When you search for new prospects, do you begin by throwing a wide net?
A wide net might have looser criteria than you would usually stick to, but will result in a larger selection of potential funders that you can consider on a case-by-case basis and narrow down at a later point.
For now, the question is: How should you qualify and prioritize your prospects?
It’s a deceptively simple question, which is why some funders won’t spend too much time or effort on prioritizing their prospects when they all have potential. However, it can be critical when it comes to overall fundraising success.
After all, targeting the right organizations is key to raising more money at the business end of your fundraising pipeline.
How a small change can mean big bucks
A slight movement in your rate of success from your initial prospect list can make a difference over the long term.
For example, making a positive change to a list of 100 prospective funders in the initial stages could mean a 5% greater rate of success when you get to the ask, which could in turn lead to thousands more in funding dollars. And unless you hire and train more staff, you only have the capacity to write so many proposals and follow up with so many leads. So when you can’t do more, you must do better.
How to do better
There are two key methods for improving your chances of a final, successful ‘yes’. One is to improve the effectiveness of your ask, but the second is to qualify and prioritize your prospects, and as this step comes first, it can have a far greater impact on your overall numbers.
So how do you do qualification and prioritization?The secret is to think first about why you shouldn’t approach a funder – not why you should. This will allow you to cut out, or at least invest less time with, leads that are unlikely to result in success.
You can ascertain this in two ways: your preparatory research and your initial contact.
Preparatory research
Research is part and parcel of any fundraising venture, and whether you use FundTracker or other services and tools in those early stages, you can uncover essential information that will help you to qualify and prioritize your leads.
The most important criteria to look for at this point is capacity and compatibility.
To determine capacity, you must consider:
Endowment size
Total number of gifts
Average size of gifts
Average number of gifts
This helps you qualify organizations that have a large enough budget to say yes to your funding request, and to find organizations that are able to donate larger amounts.
These criteria will also help you to determine the variability of an organization’s giving. That is to say, if they often give to a range of fundraisers, they may likely be more open to considering a new organization - yours. These types of funders should therefore take priority over those who notably give to the same organizations year after year.
You must also consider your compatibility.
Those who give to organizations with similar programming to yours will easily qualify. To some extent, you can also include your research on their publicized giving criteria. However, funders are notoriously poor in communicating their funding strategies, so take this information with a grain of salt and focus more on what they actually do rather than what they say they do for the most accurate representation.
Your compatibility also includes your current relationship with the funder. If you already have a contact, or your board does, you will have a strong reason to prioritize them.
Initial contact
Your initial contact will play a large role in deciphering how to qualify and prioritize your prospects. There are numerous strategies for initial contact with your funders, and we will shortly supply dedicated resources to help fundraisers work through these strategies. After the research phase, this is your second opportunity to collect information about funders. It goes beyond what you can find whilst sitting behind a desk, but the goal of finding out more about compatibility is still the same.
Seek details on how budget decisions are made, how often they’re made, and when they’re made. Find out exactly when is the best time to ask for funding, such as right after a board meeting or at the start of a new quarter. You should also aim to find out when the end of the year is for funders. This can be a crucial time for fundraisers as some funders will have a little room left in their funding envelope at this time. You may be able to appear on their radar at the exact right moment to fill that space.
To find out if there is alignment between their goals and your needs, you will need to offer a general outline of your program using the same terminology and language that they use. Follow this description by asking if this is the type of program they would typically fund. This is a soft approach as it doesn’t mean asking bluntly if they will fund you, but rather if they might.
Should you receive a negative response, this is still valuable information you can use. Take this opportunity to ask about criteria they are looking for. This can be specific, or you can ask about the types of programs they have funded in the past.
Finally, don’t forget that while this initial contact is research-based in purpose, it is also your chance to make a good first impression. This is the time to leave a positive opinion of your work, so make it count.
In conclusion
The key message to take away here is that effective qualification and prioritization can have a significant impact on your success later on.
There are many ways to adapt this strategy to your own fundraising process to ensure your approach qualifies and prioritizes the funders most able and likely to get involved with your work.
For more fundraising information and support, get in touch with Ajah and see how our service can help your programs get the funding they need.