[tmorgan]

We are considering have Blackbaud Analytics do some prospect screening on our database. I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have some experience with this. My questions are:

1. How many records did you submit to Blackbaud? What proportion of your total database was this?

2. What criteria did you use (if you only submitted a portion of your database) to identify the records you sent to BB?

3. Did the results validate the expenditure in your opinion?

4. What kind of results did you get from the followup you did once you had the results?

5. Any problems or suggestions?

You can email me off-line if you prefer. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated!

[Peter Gulka]

We are very close to having this done ourselves. Everyhting I ahve heard has been excellent. The cost/benefit ratio is hard to beat.

[Melissa Siobhan]

We didn't use BB but we have done prospect screening on our Dtb.

We figured out we couldn't afford to do the whole DTB (30,000 records) but we could afford 8,000 based on the information we wanted. (birthdates, financial info, prospect ratings, etc.)

We based the criteria on recency alone and were able to get donors in the past 2.5 years. I would avoid doing it on giving level because you miss out on donors who are giving WAY under thier potential. You may be surprised at how many $20 donors are very wealthy. You may never get them to make big gifts but consistent long term donors regardless of giving level make great planned gift prospects (and those with wealth give BIGger planned gifts).

My other advice - have a plan for what you will do with the data when you get it. Special mailings to prospects asking for larger gifts that you haven't included in your budget? Special invitations to prospects to cultivation events you have yet to plan?

Prospect data has a lifespan - you can't sit on it for a while then do something with it. Make your plans now BEFORE the screening based on what you can afford (CEO/ED to phone top 50 prospects - invite next 200 prospects to event - mail to next 500 prospects, etc) If you can't afford to do anything different in your program based on the results then the money will be wasted.

[Judy]

We just submitted 5500 records and received our data presentation and the hard data. Believe it or not, my fundraisers had not one single question for the consultant during the presentation. I consider that my fault for not educating them on what to ask. But I'm not even sure of what we want to know. We are going forward anyway with the modeling to help group and categorize our donors. Does anyone have suggestions on what questions to ask of the consultants and of the data?
Thanks for sharing.
-Judy

[cjjenkins]

Melissa - You hit it right on the head . . . don't waste the time (or money) if you don't have a plan. . .

Judy - I can't belive that your fundraisers had no questions. Ours were the primary source for determining the criteria to be used for submission to BBA, as they know the RE donor base almost as well as I do. Maybe even better . . .

Trish - Based on input from our fundraisers, we sent around 5,000 records. The rationale for using BBA was to gain more info on donors already identified as potential major donors, while discovering those hidden donors that have consistently given year after year. The results were very positive. As Melissa also noted, focus on recent donors was a key for us as well. An example of one of our success story - a $25/year annual donor that turned into a $25K scholarship/endowment donor; was just sitting around waiting for us to ask for more . . . .

Well worth it!
CJ

[Judy]

Well between my director, myself and a consultant we came up with the criteria...and the results were very impressive, don't get me wrong. Maybe they were just too stunned by the amount of information we got back.

[skcnc]

Judy,

Believe it or not the same thing happened to me. The powers that be in our department determined the criteria (based on their ideas of what a major donor should be) and so much information came back I think there were some who were intimidated by the data. I spent months and months preparing for the BBA and ended up leaving for maternity leave (and subsequently staying home with my son) so I'm not sure how well (or if) the information is used. But I did get some brownie points for doing it.