Donor Research In The Age Of AI With Elanna Giang, Director Of Research & Analytics, The Discovery Group

It could be the major gift fundraiser in me.

I grew up with a major gift fundraiser, but aren't the best relationships the ones that are the donors that are already giving?

I have two minds about this.

So I think it's always great to be talking to the donors who are already giving.

They've kind of removed that wall.

They've already shown that they're interested in the work that you're doing.

But I think it is also really great to explore new opportunities.

It's always good to inject new life into something.

So I'm a strong advocate for both.

And there's ways to find those new donors.

I often think of or imagine an organization or a board member saying, imagining the wealthiest person in town or wealthiest folks in town and say, why isn't so-and-so giving? And we should do some prospect research and find out how we get to that person.

Is that what you're talking about?

That's certainly part of the equation.

And of course, capacity is a major component of fundraising.

Interest is also a major component of fundraising.

And I would argue that it's possibly much more important than capacity.

What a donor is interested in or what they value, where their passions lie, Is going to be a bigger indicator of the type of gift that they're going to give to you or whether or not they'll engage with your organization at all.

So when we are looking at new donors, I do like to qualify first based their interests, their alignment, and then I'll look at the capacity to determine where in your donor pyramid, if we want to use that term, where they're going to fit in.

Mm

hmm.

And when you're working with fundraisers or working with clients around developing this prospect research, how do you think of the outcome? How do you know that your work has been successful? When you've done the profile, when you've done the research, it's presented, how do you know that it's successful?

When the person on the other end says, okay, so now what do we do with this? What can I do with this? Or you've identified these three things that they're interested in.

How do we build a conversation around that so that I'm engaging that donor in a way that's honoring their interests? and furthering their relationship to our organization.

And I think that's where a lot of the work with our wonderful philanthropy consultants comes in, where they then take some of the data that we've provided through research or data points that are internal to an organization, and they're able to build a really wonderful longer-term fundraising strategy to then cultivate that next major gift opportunity.

One of the things I've really come to appreciate about the work that you do is that intense focus on ensuring that the work and the product is a tool that fundraisers can use, that this is something that people can put to work.