A Prospect Researcher’s Campaign Checklist
Dear Diary,
If your board recently approved the new campaign budget and plan, and if the new campaign committee is scheduled to meet in a few weeks to kick off its engagement, then as the prospect researcher you need to create a plan and several projects that lend themselves to the campaign’s initiatives.
First, let’s discuss fundraising campaigns for those early in their careers or still trying to grasp essential responsibilities during each campaign phase. There are four phases of a fundraising campaign – planning, silent, public, and review (or postmortem). The first is the planning phase where feasibility studies are conducted, and interviews/surveys are held with key stakeholders who could become major donors or connectors during the campaign. During this planning phase, the financial goal, strategic plan and campaign milestones, and initiatives are set; additionally, a gift table is created that shows the number of donors and dollar amount needed to meet the financial goal.
The next phase is called the silent phase, and a notable time when you aggressively fundraise to set up your base of supporters. It is called the silent phase because no public announcement has been made, and the team is working to raise 20 to 40 percent of its financial goal prior to the public phase (or any public announcements). This is when lead and transformative gifts are raised that give hope to the campaign. This is when gifts inspire additional gifts, and board members make contributions. Finally, this is the phase in which the team grows, and a strong operational structure is created to support all frontline fundraising work. Most likely, there are also multi-fundraising channels being utilized or created to bring in revenue.
The phase many know about is full of glitz and publicity – the public phase. This is when marketing, branding, and donor messaging bursts with introduction and enthusiasm for the new campaign. The financial goal is announced and the money raised towards the goal is shared, proving to the public audience that the organization has a strong campaign program. This is the phase in which portfolios are consistently twisting and churning through solicitations, and new initiatives are piloted.
Finally, the close of the campaign. A lovely and bittersweet stage in which the campaign (that has now lasted perhaps 8 years) has come to an end, and the financial goal has been met. The team is now conducting necessary reviews and reflections, “postmortems,” a review of: What worked? What still needs to be tracked? What pieces of data could tell us how we performed? What are the areas of improvement? Who are our outstanding prospects that asked to engage with us towards the later end of the campaign?
As the prospect researcher, here are some things to add to your to-do list and questions to ask during the planning and silent phases:
Does the donor database have the prospects needed to support the goal?
Will we need to scale up prospecting needs and incorporate more proactive research versus reactive?
Do we need to grow the prospect research team?
The portfolios were revised at the beginning and brainstormed for this campaign, but now what should the portfolio review cadence look like? Who should be involved?
Portfolio sizes? Prospect Pool sizes and clean up?
Wealth screening – cadence of wealth screen verification and then process of screened/identified prospects into prospect pool and then into qualification pipeline?
Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) document needs to be created or revised for the research program?
What is our vetting policy? What are our red flags?
How can we engage the board and the different campaign planning committees or regional counsels productively?
We need someone to manage the board’s fundraising list/ mini portfolios.
We need to leverage all team-wide participation and counsel - this must include database manager, operations manager and annual giving team (solidify movement from annual giving pipeline to major gift pipeline).
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Diary Readers, my goal for this entry is to help you brainstorm and feel prepared for your upcoming campaign as many organizations are either planning a new campaign or have entered the public phase.
Wishing you all the best.
Until next time,
June 15th!
