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Rating and
Evaluating Prospects:
Whom Do You Ask For How Much
No one would argue the fact that every
fund-raising campaign needs a goal and that everyone connected with the
campaign, including prospective donors, needs to be aware of that goal.
Then why do people so often fight the setting of a goal for each
prospective donor and sharing that goal with the prospect? Trustees
often blanch at the idea, and it is the rare solicitor who the first
time he or she is told that there will be a suggested giving amount for
each of his prospects does not respond with, "I can't tell people
what to give!"
They're right. Solicitors shouldn't try
to tell prospects what to give, as this will engender a great deal of
resistance. Yet setting a personal goal for all prospective individual
donors, letting prospects know what their goal is, and helping them see
where and how it fits under the umbrella of the campaign goal is
probably the most important element of a campaign. No matter what
sources you are approaching, you need to be ready with a suggested
giving amount in line with what each prospective donor is capable of
giving. Dealing with foundations, corporations, and government funders
in this manner is easy. In fact, it is usually required. Grant
application forms have a blank space where you fill in the amount
requested. But when it comes to individual donors, we seem to think it
is a different kettle of fish. It isn't.
Individual
Donor
If a fund-raising campaign is to have a
realistic chance at succeeding, we must in the case of every prospective
individual donor:
- Rate and
evaluate the ability to give.
- Seek a
realistically large--hopefully the maximum--potential gift.
- Provide
the donor with a suggested gift amount.
Prospect rating meetings for individual
donors are usually the most important meetings that will be held for any
fund-raising campaign. They work best when participation is limited to a
few people comfortable with discussing the personal finances of others.
Such meetings are fraught with the opportunity for unnecessary comments.
That temptation should be resisted. Remember, those doing the evaluating
in one meeting are likely themselves to be rated in some future
campaign. Courtesy, discretion, and respect are the watchwords here.
Perhaps the most damaging and the
most common negative aspect of these meetings occurs when participants
after rating a prospect at a certain level expound on why you won't get
a gift at that level. You'll hear everything from, "They're giving
a million dollars this year to the XYZ institution," to "He's
the cheapest guy in town." The proper response is, "If they
have the potential to give that amount, never mind the reasons why they
won't. We must never say no for prospects. That's their job. It's ours
to talk them out of it--to give them the opportunity."
You begin rating prospects by
establishing a sizable database of caring and financially capable
individuals. This list will be generated from an organization's past
fund-raising experience, suggestions of new prospects from participants
in rating meetings, and analysis of those known to give to similar
organizations and causes.
Years
ago, when we were planning to go to Akron, Ohio, for the first time to
raise money for the Cleveland Orchestra's summer home, Blossom Music
Center, which is actually located considerably closer to downtown Akron
than to Cleveland--we had a problem identifying prospects. We had been
selling tickets in Akron for only two years, and the Orchestra had
virtually no donor constituency there. We took the annual reports of the
seven or eight largest cultural institutions in Akron and went through
each, identifying donors and the sizes of their gifts. This was long
before the advent of the desktop computer, so we made a three-by-five
card for each donor listed by each institution. Then we assembled the
cards in alphabetical order. Many names appeared on seven or eight
cards, with most of them indicating they were giving $1,000 a year to
each institution. You can bet we rated each one of these donors at
$1,000 when it came to making our prospect list.
Once
you have made the determination that an individual is capable of giving
at a certain level and has the proclivity to give to your organization
or similar programs, you must be willing to go after that amount. This
is what is meant by seeking a realistically large--hopefully the
maximum--potential gift. Is it really the maximum? Probably not. You
would have to be an awfully good evaluator and a particularly brave
fund-raiser to go after a truly maximum potential gift every time. But
you must seek the largest potential gift you feel is achievable from
each donor. To do otherwise needlessly inflates the list of prospective
donors required, increases the amount of work to be done, and lengthens
the amount of time a campaign will take.
Now
back to the problem of telling people what to give. Remember, you aren't
telling, you're suggesting! No one wants to be told what to give to any
fund-raising campaign, but most prospects will welcome a suggestion of
what would be appropriate. People nearly always want to know what the "price"
of something is. It is rare that anyone decides to purchase an item
without first looking at the price tag. The same is true when it comes
to making a philanthropic donation. People want to know how much the
soliciting organization needs, and fund-raisers should always have a
ready answer.
That answer
should be a specific dollar amount determined by a rating and evaluating
process, but far too often it is:
- Give
what you can: Requesting that multimillionaires give what they
can is silly. You seldom are likely to be asking any one person for
resources of that magnitude.
- Give
what you are comfortable with: People can be comfortable with
giving $10 when you need $100 and they could give that and more.
- We
would appreciate a gift in the range of _____ to _______: Asking
for a gift in the range of $100 to $1,000 tells the prospect you
haven't determined what your real needs are.
You
should always suggest a specific number, and that suggestion must be
presented in a way that is neither annoying nor demanding. There is only
one person who can and will decide the size of a gift--the individual
making that gift. However, most prospects will welcome and consider a
request made in the following manner:
We
are going to the community to raise $250,000 that we plan to place in a
permanent endowment fund to provide income in perpetuity, assuring that
we will continue to meet our financial needs; be able to maintain,
improve, and enhance our current programs and services; and have the
opportunity to implement new ones to meet the growing needs of our
community.
To help us
meet our campaign goal, we hope that you will consider making a gift of
$10,000. We are suggesting this amount because, as you can appreciate, a
campaign of this magnitude and limited time frame requires a certain
number of leadership gifts at significant dollar levels. While this
suggested amount was developed with that premise in mind, we recognize
and understand that in the final analysis you will consider what is
right for you. Of course, whatever you give will be deeply appreciated.
I
have used this suggested gift statement, with obvious modification, in
numerous campaigns, and it has worked well. It succeeds because it
approaches prospects as each of us would want to be
approached-thoughtfully, courteously, and enthusiastically.
Remember,
chances are that a careful and thoughtful ratings process will result in
your asking for an amount heard many times before by the prospect. Your
request is not going to be shocking or offensive. Even if it is high,
when presented respectfully and politely, you are likely to be told, "Gee,
if I really had that kind of money, I would be glad to give it to you."
At that point the prospect has said he will give. Now all remains is for
him to decide how much, and you have started his thinking at a far
higher level than a low-ball request would have prompted.
Foundations
and Corporations
When it comes to
rating and evaluating prospects, fund-raisers spend the lion's share of
their time on individual donors. After all, in nearly every campaign,
they are the primary source of contributions. However, it behooves us to
take a look at the process as it pertains to other giving sources. For
our purposes, let's assume that governmental funders can be handled like
foundations and private and community foundations can be viewed as
essentially the same.
For foundations,
the best and most comprehensive source of information is The Foundation
Center. It maintains reference libraries in New York City, Washington,
D.C., San Francisco, Atlanta and Cleveland. The Center also publishes
The Foundation Directory, a reference book listing each foundation in
the United States and including:
- Its name,
address, officers, and trustees
- Its
purposes and year of incorporation
- Its
total assets
- The
number of grants it typically makes, total annual distributions, and
the size of its largest and smallest grants in a given year
- What
programs and activities it supports (i.e., endowment, capital
projects, operating expenses, annual campaigns, new programs,
personnel expense)
-
Information which must accompany a grant application
- Specific
projects, programs, and entities to which it will not make grants
- Proposal
submission and review dates
My
experience with The Foundation Center library and its staff in Cleveland
has been nothing but positive and most beneficial. The library maintains
a complete microfilm record of all IRS Form 990s. (This is the tax form
that all private foundations must file, showing to whom each gave money
in any given year.) I have frequently used the library's 990 microfilm
to search for donor prospects among private foundations.
The
best sources of information about corporations are the local chambers of
commerce and a book called The Corporate Giving Directory, published by
the Taft Group in Rockville, Maryland. The Directory lists which
corporations gave what to whom in each state. Be mindful, however, that
when it comes to gaining corporate support in your community, there is
no substitute for the same kind of hands-on knowledge which you should
be collecting about prospective individual donors. The best sources for
this type of corporate information are remarkably similar to those you
would seek out for data about individual donors. In addition, the
chamber of commerce can provide a list of its members, usually the
businesses of any size in a community. This and any other available list
should be reviewed for the names of new potential donors by a committee
which has an understanding of the local corporate community and its
giving patterns. Once again, don't overlook past experience and the
experiences of similar organizations.
As
part of the process of rating and evaluating prospective donors, you
should take into consideration the causes they are known to support or
avoid. Except in the case of individual donors, the record is pretty
clear. Many foundations and corporations have published guidelines which
indicate whether they will give to the following types of campaigns and
requests:
- Annual
- Capital
-
Challenge
-
Endowment
- In-kind
-
Multiyear grants
-
Sponsorship and underwriting
These
guidelines also spell out where grants are restricted as to location,
type of organization, or content of program.
With
individual donors, the lines are usually less clearly drawn. Even if an
individual has refused to give to a category of request in the past, he
or she still might be worth a try, particularly if the circumstances are
unusual. People do change their minds. However, it is generally wise not
to solicit individuals who have made it clear they will not give either
to the type of campaign being conducted or its underlying purpose.
Those
are my views on the subject. What are yours? I welcome your comments and
suggestions. tony@raise-funds.com
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