Nonprofit professionals turn to prospect research time after time to enhance and strengthen their fundraising strategies, especially when it comes to their major giving programs. This research method has the innate ability to uncover valuable information about prospective major donors, helping your organization better understand and cultivate relationships with prospects.

But the value of prospect research extends beyond the cultivation stage—the data you gather can also be pivotal in the solicitation process, helping you tailor your fundraising asks to each prospect and increase your chances of success.

In this guide, we’ll explore the role prospect research can play in solicitation and cover five tips for improving your fundraising asks with data. Let’s get started!

1. Leverage all three types of prospect research indicators.

The prospect research process involves using your own donor database and a variety of other resources like wealth screening tools, prospect research databases, and public records to look for certain markers. These markers, also called prospect research indicators, include:

• Capacity (wealth): Indicators like employment information, stock ownership, and real estate holdings help you determine a prospect’s financial capacity to give to your nonprofit in larger amounts. 
• Affinity (warmth): Affinity, or warmth, refers to the strength of an individual’s personal connection to your cause. Common affinity indicators include political contributions, giving histories with your nonprofit, past involvement, and personal connections to board members or other major donors.
• Propensity (habit): Along with having sufficient funds and a connection to your cause, major donor prospects should demonstrate a habit of giving to charitable causes like yours. Look for donations to other organizations, board service, and fundraising event attendance.

According to Donorly’s prospect research guide, a truly qualified major giving prospect should have markers in all three of these categories. Once you identify prospects with these indicators, note every relevant data point you’ve found in each prospect’s donor profile. When you reach the solicitation stage, you can pull insights from this data that help you personalize your fundraising ask.

For example, a prospect’s political donations and volunteering history might reveal that they prioritize environmental causes. With this information, you can ask for a donation to your upcoming water conservation project and emphasize how much their gift will help you improve local sustainability efforts.

2. Tailor cultivation plans based on prospects’ interests.

Before making a major gift fundraising ask, you’ll need to craft targeted cultivation plans to strengthen relationships with each prospect and build trust in your organization. Take the time to outline and follow a deliberate plan that deepens their connection with your nonprofit and prepares them to eventually receive a fundraising ask.

As you draft these plans, incorporate insights from prospect research. For instance, individual giving and involvement histories may have revealed that certain donors would be more receptive to different aspects of your cause. Based on each prospect’s likely interests, create personalized cultivation plans that share:

• The history of your organization: Prospective donors without a long history with your organization will be interested in knowing more about your nonprofit before committing their funds. Provide background on your nonprofit, the progress you’ve made over the years, and what drives your team to further your mission.
• Your current projects and goals: Give prospects an inside look at what their donations can fund by explaining your current goals and projects. For instance, are you seeking funding to construct a new building? Highlight specific projects that align with each donor’s charitable history and interests.
• Your planned giving program: If a prospect’s demographics, wealth data, and service history indicate they may be interested in planned giving, provide them with more information about your program. Set up a meeting with your development director or planned giving chair to discuss how it works and what kind of impact they can make.
• Other involvement opportunities: Strengthen ties with prospects before making your main ask by sharing non-monetary involvement opportunities such as volunteering, events, and advocacy campaigns throughout the cultivation process.

Your cultivation plans may span several months or even years, and they should include a variety of touchpoints between your organization and each prospective donor. Remember, the aim of your cultivation plan shouldn’t just be fundraising. You should also aim to form strong relationships with donors so they continue supporting your organization long-term.

3. Use capacity data to determine the right ask amounts.

As a fundraising professional, you know that one of the most effective ways to earn more through direct fundraising appeals is to include a specific monetary request. However, you might feel hesitant about exactly what amount to ask for from each donor. This is where prospect research data can help.

Use capacity indicators like prospects’ employment information along with their past nonprofit and political donation sizes to get a better idea of how much each major gift prospect can reasonably give. Then, base your ask amount on the prospect’s past relationship with your nonprofit. 

For example, let’s say one of your mid-level donors contributed a gift of $2,500 last year. You know they can give that much again, but you also know that they recently got a major promotion and made some large investments. With this information, you might bump the request up a few thousand dollars to reach your nonprofit’s major giving threshold.

4. Keep your database clean.

In order for your prospect research data to be easily accessible and useful for your solicitation efforts, it’s important to keep your data points organized, clean, and secure. Without a clean donor database, it becomes challenging to keep accurate records of past donations and all the other insights you learned from the prospect research process. 

To maintain clean data, NPOInfo’s nonprofit data hygiene guide recommends creating standardized procedures for data entry for your whole team to reference. This might involve:

• Standardizing address abbreviations (such as Road vs. rd.).
• Eliminating duplicate data entries.
• Filling in missing information, such as phone numbers or email addresses.
• Creating a process to resolve errors, such as designating one team member to oversee data entry and keep an eye out for errors.

Once you’ve established data entry best practices for your team, be sure to incorporate them into your staff training process so everyone’s on the same page. 

For instance, you might host an initial training session as well as ongoing refresher training to ensure your team follows proper data entry procedures and maintains a comprehensive, organized database. This will allow your fundraising team to access accurate, useful information on prospective donors to incorporate into fundraising requests.

5. Use employment data to tap into corporate giving opportunities.

One of the most important insights you can gather from prospect research is the prospects’ employment information. This not only helps you estimate how much money a prospect makes, but it can also tell you whether prospects work for companies with robust corporate social responsibility programs.

For instance, many companies offer corporate giving programs for their employees that you can mention in your fundraising asks. These programs commonly include:

• Matching gift programs: In these corporate giving opportunities, businesses pledge to match gifts that their employees make to eligible nonprofits. Most match at a 1:1 ratio (i.e., $50 employee gift + $50 corporate gift), but some companies offer 2:1 or even 3:1 ratios. Matching gifts are an effective way to boost your nonprofit’s fundraising revenue without having to ask for more from prospects themselves.
• Volunteer grant programs: In a volunteer grant program, corporations contribute funding to eligible nonprofits based on the number of hours their employees volunteer with those nonprofits. Even if prospects don’t work for gift-matching companies, they might still be able to contribute additional funding through volunteer grant programs offered by their employers.

Use the prospect research resources at your disposal to investigate prospects’ employer data and corporate connections. Then, highlight these opportunities in your communications and asks. Prompt prospects to research their eligibility and submit the necessary forms to easily double their impact with these corporate giving opportunities.

Accurate prospect research data can greatly improve the quality of your major gift fundraising asks, but remember that the relationship-building aspect of the process is equally important. By taking a thoughtful, relationship-driven approach to major donor cultivation and solicitation, you’ll be in a better position to reach your fundraising goals.