Prospect Ratings Archives

Prospect Ratings: The Pillars of Fundraising Intelligence

July 26, 2018 / by Ryan McCarvill / Fundraising, iWave Blog, Major Gifts, Prospect Ratings, Prospect Research / 0 comments

At any one time, your nonprofit’s development office might be creating profiles for hundreds or thousands of past, present, and potential major gift donors. And with each profile involving scores of data points, notes, and summaries, it’s easy to suffer from information overload. But what if there was a way to boil all that fundraising […]

Balancing Proactive and Reactive Research Requests

April 19, 2018 / by Ryan McCarvill / iWave Blog, Major Gifts, Prospect Ratings, Prospect Research, Prospect Screening / 0 comments

We like to know what a “day in the life” looks like for our clients — and in this case, we’re specifically talking about prospect researchers. By understanding the challenges (and opportunities) you work with every day, we can create a better platform to fulfill those needs and help you explore those opportunities. But no […]

Best Practices for Leveraging Real Estate Data

February 15, 2018 / by Ryan McCarvill / iWave Blog, Prospect Ratings, Prospect Research / 0 comments

Fundraising intelligence is all about gathering relevant information to make an informed ask. Whether you have a paid subscription to an online research platform, or are using free resources like Zillow, real estate information is critical knowledge to have. Real estate provides key insight regarding a major gift prospect’s personality, net worth, debt, and other […]

Conversation Starters: Strategies That Open Doors to Major Gift Success

September 20, 2017 / by Ryan McCarvill / Fundraising, iWave Blog, Major Gifts, Prospect Ratings, Prospect Research, Prospect Research Online, Prospect Screening, Wealth Screening / 1 comment

by Paul D’Alessandro Donors, Then and Now In the late 80’s I worked on my very first capital campaign for a major university. I remember walking into the room where there were a few prospect researchers. They had a stack of books to look up information on donors, and they would draw insight from published […]

What Does PROscore Really Say About Your Prospect?

August 17, 2017 / by Ryan McCarvill / Fundraising, iWave Blog, Prospect Ratings, Prospect Research / 0 comments

If you’re an iWave client, chances are you’ve heard us say, “Don’t forget to use your PROscore credits!” quite a lot over the last year or so. But what’s the real benefit of scoring your prospects? What do all those 4s, 3s, 2s, and 1s really mean? Let’s talk it out. If you aren’t a […]

Predicting the Future With Past Giving

July 13, 2017 / by Ryan McCarvill / iWave Blog, Prospect Ratings, Prospect Research, Wealth Screening / 0 comments

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the best major gift prospect of them all?” Unfortunately, there are no magic tricks or easy shortcuts when it comes to prospect research and fundraising. Sometimes it’s hard enough to find your prospect’s middle name! But what we do have are proven indicators of major gift potential. One of the best […]

The Three Keys to a Better Major Gift Ask

January 12, 2017 / by Ryan McCarvill / iWave Blog, Prospect Ratings / 0 comments

The following is an excerpt from iWave’s new eBook: The Three Keys to a Better Major Gift Ask. Read the full story. There are three important ratings that researchers and fundraisers use to segment and prioritize major gift prospects and donors. They are: PROPENSITY: Has this person given to nonprofit causes before? AFFINITY: Is this person passionate […]

Prospect Ratings: Propensity-Affinity-Capacity Conclusion

November 8, 2016 / by Ryan McCarvill / iWave Blog, Prospect Ratings / 1 comment

Here we are at the end of the Prospect Ratings: Propensity-Affinity-Capacity Series. If you’ve been following this blog series, hopefully, you’ve learned something new about prospect ratings. If you’re just joining us, get started here. What did we learn? PROPENSITY Simply knowing a donor prefers a specific cause and has lots of money to […]

THE PAC SERIES – CAPACITY: Does Your Prospect “Have” What It Takes to Be a Major Gift Prospect?

October 20, 2016 / by Ryan McCarvill / iWave Blog, Prospect Ratings / 0 comments

The third aspect of the PAC series is for some the most important, but for all, probably the most infamous. Trying to determine exactly your prospect’s capacity to give is very difficult. There is usually no definitive answer, but every major gift ask usually depends on it. Defining Capacity You probably already know what capacity is, […]

THE PAC SERIES – AFFINITY: Finding the Major Gift Donor of Your Dreams

October 6, 2016 / by Ryan McCarvill / iWave Blog, Prospect Ratings / 3 comments

In the second of our Propensity-Affinity-Capacity (PAC) Series, we explore Affinity. Let’s discuss how and why a strong affinity rating indicates your prospect may be your organization’s next major gift donor. Affinity describes a natural liking for someone or something. In the nonprofit space, we understand affinity (or linkage) as the strength of a person’s […]

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