So now, let's actually talk about the development process itself. It's pretty simple.

There are generally four steps that we talk about

in the process of securing a gift from a donor.

We're going to talk about each of these four steps

individually and give you some examples of what it means.

But just as a preface,

let's look at the four steps.

We identify prospective donors.

We cultivate prospective donors. We solicit.

And assuming we get a gift,

we steward that gift and that donor so that they will again go back into the cycle,

and be cultivated and solicited for the next gift.

Let's look at these individually.

Identifying prospects.

Some of us call this prospect research.

Who should we be going after?

Who should we be seeking support from?

And what will we ask them for?

Sometimes, these are done in tandem.

Sometimes, they're done separately.

Sometimes, we identify the prospects first

and then identify what we want to ask them to support.

Sometimes, we have projects or

key priorities within our organizations that must be funded.

And then we have to go identify a certain type of

individual or prospect to fund those specific needs.

But this is the stage where we gather information.

And we analyze a lot of information,

often about individuals, perhaps,

about corporations or foundations as well.

But it really is the underpinning of everything else we will do.

If we don't identify prospects, we can't raise money.

For different organizations, the identification of prospects is done in different ways.

Often, nonprofits will purchase mailing lists from other like nonprofits,

to gather a profile of individuals who

are apt to support the area that the nonprofit works in.

So, for example, if a environmental organization has a mailing list,

another like environmental organization may purchase

that list from the first organization and mail to those same individuals,

in the hopes that they can identify some new donors to their organization.

In the Higher Ed space,

we will look at our alumni.

And we would identify perhaps parents or former students.

Or, if you're working in the health care industry,

you might be looking at grateful patients,

who have benefited from the health care they received from your organization.

We identify them and then we solicit them.

Of course, you're identifying prospects for different reasons.

Sometimes, we're just simply trying to identify donors in general.

This means, it doesn't really matter if

the individuals themselves can give a significant gift,

or a major gift,

or a transformational gift.

We just want them to give something.

Those would be annual fund donors,

as we discussed earlier.

We're looking to identify individuals who can make any size of gift.

Other times, the identification process is focused

more on major planned and transformational gifts.

We want to identify individuals who can perhaps give at a certain level or higher.

And, again, every organization is a little different.

But perhaps, your threshold for what you might consider a major gift is $25,000.

You then need to identify individuals who can actually give at that threshold or higher.

So, additional research would need to be done.

Once we've identified individuals who might have the propensity to give,

or the interest to give in our cause,

we then have to identify whether or not they can afford to make a significant gift.

We often refer to this as both propensity as well as inclination.

Let's talk about cultivation.

We mentioned this a bit earlier but this is a long stage.

And, often, we find the biggest chunk of our donors in this stage.

In between gifts or prior to making their first gift,

we do a lot of cultivation.

We build relationships.

We engage the prospects.

We prepare them for the ask.

We engage them through a lot of different means.

Perhaps, it is through direct mail.

Perhaps, through phone calls.

Very often, if we're looking at larger gifts,

major or planned gifts,

we do it face-to-face.

Most good development work,

with large prospective donors,

or at least those individuals who can make five, six,

and seven-figure gifts, the work is done face-to-face.

The cultivation process takes some time.

We want to contact them,

stay in front of them, again,

whether it be through phone, mail, or e-mail.

We want to begin to identify their interests and passions,

and then figuring out what it is that they're interested in

supporting and how that fits our organization.

We want to match our priorities up with their interests.

This can sometimes happen very quickly,

but often, it takes a while.

And, in listening, which is one of

the most important things we do when we're with our donors,

listening to their interests, their needs.

Listening to what they want to support or what they're passionate about,

actually allows us to find the right fit for their giving within our organizations.

This takes time.

That is why the cultivation stage,

generally speaking, is the longest stage of this four-stage process.

And then, we will get them to the point where we're ready to make the ask.

So, we solicit them. We ask them to make a gift.

Again, this can be done through direct mail, telephone, e-mail solicitations,

face-to-face solicitations, peer solicitations,

or could be part of another type of campaign that we're conducting.

But ultimately, we make the ask.

With annual fund gifts,

it's often done through phone, mail,

and e-mail, as I mentioned earlier.

And through major gifts,

we do almost all of this work exclusively in a face-to-face engagement with the donor.

Where we ask for a specific dollar amount,

for a specific project or cause.

When we solicit, we need to get an answer.

Sometimes, it's yes.

Sometimes, it's no.

Sometimes, it's maybe or not now.

Regardless of what that answer is,

we need to be prepared to respond appropriately.

A no doesn't always mean no.

Very often, it means maybe or not now.

It may be that they do not want to support the project

you pitched to them but they're willing to make a gift,

or it may mean that the dollar amount was

too high but they're very interested in the actual project that you've pitched.

So, it's very important to us to listen and ask follow up questions when

someone says no to a solicitation and find out why.

We're very happy when they say yes.

Of course, we want them to say yes.

And that makes our jobs a little bit easier and we

then move on to the next stage of the relationship.

What is most common is a not now or a maybe.

As I mentioned earlier,

major gifts, in particular,

as well as planned gifts and transformational gifts, take time.

And individuals may need a week, a month,

sometimes up to a year or more to make

their final decision as to whether or not to fund a specific ask.

Therefore, expect to hear maybe or not now more often than you hear a flat out yes or no,

when you solicit a gift.

The final stage, stewardship.

As I mentioned earlier,

this is a very important concept within our profession.

But it's how we recognize and thank our donors.

It's how we prove to them that we've spent the money according to their wishes.

And, most importantly, it's how we prove to them over time of

the tremendous impact their gift has had on our organization and our cause.

It also is a process where we continue to engage our donors

and build an even stronger relationship with our donors.

If we do this well,

all of the statistics would tell us,

a well stewarded donor is your best repeat donor.

They will give again and again and again.

And almost always, there are future gifts are larger than their initial gift.

So stewardship is a very critical step in

the process once we've had a donor say yes to a gift.

It is all about maintaining the long term relationship with the donors.

And it's a way for us to ensure that the donor knows

the gift was put to good use and had an impact as they so desire.

So again, to review, we identify prospects,

we cultivate prospects, we solicit prospects,

and when they say yes, we steward prospects.

In a perfect world,

we would have a certain percentage of all of our donors to

our organization in each of these stages.

If you're a young nonprofit organization,

you may have more individuals in the identification stage than any other.

If you're a very mature program,

you may have more individuals in a stewardship stage than any other.

But ultimately, we want a good mix in any given year of our fundraising efforts,

of having identified new prospects,

to be cultivating donors,

to be soliciting a good percentage of our donors each year,

and then to steward them after they make their gift.

Of course, soliciting donors is unique in one way.

We will always solicit donors.

When I refer to the cycle,

we're mostly talking about major donors or those individuals who give larger gifts.

Because if they're giving annual gifts,

we will always go back to them every year and solicit them and steward them.

So, think of this process as having

a different timeline depending on the type of donor you're soliciting.

An annual fund donor,

this process would happen every year,

in a 12-month period.

A major donor, this process could happen over the course of years.

A planned giving donor,

this process will happen over the course of,

often, many years but generally later in their life cycle.

So, think about that as you think about this process.

However, the process is in fact universal.

These four steps are required in any engagement of individual donors,

and it also applies in many ways to corporate and foundation donors.

The Donor and Development Process (Part 2)

Fundraising and Development Foundations

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