Prospect Research vs. Prospect Management

Often the terms prospect research and prospect management are used interchangeably, and the line between the two gets fuzzy.  Those who do not work in one of these two areas will often think that these two are the same, and yet there is a clear difference between prospect research and prospect management.  These two things are equally important, yet quite different.  From where I sit, let me explain:

Prospect Research

The gathering of information on a specific prospect (which can be an individual, corporation, or foundation ... but typically is an individual) in order to inform a gift officer about a persons career, education, philanthropic interests, family connections, wealth and financial holdings.  It incorporates (if a prospect researcher is good at their job) an element of analyzing all of the information that is gathered via the research and making a recommendation to the gift officer as to how to best engage, cultivate, solicit, and steward that prospect.

Prospect Management

The process of planning, recording and reporting on the progress of a prospect as they move through the various stages of the cultivation cycle.  A prospect management system is an intentional process that directs prospects through the various cultivation stages within a specified time frame, with the optimal outcome being that the prospect makes a gift.   A well-structured prospect management process is a key element that allows fundraising to be done in an efficient and successful manner.  It relies on the person who oversees the prospect management system to incorporate descriptive analytics (and if they are really good at their jobs, predictive analytics) when assessing a gift officers portfolio in order to uncover what is working and what is not working, to see the consistencies as the outliers, to find those patterns and relationships in the data that will ultimately guide the overarching strategy on how to prioritize a portfolio based on the fund raising goals of the organization. In summary, as a prospect management professional, my job is to make order out of chaos and then do everything in my power to keep things from devolving back into chaos - which is exactly like herding cat.

Cleaning Up Gift Officer's Portfolios

As we all know, one of the roles of prospect research is to identify new prospects.  As research finds the new prospects, they then add them into the gift officer's portfolios.  Over time, if left unchecked, the gift officer's portfolios can slowly creep up from a nice manageable size to a large unwieldy size.  This happens often during campaigns, and it also happens when no one is doing the prospect management.  So, what do you do when you realize that your portfolio sizes are bloated and unmanageable?  You take the time to clean them up.

Cleaning up gift officer portfolios is a time consuming task, but it is important.  If the portfolio sizes are out of control, it makes the job of prioritizing who to visit, cultivate and solicit MUCH harder for the gift officers.  In order to be successful as a team - the gift officers must have manageable portfolio sizes so that they can focus their energy and talent on what they do well.

Where do you start?

1. Have one point person (typically the prospect management person) sit down with each gift officer to review their lists.  
2. Schedule several meetings with each gift officer.  Depending on the portfolio size, this process may require several meetings in order to get through the whole portfolio.  Be prepared to meet multiple times and work meticulously until you get to the very last name on the list.  
3. Keep notes on who you have reviewed in the portfolio.  Start at the beginning of the list and work your way down.  You need to keep track of each name you have discussed so that you do not waste time be going over the same name two or three times.  You can also use those notes to go back to in case there is a question later about why someone was removed from a portfolio.
4. Have the gift officers think about who they really want to keep.  The goal is to make space in the portfolio for new prospects to be added on a regular basis, so you need to be realistic about how many people a gift officer can manage, and who that gift officer really needs to be spending time on.
5. Have the portfolio management person do all the data entry/editing in the database.