Luckily for him, his fundraising team doesn’t take this to heart.
Many
years ago, when I should have known better, I accompanied another Vice Chancellor on a visit to ask a prospect for a seven figure gifts. I had only
been engaged by that particular university a few days previously and didn't
think it politic to dissuade him from the ask. The ask was made around a
boardroom table with several other people in the room. The temperature dropped
several degrees and had a pin hit the floor it would have sounded like a dropped dumbbell.
I
should have known better because as a newcomer to major gift fundraising I had
the good fortune to share an office with a then, little-known breed of
professional called a Prospect Researcher. Until then I hadn't known such a job existed. Since then I have been enormously
grateful to the skills I learned from her and a growing number of other professional
prospect researchers with whom I've worked.
Success
at major gift asking depends on you asking (or as I prefer to say offering an
opportunity) for a gift that will make a significant difference in an area
which is central to the giver's moral universe. Research will help you
understand that person’s moral biography[1].
Research
also help you know the size of gift that a potential donor is able to make.
This is likely to be a product of their past giving record, where the
opportunity that you are offering fits within that moral universe, and their
wealth (assets and liquidity).
Research
will also help you identify the prospects social and professional networks.
This will help you work out whom to involve with you as you begin to draw the
prospect towards the opportunity to give and who can help you weave the
narrative of your case for support.
It
will also help you know the prospects social and cultural tastes and enable you
to plan a series of events and moments which are likely to develop the bonds of
friendship between the donor and your organization.
To be
more concrete, this is what you want to discover through prospect research
- Basic contact and demographic details, including addresses, occupation, family circumstances, age and education.
- Networks and affiliations such as particular recreations, clubs and societies professional and personal), professional networks including board and trustee roles
- Already existing philanthropy (ideally including amounts given) and volunteering
- Income, which can often be inferred from occupation and other indicators; and wealth, which is often much harder to know and seldom has a basis in appearances.
It is my belief that the majority of major gift prospects will expect you to have done this homework. Not doing it and wasting someone's time with an ill judged ask is a major discourtesy.
The biggest ask I've managed was the leading gift to a medical research institute. The final stage was a dinner hosted by the chief executive of the organization, in an exclusive and hard to obtain historic venue. There was live classical music (another of his interests) and a formal presentation by the leading researcher and a full table of the institution's leaders and existing supporters. A proposal that had been carefully shaped to conform to the giver's well known tastes and inclinations had previously been submitted. We knew this was what the donor expected.
It was the discourtesy of not doing research that resulted in the frosty silence that I first described above.
[1] ‘Moral biography’ is
the term used by Paul Schervish, the leading researcher of HNWI philanthropy. The term moral biography refers
to the way that individuals conscientiously combine in daily life two elements:
personal capacity and moral compass (Schervish, PG 2006, 'The Moral Biography
of Wealth; Schervish, PG 2008, 'Why the Wealthy Give').
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