How to Develop Prospect Strategies
Prospect Strategy Sessions are the guiding star to your month's work. Without them, we lose the chance to deliberate and process out loud, and with them, we gain all the perspectives and ideas that make our work fun and intentionally driven.
How do you even plan for developing actionable strategies for prospects?
By setting standing, group meetings within your organization once or twice monthly, and sticking to it each time thereafter.
Who should be present?
Anyone who carries a prospect portfolio, and leadership (CEO, Executive Director, President -- even if he or she does not carry their own portfolio). Additionally, influential and well-connected people (think: board members or faculty leaders or program directors or physicians) should be invited to one-off meetings on an individual basis.
What do I need to prepare?
Your prospect lists must be available to review. It is best to have everyone's list organized well and a big screen for the group to look at so the information can be easily viewed together. The more information the better: prospects should be in descending order of gift capacity and their giving history should be listed [our three favorites to see include cumulative giving history, the last 3 years giving, and largest-ever one-time gift]. If you've screened your database for wealth capacity, include it there, too. Everyone should see where this person lives and who is currently managing the relationship [we really like to include a primary and secondary manager on each prospect so that while one person drives the activity, the other, as applicable, is helping to introduce / cultivate / steward].
What should we talk about?
The person managing the prospect along with the person who drives the information (advancement services manager or similar) need to direct the conversation. How are we getting in front of this prospect? If it hasn't been easy, who knows him or her and who will ask them for an introduction? What do we already know about their capacity or their interests? How do we apply that to a meaningful plan for cultivation? Who will handle each of those steps? What's the timeframe for doing all of this? How much do we think we will ultimately solicit, where will it be allocated, and by when? This should all be answered and noted in your tracking sheet and once a plan is established, move on to the next person!
There are times when we spend a full hour with a team and only cover two prospects. When we're talking about principal and major gifts, we need to be mindful of the details and nuances that go into each step to make it successful. Often, a great deal of meaningful thought goes into the plan to ensure it is customized for this prospective donor. Once in a rhythm with a team, each person should strive to strategize on 3 or 4 people -- hearing how each other will handle a situation and asking for their feedback makes it vibrant and interesting -- not to mention advances everyone's skills simultaneously!
