How To Identify The Next Generation Of Major Donors

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night anxious about your organization’s future? Envisioning who will take the place of current major donors years down the road can be a cause of anxiety, but it doesn’t have to be.

Many organizations focus major giving efforts on donors who are above the a certain threshold. For those who fall below that threshold, nonprofits tend to apply a general annual fund communications strategy.

If you could identify the low-level donors and non-donors in your file who have the propensity and capability to contribute at a higher level, would you continue to lump them into your annual fund communications strategy?

The Key to Identifying Tomorrow’s Major Donors

Identifying prospects who are capable of contributing at a higher level is the first step in a cost-effective strategy for upgrading donors in a way that leads them towards making a significant impact in the future.

But how? The solution can be drilled down to one word: data.

Nonprofits of all shapes and sizes can effectively identify tomorrow’s major givers and develop a sustainable funding model today with the right approach to donor analysis. When that data is collected and analyzed properly, it can be used to inform the prospecting process, and ultimately improve the way you communicate with donors.

3 Data Sources to Identify Tomorrow’s Major Donors and Upgrade Them Today

1. Giving Data. This includes things like recency, frequency, and monetary value of gifts.
2. Marketplace Data. Wealth screening is a way for nonprofits to gather information about their donors from outside sources to determine their capacity to give.
3. Observational Data. While giving and marketplace data are both valuable, the real secret to identifying the next generation of major donors is observational data. By gathering and analyzing the behavioral engagement of your donors, you’re able to identify their affinity level for your organization.

On their own, these data sources can only help up to a certain point. But when you combine them, your organization is able to create an entire donor listening platform that can increase your ability to upgrade donors exponentially.

Determine which prospects display a high affinity and interest toward your organization. Who is most capable to make these gifts? What kind of information do you collect about your constituents? The intelligence we get from donor profiling is invaluable because it allows us to identify prospects with a higher likelihood of giving.

Does your organization profile donors? What information do you gather about potential donors?