It’s the perfect time to take stock of your fundraising so far this year by looking at the story your data is telling you. Check-in on your prospect pipeline’s health, compare your income to your targets, look out for donor trends, and set fresh priorities for Q3 and 4.
While it’s not quite mid-year, it’s fast approaching making it the perfect time to dive into your fundraising data and see what’s working before the busy summer season.
Assess your prospect pipeline’s health
Are they hot or not? That’s the key question when it comes to ranking your prospects. Rank your prospects and compare them to where they were at the start of the year. Who’s moving? Who’s stuck and what can you do to change that? You might find the six categories we use to rank prospects helpful.
- Cold prospects: they can afford to give, but you don’t know if they’re interested in giving.
- Cool prospects: They can afford to give and have given to your kind of cause in the past.
- Lukewarm prospects: They have the ability to give and are already in your database.
- Warm prospects: Given the right treatment, you think they will give.
- Hot prospects: You have met them, they are interested, and they can make a significant gift.
- Red hot prospects: Potential donors whose behaviour indicates a major gift is likely soon.
Measure your income against your annual targets
Categorise your income by individual giving, major donors, trusts, corporates and other sources, is it where you expected or are there some areas that are lagging behind? Revisit your table of gifts, are things on track or does it need an update?
Check your timing against your income targets. Have gifts come in as you expected or are delayed in research or cultivation causing shortfalls? With this knowledge, you can adjust your timeline and strategy accordingly.
Analyse your donor trends
Use your CRM and email platform to identify which donors have opened emails, responded to communications or attended events. Is someone unexpectedly engaging with you? It may be a sign they’re ready for deeper cultivation.
Look for patterns in your donors’ giving behaviour. Are they giving at the same time annually? Have their gifts increased or decreased and can you identify anything in their personal life or economically that may have caused this? Use these insights to personalise future outreach.
Measure your donor conversion rates
Track outreach effort to gift ratio. Review how many cultivation efforts and how much it typically costs (staff time, research tools, donor engagement activities) to secure a major gift. Make sure you can justify the effort you’re putting in and pinpoint where and why drop-offs occur for prospects who don’t make it to the gift stage.
Analyse what’s working and what’s not. What factors lead to a successful conversion to a major gift? Does it come down to timing, who made the ask, how many events a prospect attended or how personalised the ask was? Take those learnings and apply them going forward.
Set renewed priorities for Q3 & Q4
Use your data to adjust your fundraising plans for the second half of the year. Focus on your warm, high-potential prospects using data or prospect research to identify who’s most likely to give. Prioritise your hot prospects for cultivation and asks.
Don’t be afraid to adjust your strategy where needed. There is no point chasing cold prospects when warm ones are waiting! If a certain approach isn’t working, reallocate your time and resources to more effective cultivation activities and warmer prospects.
At Prospecting for Gold, we specialise in research, wealth screening, consultancy and regulatory compliance, making fundraising more effective and successful.
Successful major gift fundraising isn’t just about securing a donation. It’s about building relationships, understanding people’s motivations and aligning their interests with your cause.Our wealth screening and data summary report is free when we screen 2,000 or more of your UK supporters. Ready to transform your major gift fundraising? Contact us today.