Storytime and Lessons: The Unratable Prospect

Dear Diary,

Following my previous story time about a prospect with a limited digital footprint, I thought I would share of a story (and there have been several over my years) when I came across a prospect that couldn’t receive a capacity rating. To learn more about capacity ratings and assets, here are several entries One, Two, and Three.

When it comes to an unratable prospect, there is a lesson on acceptance, communication, and opportunity.

The Situation:

I was researching a prospect that a donor had suggested to my fundraiser as “someone you have to connect with.” We were excited about this because warm leads and introductions are always welcome. Through my research, I learned that the individual was 36 years old, was taking her company public and would be filing an Initial Public Offering (IPO) soon. Our connector was not sure of when exactly the prospect’s company would IPO, but this was an important wealth, career, and life event for me (the researcher) to note. But, because everything pertaining to her wealth and company assets/investments were private, I could not make any conclusions about her stake in the company. All I knew was that she was the sole founder and chief executive officer, which is definitely important information. Additionally, she held no real property, she was renting an apartment with one of her siblings. The prospect was from a notable Dallas, Texas family, the father had passed away several years ago and left the family with a notable estate, a real estate development company, and a family foundation. However, with several siblings, the mother, and cousins who worked in leadership roles at the real estate development company, it was unclear how much my prospect may have inherited. She also did not serve on the family foundation’s board, so it wasn’t clear how involved she was in the family’s philanthropy. She also wasn’t philanthropic as an individual because she had no public record of giving.

I could not rate this prospect. There were no hard or soft assets, except for the company that had no public financial records.

The Lesson:

Although very grateful and excited to have a new prospect in our orbit, I had to be clear with my fundraiser that research was not the strategy that could help us learn more about the prospect. We needed our connector to introduce us to the prospect. This was still a valuable prospect and a great opportunity. We needed to learn about the prospect from the prospect. We needed more time, and to make prospect research more helpful in this situation we needed to gather information from a face-to-face interaction, and then bring it back for us to activate a plan.

Again, with a situation like this, it was important that we did not make assumptions. It was important for me to accept the situation as unratable based on “limited public information.” It was also important for me to encourage my fundraiser to have a qualification meeting that would not only help them engage the prospect but help me, their researcher, update my profile and eventually conclude on a capacity rating.

Happy Learning!

Until next time,

March 15th!

Art Credit: LeNia Stitt