The Hustle and Bustle of Prospecting
Dear Diary,
Recently, I was sitting in an airport waiting for my flight. As usual, I had my headphones on watching people move through the airport. There were people walking into stores, sleeping on chairs, heads-down studiously typing on their laptops, people running through the airport to find their gate and possibly not miss their flight, and kids leisurely pulling their oversized suitcases. It was the usual hustle and bustle of an airport.
In the midst, my prospect research mind thought of the weeding exercises of prospecting through my database, through lists gathered from various sources, exported screening results, and potential prospects from departed fundraisers.
You may wonder - How do we make appropriate assignments? How do we build portfolios that require different approaches?
My simple answer - Embrace the assignment
My technical answer - (1) Review one list at a time, don’t overload your workflow. (2) Already have your NorthStar, meaning, what you plan on achieving with this task. It could be to simply find five names for a travel list or assignments for a portfolio. You need to already have a clear purpose. For example, if you’re building a portfolio, you need to know the exact demographics that the fundraiser will be focused on, the exact size of the portfolio, the type of prospects (major gift or principal gift) you’re looking for, aligning interests indicated through philanthropy or board service, and what indicators you’re looking at aside from a prior gift to the organization. You need to know all of this prior to prospecting. If the person has never given, what other cursory indicators could help you determine that they’re a good prospect? Perhaps, you can keep Google searches focused on industry to save time. (3) Begin with the warmest leads that most likely came from a departed fundraiser’s portfolio that hasn’t been reassigned. (4) If you’re working through a screened list of people, filter based on location and rating results at the same time. It cuts down some time on people you’re analyzing.
As we see a busy airport and moving pieces of data sets (most importantly acknowledged as people), pause, and methodically create a process. A plan can only help you.
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Finally, I want to acknowledge that we’re still in unprecedented times. These are days in which politically and socially charged issues are impacting marginalized groups and content (for example, banned books and curriculum changes in schools). Everyday people are becoming targets and political agendas, others are being emboldened to threaten livelihoods, and then there are those who are using their voices and privileges to protect citizens’ rights. On a macro level, there’s way too much going on. On a micro level, I urge you to take care of your mental health as you consume information and filter through disinformation.
Until next time,
June 15th!
