You know that feeling, don’t you? The development team walks into your office (or slides into your DMs) with a sparkle in their eyes. They’ve been strategizing. They’ve been planning. And they have a shiny new idea: “Can you get a list of wealthy people in the community who might be interested in our new program?”

Your heart sinks a little because you know what comes next. Hours of research on strangers. Cold prospect lists. Fundraisers making awkward cold calls to people who’ve never heard of your organization. And then, when the gifts never materialize, they come back with new strategies for more places to look out in the community.

I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. But here’s what I’ve learned after years of watching this play out: We have more power in this conversation than we think we do.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Stranger Danger

The truth is that asking for money, especially larger investments, requires relationships. Typically, the colder the relationships the more prospects it takes over a longer period of time to get the gifts your organization needs.

The uncomfortable truth is that your frontline fundraisers know they should focus on building existing relationships before chasing down strangers, but when they’re in the moment and feeling the pressure to fund the program, your organization’s database full of donors is a software program and strangers are people.

But we researchers know that the database is full of people. People who know us and support our organization.

Becoming a Trusted Partner

You could point out to the frontline fundraiser how ridiculous it is to chase strangers instead of mining your own database of existing relationships, but how well do you think that will go down?

In most development departments, research does not hold a lot of political power. What we can have is influence over our colleagues. And influence requires trust.

Instead of making your fundraiser feel stupid, you could try an approach along the lines of the following:

“That’s a great idea, and I can definitely help you find prospects from our community. But it might take a year or even a few years for gifts to come in from people with no connection to us. What if I also do some datamining on our existing donors? I might find some good prospects who already know and trust us—those gifts could come in much faster.”

 

 

This isn’t about saying no. It’s about saying “yes and.” Yes, you can do the research they have requested AND you also have a stellar idea to bring good prospects to the table.

Sometimes You Do Need to Look Outside

There are times when it totally makes sense to search for prospects out in your community.

Consider the following scenarios:

• Maybe you really don’t have the internal prospects to support something new.
• It might be time for your board members to step up and start introducing your organization to their networks.
• If it is a new initiative, you might want to tap into foundations. They often prefer new projects.
• You may want to deliberately diversify your funding sources!
• Engaging the community through businesses, civic groups, or government could be an important complementary strategy to individual giving.

The Power of Reframing

I used to think my job was to say yes to whatever research request came my way. But I learned that our real value as researchers isn’t in being order-takers—it’s in being strategic thinking partners.

When development teams come to us with the “research rich strangers” request, they’re not wrong to want to expand their prospect pool. But they might not be choosing the best research technique to source the prospects they need.

If you become the trusted partner that listens to the need and delivers great prospects, what do you think will happen next time they are under pressure to raise funds for a project? They will RUN to you asking you to do it again! Or even better, they will ask you for advice.

A Challenge for All of Us

Next time you get that familiar request to research wealthy community members, I challenge you to pause and ask questions such as:

• Could you tell me more about what a BEST prospect for this project looks like?
• If you don’t want formal institutional funding, how would you feel about a family foundation that is local and has funded similar projects?
• Before I search externally, would you mind if I checked to see if we have any existing donors that might be a good fit and run that by you first?

You might be surprised by what you learn from the conversations. More importantly, your fundraisers might be surprised by how much faster those gifts come in when they’re using the best strategy and especially if they are building on existing relationships instead of starting from scratch.

Because you and I both know: The best prospecting doesn’t just find people with money. It finds people with money who are connected to and care about your mission.

And most of the time, those people are already in your database.

Additional Resources

Wish you had access to more resources on prospecting? You do! The Prospect Research Institute has lots of resources to help you with prospecting:

• Connect with other prospect research professionals tackling these same challenges in the FREE Forums at the Prospect Research Institute.
• Buy the Approach to Prospecting book or the course. This teaches you how to build a score card, which you can use for internal or external prospecting.
• Check out our prospecting category on Prospect Research#ChatBytes the Institute’s podcast.