There is an old saying in fundraising: “You have a better chance of getting a gift if you ask than if you don't.” This is so true, but it is even more true that you have a better chance of getting a gift if you ask a prospect and not just a random passerby.

All our fundraising ought to be focused as much as possible on people we think would be interested in our work. Since personal solicitation is, by definition, done on a person‐by‐person basis, we need to spend time identifying specific individuals to ask. An email or direct mail solicitation is sent to a list of dozens or thousands of people we think are interested, but we don't go through the list name by name. Personal asking is the only strategy whereby we consider each person (or couple) individually. Because of that level of work, we generally focus on people who can make bigger gifts.

In larger organizations, personal solicitation is generally used to ask for gifts of at least $2,500 and often $5,000 or more. For smaller organizations, however, donors who could give a gift of $500 or more are worth the time a personal solicitation takes, and defining a major gift as $250 or more opens the possibility of more people becoming major donors.

Size of gift is not the only determinant of whom you ask personally, of course. Using the theory of resource mobilization, we know that social movements require all kinds of things besides money, so you should consider personal asks for items aside from money. For example, you might personally contact long‐time donors even if they are not prospects for larger gifts; you might visit other people who cannot make large gifts themselves but who are well respected and whose opinions about your work will be sought by others; you might communicate with family members of major donors; or you might visit merchants who give you items in place of gifts. As much as possible, visit as many of your supporters as you can and try to recruit as many people as you can to help with the personal visits. In addition, near total reliance on virtual meetings during the COVID lockdown regularized online meetings and added the possibility of “meeting” in real time with people outside our own regions. Therefore, consider holding virtual meetings when face‐to‐face meetings are not possible.

Because we have limited time, we have to think through how best to steward it, and that involves deciding on whether a visit is going to increase what the prospect gives us (money, time, introductions to others, goodwill) enough to make it worth the effort we will put into it.

The question that determines whether a person is a prospect could be phrased this way: “What evidence do I have that if I asked this person for thirty to sixty minutes of their time to meet with me, thus also investing thirty to sixty minutes of my time (plus preparation), this person would be likely to make a gift that is significantly bigger than one they might have made if approached through a less time‐consuming and less personal strategy?”

Three broad qualifications determine whether someone is a prospect and therefore worth the time of an in‐person meeting:

• Access to the prospect, through someone in the group who is either willing to ask this person or willing to allow their name to be used in the asking
• Affinity for the cause or something similar
• Ability to make the gift you are looking for

When you have positive, verifiable evidence of these, you have a “Triple A” prospect. If one or more of the criteria are missing, you have a potential prospect, sometimes called in shorthand, a “suspect.” Let's look at each of these criteria in depth, beginning with the most important.

ACCESS

Access is the most important of the three criteria and also the most overlooked. Do you know the prospect? Does anyone in your network know the prospect? Without some way to be in touch with the prospect, you clearly cannot proceed with a personal solicitation.

There are three ways for a person to have contact needed to proceed:

• A board member, staff person, or volunteer knows the person.
• A board member, staff person, or volunteer knows someone who knows this person, and that someone is either willing to let their name be used in the approach (“Mary O'Reilly suggested I call”) or, better yet, is willing to call on your behalf (“Dola, this is Mary. I'm giving money to a really amazing group and was hoping you would be willing to see a couple of their representatives, let them tell you about the group, and consider joining”).
• The person is currently a donor to your organization, but no one close to the organization knows the person. In that case, when you call you will say, “We don't know each other, but we share a commitment to _________ and I want to talk with you about an exciting project we are about to undertake.”

AFFINITY

In thinking through why someone who is not already a donor might become a major donor or why someone currently giving might be willing to make a bigger gift, return to your case statement (discussed in Chapter Three). What values do you have in common? What organizations does the prospect already support that are similar to your organization? Be broad‐minded and creative in assessing potential commonalities. For example, people giving to environmental groups are likely to be interested in health issues; people who give to libraries often will support literacy programs or creative educational projects that help people appreciate the value of reading.

In addition to values, make a list of what might motivate a donor to support your organization. Be as specific as possible. Ask staff, board, and key volunteers to do the same because they are people making significant gifts of time, money, and talent already. This list will help you screen potential prospects. In addition to looking for similar values, look for other things that might link a person to your cause. Do you serve a neighborhood that the person's family comes from? If your organization has clients, do those clients patronize the prospect's business?

Try not to draw conclusions from facts about people that could lead you to assume they won't be sympathetic to your cause. Many donors to the arts are concerned about censorship, so they are also likely to give to organizations working to protect civil liberties. People who support environmental organizations may give to anti‐poverty programs, recognizing that poverty is both a result and a cause of environmental destruction. People may strongly disagree with aspects of traditions they otherwise support or beliefs they otherwise hold: for example, many Catholics are pro‐choice, and many Jews are critical of Israeli politics. People live in a context that is bigger than any one aspect of their identities, and drawing conclusions based on one piece of information may lead you away from a prospect if you are not careful.

Values, of course, are not the only motives prospects have. In addition, they may want to appear generous in front of others, they may want to set an example for their children, or give money to a cause they can't volunteer for. They may believe in the strategy the organization is using just as much as the issue, and they may simply want to be on the right side of history when the story of this movement is written. All of us have multiple motives for giving, and some of those motives will apply to any organization we give to (such as wanting to be seen as generous). The more specific you can be about your organization's values and actions, the more accurate your prospecting will be.

While we advise being broad‐minded and creative, don't go overboard. Sometimes enthusiastic staff will say, “Everyone believes in our cause” and describe how their organization promotes preschool programs for children or brings meals to homebound seniors. Although “everyone” may be in favor of these activities (and few people would admit to being against them), we all have far more causes we would like to support than money to support them. You are trying to narrow down your list from people who wish you well or even people who might sign an online petition to people who will make a major gift to your organization.

ABILITY

Ability is the least important factor in identifying prospects. We can safely assume that if a volunteer or staff person in an organization has friends or colleagues who give away money and believe in the cause, those same people have the ability to make some kind of gift, even if it is small. The question is: How much should they be asked for?

One of the biggest mistakes fundraisers make is assuming that how much a person can give is related to how much money they have. Obviously, how much money a person has influences how much that person can give at one time, but sometimes people will give more than they could have given in one gift by giving smaller gifts monthly. Many wealthy people could afford to give much more than they do, while many poor people give a large proportion of what little they have. Stockbrokers, bankers, and financial planners are interested in how much people have because they are selling the idea that they can help them have more. Fundraisers are interested in how much people give, so giving is the behavior to focus on, not having.

In terms of identifying how much a person can give, first you need to figure out whether that person gives away money. To do so, ask the person who gave you this name what other groups the prospect supports. Listen closely to what the person says. Do they complain about getting a lot of email? (“I seem to be on everyone's email list.”) Is the person very busy? With what? Board meetings at the legal aid society? Organizing a special event for International Women's Day? Volunteering with refugees? Being a docent at the art museum? Working for a political candidate? These involvements all signal someone who participates actively in nonprofit causes. You can also look at lists of donors included in other organizations’ newsletters, annual reports, and programs. If the person's name appears on these lists, it verifies that they are a giver, and may give you some indication of affinity as well.

Next, to determine the size of a possible gift, the following guidelines are useful. All of them assume some evidence that the person is interested in your cause.

To determine the people who can give $250 to $499, you need to know little more than that they are employed in a job that pays a living wage, that they are not supporting very many other people (children, partner, elderly relative), and that they have given in that range to some other nonprofit.

To determine whether someone could give in the $500 to $1,500 range will require knowing that the person has a decent‐paying job or a healthy retirement income, or that the person is married to or living with someone who has these advantages. People who give in this range usually are not the sole support of a large household.

To determine whether someone could give more than $1,500 will require a little more knowledge, particularly that the person has given in this range to other nonprofits. But most important as you get to these larger gifts is that the person is already a donor of some size to your organization. No matter how wealthy and generous someone is, that person will rarely start giving to a small organization with such a large gift. (See also Part Four, “Inviting Current Donors to Make Bigger Gifts.”)

Ultimately, you will not know with certainty how much any particular person can give because you can't know all their circumstances and because a person's perception of what they can afford can change from day to day. You make your best guess and you ask. People are rarely insulted to be asked for more money than they can afford; it's flattering when people think you are that successful financially.

STEPS IN CREATING A PROSPECT LIST

Now that you know how to define a prospect, you can create a list of people who qualify as prospects for your organization. The first step is for the people who are going to be involved in the personal solicitation strategy to meet and create a “Master Prospect List.” Having all the names in one place ensures that no one is asked by more than one person and that the right person does the asking in each case. Also, in a group setting people are likely to be more excited about the process and come up with more names and more enthusiasm for asking than they would on their own. Moreover, when more than one person knows a prospect, more information can be collected and verified.

The easiest way to create a master list of prospects was developed by fundraising consultant Stephanie Roth. Here's how it works. People at the meeting first create their own personal lists of all the people they know or who would recognize them if they were to call (see the following Prospect Identification List). People should not censor themselves by saying, “They hate me” or “She's a tightwad,” or “I can't ask that couple!” Each person just makes the list of people they know, some of whom will be prospects. Also, people should remember that just because they are the contact does not mean that they will be the solicitor. Determining who will solicit each will be decided after all prospects are identified.

Beside each name the contact notes whether or not the potential prospect believes in the cause. If contacts don't know what the person believes in, they put a question mark. Next, they cross off all the people who they know don't believe in the cause. Next to the names of the people who believe in the cause, they make a note of whether they know for a fact that this person gives away money. If they don't know, they put a question mark. They cross off anyone they know for a fact does not give away money.

Next to all the people who remain—that is, people they know, who they know believe in the cause, and who they know give away money—they put what amount of money they think the prospect could give. This can be any amount, but this exercise is generally used to find people who can give $500 or more. If the contacts don't have any idea how much the prospect could give, they put a question mark. Now, each of them has a list of firm prospects: people for whom they were able to answer affirmatively in all categories. Next, each person reads their list of firm prospects aloud. One person enters these names and the contacts' names on a spreadsheet to construct a master prospect list. If anyone else knows the prospect, they can confirm the information or add other information. The master prospect list will look like the example shown here:

Next, people read aloud the names of people on their lists who have question marks concerning belief or whether they give money to see whether anyone else can fill in this information. If no one else knows the person, they are not a prospect. If someone does know the person, they are either moved to the master prospect list or crossed off on the basis of the additional information.

Once there is a final master list of people—all of whom someone in the organization knows, all of whom believe in the cause, and all of whom we think could make the size of gift we have specified—then a decision is made as to who is going to ask each prospect. The decision about who asks is based on who has the best relationship with the prospect, who is willing to ask, and with whom the prospect would feel most comfortable. For example, let's say the choice of solicitor is between a close friend of the prospect and a business colleague whom the prospect likes and admires. At first blush, one might think that the friend should ask, but the business colleague might be a better choice, as someone who can present the case in a businesslike way. Another option is for both people to go together. Ultimately, the best solicitor is the person most likely to do a good job.

Each solicitor now ends up with their own prospect list. From the master prospect list, a database of prospect records will be developed or prospects will be added to your existing database, with each prospect record containing more detailed information about that person. The solicitor for each prospect is given a copy of the prospect record. Each organization needs to decide what fields to use (information to contain) in its database.

Following is a generic sample of what you need to know about individual prospects. Keep in mind that you need to know less about someone you are asking for $500 than about someone you will approach for $2,500. This information in the database is added to or corrected as you learn more. Eventually, as at least half of the prospects become donors, it will be helpful to have information recorded for each of them. The following types of information should be discovered and recorded for each prospect.

It is imperative for one or two people to take on the task of collecting this information and recording it systematically. This is the job of development staff. If your organization does not have staff, one or two people from the board should take on this task. The information must be accurate and confidential. Nothing should appear that is only known from gossip or that is not helpful in seeking a gift (“Had an affair with the Methodist minister” may be interesting, but is not prospect information). Some kinds of information will be more useful to some organizations than to others. An agency working with prisoners may wish to know whether anyone in the prospect's family has spent time in prison. Otherwise, that would probably not be appropriate information. People working in historic preservation may want to know how long someone has lived in a community, whereas people working on animal welfare issues will be more interested in knowing whether the person has pets or livestock or likes animals.

The prime instruction for putting together lists of prospects is to put yourself at the top of the list. In fundraising, we say that the first time you ask someone for money in person, you should always get a yes, because the first person you ask should be yourself. Once you test the proposition that the group is worth supporting against your own bank account, you will have a much clearer sense of who else you know who might give and what amount they might consider.

After all the solicitors have made their own donations and appropriate and adequate information has been gathered about the prospects, the solicitors should each have a list of people they are going to approach. They should plan to approach the people most likely to say yes first. These do not have to be your potentially biggest donors—what is important is to have two or three good experiences before you encounter anyone saying no. In our “Brussels sprouts before dessert” culture, solicitors sometimes start with the hardest people “to get them over with.” Don't do that. You need the experience of hearing someone respond positively early on to carry you through some of the harder requests.