Major gift fundraising is more important than ever, with donations on the rise despite fewer people giving to charities. But do you know how to find the right prospects? We’ve got the answer.
Do you have a research strategy to find major gift prospects? While it’s been a tough time for charities, major gift-giving appears to be on the rise. According to CAF’s UK Giving Report 2024, the UK donated an estimated £13.9 billion to charity in 2023 – up £1.2 billion in 2022. The report also found that while fewer people are giving, they’re giving more.
We’ve been helping charities, schools, universities and membership organisations succeed at major gift fundraising for over 25 years. Here are four tried and tested research processes to get you started on your major gift journey.
Data mining
Often overlooked, your own supporter database is actually the best place to start looking for prospects. If you’re not familiar with your CRM, spend some time with the team who manage it to understand what insights you can get from it and what useful parameters you can search on.
Start with a basic search to segment people with a senior-sounding job title: President, Chief Executive, Owner, Founder, Chairman and then dive into an analysis of past giving.
Wealth screening
Wealth screening involves comparing the information on your supporter database with the information on our Wealth Intelligence Database to find matches. We’ve been building our Wealth Intelligence Database for over 25 years and it holds information about 270,000 plus-high-net-worth and well-connected individuals based in the UK.
A prospect that shows up on both your database and our databases is likely going to be a good candidate for a major gift.
Desk research
Desk research can help widen your prospect search from existing supporters to people who aren’t already supporting you. In-depth research like our New Names service, can help you find wealthy people who aren’t currently connected with your organisation but have the capacity to donate and an affinity with your work.
If you’d like to build a donor base in a specific area, Millionaire Next Door identifies potential major donors in your community. Simply tell us the geographic area you’re interested in and we’ll do the rest.
Prospecting in person
It might sound old school, but nothing builds relationships faster than bringing people together, in person! This helps your key supporters feel involved in your mission and understand the impact they have on the success of your fundraising. Bring together a group of supporters that can help you connect with potential major donors. To make your prospecting group more successful:
- Do your background research on the interviewee so you understand their connections.
- Make sure they know why you are there – be very clear about your objectives.
- Start by asking who they know.
- Use a ‘Contacts Needed List’ to prompt discussions.
- Confirm the next steps – don’t leave them out of the loop once the prospecting interview is over.
Ready to learn more about identifying and researching your best prospects? Join our free webinar on Thursday 27th March. We’ll cover:
- The UK’s wealth landscape and what it means for major gift fundraising.
- Types of donors to look for.
- The research techniques to help find them:
- Data mining – learnings from analysing your own data.
- Wealth screening – the GDPR-compliant way to identify prospects.
- Desk research – delving deeper and finding new supporters.
- Prospecting in person – making the most of networks and connections.
The session will end with an open Q&A session to get your questions answered by the experts. Don’t miss out.