects. They forget that, in many cases, alumni and families paid hefty out-of-pocket
tuition to come to their institution, and thus must be made aware of the fundraising needs of the school.
Also, don’t make the mistake of limiting your prospect universe to alumni, friends and family of current and
past students. Remember that if your school is casting a compelling vision, other donors may be interested in
making gifts to your institution, including local businesses, foundations and community leaders.
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The key here is to think through your ideal donors to come up with a number of donor profiles that can help
guide your efforts.
The Capacity to Give
In order to be a major donor prospect, a person must have the capacity to give a gift at the level which you
consider to be 'major'. Again, this level will vary by school, but if you consider a major donor to be someone
who can give £10,000 or more to your school, and a prospect can only afford £500, then they lack the
capacity to be a major donor.
Bear in mind that just because someone lacks major donor capacity doesn’t mean you should write them off.
They may be a great prospect for a telethon campaign, event, direct mailing etc. But you want to be clear that
a person has the capacity to give at a major level before putting them into your major donor funnel, because
your major donor prospects will receive a disproportionate portion of cultivation and relationship-building to go
along with their disproportionate-sized gifts to your school.
While you don’t want to put folks in your major donor funnel who don’t have major donor capacity, you do
want to think through all of the possibilities. For example, if someone can’t give £10,000 as an annual gift, but
could leave you £50,000 in their will, you may want to cultivate them as a major donor even though they don’t
currently meet your basic threshold.
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FINDING MAJOR DONOR PROSPECTS FOR YOUR SCHOOL
3 Reachable by Your School
Finally, and perhaps most overlooked by otherwise savvy schools, is the fact that the prospect must be
reachable by your school. I’ve seen far too many schools throw around names of major national or regional
philanthropists and business owners that they will never be able to sit down with, and use the possibility of
gifts from these unreachable people to bolster the launch of a new programme or campaign.
For example, I have seen private schools with no connection whatsoever to donors like Richard Branson and
Duncan Bannatyne nonetheless launch fundraising campaigns with both of these listed as prospects for the
campaign! I’m not saying you shouldn’t shoot for the stars. What I am saying is that you should be using the
majority of your limited time and resources pursuing major donor prospects that are reasonably reachable by
the school.
I believe for someone to be considered reachable by your school, one of the following three situations must
be true: the person must already know your school, the person must know someone who already knows your
school, or the person must have a strong and demonstrated affinity for a unique defining characteristic of
your school’s approach. If you are relying on the third case to declare someone as a reachable prospect, you
should also at least have someone in your fundraising orbit that is capable of reaching an individual remotely
within the prospect’s orbit (e.g., your school should be no more than two steps removed from the prospect).
Don’t count people that you have no way of reaching as good major donor prospects for your school!
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CHAPTER 2
GIVING AS A RESULT OF RELATIONSHIPS
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FINDING MAJOR DONOR PROSPECTS FOR YOUR SCHOOL
•I CAN’T TELL IT ENOUGH. MAJOR DONORS GIVE BECAUSEOF RELATIONSHIPS.No matter how slick your marketing materials are or how smooth-talking your board members can be, big
givers donate large gifts because of the relationships they build with your school.
Remember that just because someone graduated from your school 30 years ago doesn’t mean that they have a strong relationship with your school. If you haven’t been talking with - and cultivating - a member of your alumni, chances are that you will need to spend a lot of time re-establishing the relationship before you ask the
person for a major gift to your institution.
The corollary to this rule is that relationships are built between people. Businesses and schools don’t have feelings, emotions, or friends, and thus can’t build relationships. Despite what you may have heard, it is impossible for your school to build a relationship with a corporation. You can build a relationship with a person or group of people at that business that results in corporate donations, but you can’t build a relationship with
the entity itself. Relationships are built with people.
Likewise, no matter how much the director of a certain foundation may like your school’s mission, he or she
won’t build a relationship with your school; the relationship will be built with a person or persons at your
school. No matter how much a donor may like your cause, they will ultimately give big gifts year in, year out,
because of the relationships they build with the people at your school.
Does this mean that your governors or other supporters can’t aggressively request donations from their
friends, colleagues, vendors and clients who don’t have a relationship with your school? No, it doesn’t. Major
supporters, governors and friends of your school may be able to influence their contacts into giving to your
institution by getting assertive with their requests, but the resulting donors almost never become real, long-
term givers to your school, because there is no relationship between your school and the donor. The donor is
giving because of a relationship, but the relationship that matters here is between the donor and your
governor - your school’s mission and work is secondary. When that governor leaves the board, the donor they
assertively influenced will stop giving to your school.
What does all of this mean for your school? It means you should spend your time building relationships with
major donor prospects. Building strong relationships with prospects and donors is the single biggest thing you
can do to ensure your school’s long-term financial stability.
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CHAPTER 3
MAKING THE PROSPECTING PROCESS A SCALABLE ONE
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Think about your school’s prospecting activities as they are right now. Do you have a process in place, or
is your prospecting haphazard? I have found that the schools most successful in finding new major donor
prospects always have a set process in place for finding new prospects.
What does it mean to have a scalable prospecting process? It means that every month (or every quarter), you
have an 'open house' event for new prospects, and there is a plan in place for making sure people
connected with your school bring their friends and colleagues to these events.
It means that you have a schedule of calls that your staff makes each month asking your donors to refer
new prospects. It means having a list of activities in place to keep your fundraising funnel full. We’ll talk a
little more about these types of activities later in this book but for right now, just know that in order to be
successful, you must have a set process in place for prospecting, rather than just doing whatever activities
come to mind that day, week or month.
Likewise, your prospecting activities should be scalable (meaning that they should be repeatable processes
you can design once and implement many times). For example, tours of your buildings and grounds are
scalable: you can create talking points and marketing materials once, and then hold any number of tours
using those materials. Put scalable fundraising systems in place to leverage your limited time and resources,
and prospect effectively.
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CHAPTER 4
THE CONCENTRIC CIRCLES THEORY OF PROSPECTING
CHAPTER 4
THE CONCENTRIC CIRCLES THEORY OF PROSPECTING
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Because all fundraising is based on building relationships and because the goal of your prospecting should
be to reach the lowest hanging fruit first, you should maximise your fundraising by starting with those
most likely to give to your school and move out from there. I like to think of your prospecting universe as a
series of concentric circles:
At the centre of the ring stands your school, which needs financial support in order to carry out its work.
In the ring directly around your school live your closest supporters: your board of governors, your most
supportive families and alumni, and your key donors. In the next ring are the people that the folks in the inner
ring know - the friends, family and colleagues of your key donors, families and alumni.
Your job is to reach out into this second ring by getting an introduction to these new prospects, and cultivate a
relationship with them. Some of these new folks will be major donors, some will be mid-level or minor donors,
and some won’t be interested in your work. Your job as a fundraiser is to expand your donor universe by
reaching out to these groups and building relationships with them.
The most successful schools - the ones that are able to build up a constant, steady stream of new donor
prospects - are often able to reach out into yet another ring. This means that they meet the friends and family
of their alumni and donors, cultivate relationships with them and, ultimately, ask them to give. Then, they cast
such a compelling vision that these new donors will introduce the school to their friends, family and network.
Sustainable fundraising systems are built like this: person to person, growing relationships through referrals
from current supporters, one donor at a time.
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CHAPTER 5CREATING PROSPECT DIAGRAMS
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I am a firm believer in writing things down. Understanding concepts is great, but it’s hard (impossible, actually)
to keep track of a prospecting program in your head. It’s imperative that your team sits down and actually
maps out its prospect universe. Figure out who is likely to give and what priority to give them, based on the
fundraising circles theory presented above.
At a minimum, ask yourself the following questions:
1. Who are my current donors? Who are my largest donors? Who are my most consistent donors?
2. Who are my lapsed donors?
3. Who are my current volunteers? Who are my best volunteers? Who are my most
consistent volunteers?
4. What groups of people are most likely to give to my school? What are the profiles (age, gender,
occupation, interests) of people who are likely to give to my school?
5. What types of people give to other schools similar to our own?
Write your answers down, and start creating a concentric circles prospect diagram. Remember, your diagram
(and your prospect list) is a work in progress; don’t wait until it is perfect before writing it down and acting on
it. Get started now, adding people as time goes on and new opportunities present themselves.
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CHAPTER 6REACHING PROSPECTS WITH THE
PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE
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Once you have a list of prospects to approach, one of the key questions that will need to be asked is: how do
I reach out to each person, company or foundation on this list to start building a relationship with them? How
do I get them into my prospect funnel?
I tell schools all the time: the best way to reach a new prospect is by finding the path of least resistance.
Because people give (and get involved) based on relationships, the path of least resistance usually involves
a relationship the prospect already has. For each of your top donor prospects, ask yourself the following:
Who knows this person? Who on our board of governors knows them? Which of our current donors knows
them? Do they sit on a corporate board with someone that we know? Are they involved in a service club,
country club or other school where we know members?
In short, ask yourself: do we, as a school, have a relationship with anyone that already has a connection of some kind with this prospect?
If the answer is yes, then the path of least resistance is to use your existing relationship to build contact
directly between you and the prospect.
Using the concentric circles theory presented above, most of the prospects you will approach will be people
or companies with whom someone you already know has a relationship, no matter how tenuous. You’ll be
contacting friends and colleagues of those people who already have a relationship with your school.
For those prospects with whom you do not have any shared pre-existing relationships, you will need to
develop a new relationship from scratch. For these prospects, the path of least resistance is generally a
non-threatening, not-committal entry point; a way for the person to get to know the school and its mission
without being asked to make any sort of commitment. Non-ask events work well (these are informational
events where no admission price is charged), as do tangential presentations and classes (for example,
holding a roundtable discussion or hosting a popular speaker at your school and inviting donors and
prospects to attend).
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CHAPTER 7GETTING PROSPECTS INTO YOUR FUNNEL
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Once you have your prospect list, the best way to kick off the relationship is a meeting of some kind. If you
know someone who knows the prospect (or knows a key person at the business you consider a strong prospect), try to set up a lunch that includes someone from your school, the prospect and the mutual
acquaintance. Alternately, have the mutual acquaintance invite (and accompany, if possible) the prospect to
a non-ask event or a tour of your grounds.
If no one at your school or in your donor orbit has a strong
relationship with the prospect, but the prospect is an alumnus
or family member of an alumnus, then your best bet is to have
the Head or the Development Director call the prospect
directly to set up the appointment. I have found that former
students are often much more impressed when the Head of
the school calls to invite them to a meeting, so if he or she
has the time, this is the best way to go.
As mentioned above, if you and the prospect do not share
any mutual acquaintances, the best way to start building the relationship is to invite the person to a non-
threatening, point-of-entry event (what we like to call a non-ask event).
Once the relationship starts, the first task for your school is to gauge the interest of the prospect. As the
person learns more about the current state of your school and your mission, are they in getting involved? Do
they seem moved by your mission and work or just polite and uninterested?
I always suggest gauging interest by being direct in your follow-up. Meet
with a new prospect, and then call the following week to thank the
person for the meeting and ask if they have any questions. Ask for their
thoughts about your work. If the person seems supportive, ask them
something like, “Would you ever see yourself getting more involved with
us?” This is a fairly non-threatening way to deepen the relationship.
If the person says no, you know not to waste your time and
energy on building that relationship any further. If the person
says yes, you can move on to the cultivation phase. Most
people, of course, will say, “I’m not sure,” or “maybe.” These
folks are still good prospects, and you should continue
building the relationship through cultivation until they reach
a decision point.
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CHAPTER 8BUILDING A FUNDRAISING NETWORK
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The single best way to build your prospect pool is by getting your school’s alumni, donors, volunteers, board
members and friends to reach into their own networks to find new prospects on your behalf.
Then, as you cultivate and make asks of those people, you can reach into their networks to find even more
prospects, and so on and so on, continually growing your circles and involving ever more people. This is called building a fundraising network, and it’s the number one way to build a sustainable fundraising programme at
your school.
So, how do you convince your donors and friends to reach into their own networks on your behalf? It’s simple.
You ask! The best way to get people to open up their network is to ask them to do so.
Many schools don’t take this step, with the exception of asking the board of governors to give them names for
the annual appeal letter or fundraising event mailing list. This is a mistake. All schools should sit down and
take a look at their donor, volunteer and supporter lists to determine an approach to help build their
fundraising network. Then, for each person targeted, there should be a direct appeal, such as an invite to a
non-ask event, or a phone call from the school’s Development Director asking the person to set up some
meetings, or to host an informational meeting in office on your behalf.
In short, your school should be asking current donors and friends for referrals, and then
systematically following up with those referrals. This is a common tactic in for-profit sales that works
equally well for school development.
A great way to ask a non-governor to open up their network is to ask them to serve on a development
committee or an event committee that is focused on bringing in new prospects.
Then - and this is crucial - you need to show them how to do it, and offer them support in their efforts. It’s not
enough to simply ask someone to open up their network to you. You need to help them think through who
they can approach, and give them the tools they need to succeed, including ideas on how to ask for support.
Ask your supporters to serve on a development committee, and then help them walk through their own
concentric circles. Who do they know that might be interested in supporting your school? Who do they do
business with? Who do your alumni know well from their days at your school? Who do they stay in touch with?
Help your supporters hold a non-ask event at their office. Provide them with literature. Have your staff come to
the event to talk with the guests. Make it as easy as possible for your supporters to build a fundraising
network on your behalf.
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CHAPTER 9BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE
PROSPECTING SYSTEM
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It is essential to the long-term health and stability of your school that you build a sustainable prospecting
system. This means setting up a system where you are constantly looking for new major donor prospects to
feed into your fundraising funnel.
For example, I know one school that sponsors monthly campus tours and has a set system for approaching
donors and friends to help them get prospects to these events, which are the launching points of the
cultivation process.
What processes can your school put in place to make sure that your prospecting goes from one-off initiatives
to a sustainable, scalable, repeatable system?
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FINDING MAJOR DONOR PROSPECTS FOR YOUR SCHOOL
CONCLUSIONYour school needs a steady stream of donor prospects, especially major donor prospects, in order to thrive.
The best place to find these prospects is among your own alumni, friends, donors and supporters. Ask these
friends of your school not only to make a donation, but to help connect you with other people in their
networks. Referrals are one of the best ways to meet new major donor prospects for your institution.
Visit fundraising.blackbaud.co.uk to learn more.
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About the AuthorJoe Garecht is a US-based non-profit fundraising consultant, author, speaker and the founder of The
Fundraising Authority. Joe has been a professional fundraiser for over a decade and during that time has served as a development director, executive director, and fundraising consultant to numerous nonprofits
and political campaigns.
As the executive director of Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools (BLOCS), Joe led the
effort to raise $50 million in endowments for individual schools, raise $4 million yearly in scholarship
funds, and modernise and professionalise the fundraising capabilities of over 175 parochial schools in
the Philadelphia region.
Joe is the author of How to Raise More Money for Any Non-Profit, The Silent Auction Handbook, The Non-Profit Fundraising Formula, and Raising Money Without Going Crazy. All four books are available on Amazon®. For
more great information on how to raise money visit Joe on the web at
www.thefundraisingauthority.com.
About BlackbaudServing the non-profit, charitable giving and education communities for more than 30 years, Blackbaud (NASDAQ:BLKB) combines technology solutions and
expertise to help organisations achieve their missions. Blackbaud works in over 60 countries to support more than 30,000 customers, including non-profits,
schools and higher education institutions, healthcare organisations, foundations and other charitable giving entities, and corporations. The company offers a full
spectrum of cloud and on-premise solutions, Using Blackbaud technology, these organisations raise, invest, manage and award more than $100 billion each
year worldwide. Recognised as a top company, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and has operations in the the United Kingdom, Ireland,
United States, Australia and Canada. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.co.uk.
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