[hainslie]

Hi everyone!

We are starting to track our major gift prospects in RE.... Yea!!! But there is some info that we have that doesn't necessarily fit into the given fields. I would like to pick everyone's brains regarding the following:

Where do most of you put your prospect research info, especially stuff found on the web? Notes or media tab? What are your procedures for your organization as to what goes on each tab?

Has anyone encountered this scenario? A volunteer solicitor identifies a group of people who should be giving your organization $10k a year. They offered to work on them but no offical proposal has been formulated yet. Where do you put the info that someone believes a prospect is capable of giving $10k? Do you put that in the prospect tab under ratings? Or do you reserve the ratings section for screening services? And if you do that, where would you put the solicitors comments?

Thanks in advance!

[andrea.bbbs]

We are just beginning to do that ourselves as well. I go into Notes and copy/paste found info, and also type up some narrative. I file it as Cultivation Strategy. Then I give the Prospect an Attribute so that I can find them again. We don't have the Prospect Module so I am sure there is a much better way.

[hullsa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hainslie

Where do most of you put your prospect research info, especially stuff found on the web? Notes or media tab? What are your procedures for your organization as to what goes on each tab?

Has anyone encountered this scenario? A volunteer solicitor identifies a group of people who should be giving your organization $10k a year. They offered to work on them but no offical proposal has been formulated yet. Where do you put the info that someone believes a prospect is capable of giving $10k? Do you put that in the prospect tab under ratings? Or do you reserve the ratings section for screening services? And if you do that, where would you put the solicitors comments?

We use Attributes or Notes for random info that doesn't fit anywhere else. We use the Media tab for photos or pdfs, but use it mainly for application forms, and long grant lists and analysis on Foundation profiles.

In your scenario, we would add them with a Prospect Status of Identify or Qualify - meaning they are major-gift prospects. We wouldn't add a Rating until a researcher has verified that they are capable of a specific dollar amount/range (but you can can certainly put them there). The Solicitor would be encouraged to add Actions or a Note with their comments about the person (preferably an Action).

I've added a bunch of policies for prospect data (data entry and a data map) in the shared files section here. The research staff at my org has very full data entry access, so it's not a problem for us to add info anywhere we need (but not Gifts or Appeals and the like).

Thanks,
Sarah

[hainslie]

Thanks, Sarah!

I did get a chance to skim through the stuff you put in the shared folder. It's great! The ratings table you included... is the final inclination/capability rating determined by your staff? And do you put that info in the rating section of the prospect module?

[hullsa]

Thanks!
Yes - we determine the capability and also enter on the rating section. The DOs handle Inclination (although we do the data entry), particularly with individuals.