We are excited to share an article from our longtime collaborator, DonorSearch. For a prospect research professional, a campaign means sourcing major gift prospects in a big way. Ryan Woroniecki has some top tips for you.
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-Jen
President
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4 Tips for Finding Major Donors for Your Next Capital Campaign
By Ryan Woroniecki, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at DonorSearch
Before we dive headfirst into tips for finding major donors for a capital campaign, let's briefly back up and discuss capital campaigns on the whole.
On a more practical and concrete level, capital campaigns are most commonly associated with funding such projects as:* Building renovations
* Purchasing pricey equipment and/or supplies
* Acquiring new land
* Fresh construction
* Adding to an endowment
* And other similar, large-scale endeavors
Needless to say, you can't really think about organizing a capital campaign without having a strong system in place for securing major gifts. And that's when you need prospect research.
This site is already brimming with excellent information about prospect research, so we're not going to retread well-covered territory here.
Instead, we're going to propose four key tips to help your organization find and cultivate major donors for your next capital campaign.
The four tips are as follows:
1. Look to your annual fund.
2. Reach out to your feasibility study participants.
3. Seek out donors whose interests align with your campaign.
4. Come up with creative ways of engaging your candidates.
Let's get started.
1. Look to your annual fund.
For the first point on this list, we're going back to the basics.We know that past giving is the greatest indicator of future giving. In fact, DonorSearch's research found that a donor who has made a gift between $5k-$10k to a nonprofit organization is 5 times as likely to donate in the future as an average person is. That correlation trickles down to donors of all giving levels, including your annual fund. As you embark on your campaign's quiet phase and attempt to secure roughly 70% of your goal before going public with your efforts, you should start your search by looking inwards. The proof is in the data. Loyal, annual fund donors might be just the prospects you're looking for. Cross-reference your list of annual fund donors with databases that can clue you in on donor wealth, and you could discover that some of your best major giving candidates were right under your nose.For instance, someone who donates $500 regularly to your cause might have donated $5,000 to a political campaign. You won't know until you look.And once you find those donors, you can leverage the momentum behind your capital campaign's timeline to encourage them to make those kinds of contributions towards your organization.
2. Reach out to your feasibility study participants.
A feasibility study is performed prior to an organization ever launching a capital campaign. During the study, the nonprofit surveys a group of around 40 community members to test the interest in and likelihood of success of their possible capital campaign. What does this have to do with major donors?
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