By Matt Vuorela / Chief Executive Officer of Steier Group
Every donor plays a meaningful role in advancing your mission. Every gift deserves gratitude, and every supporter should feel valued for the part they play in your work. But when it comes to maximizing the return on your fundraising efforts, your major donors will drive the greatest impact.
Individual donations account for the highest percent (67%) of charitable giving in the United States each year. That’s why prospect development is so important. If you’re not familiar with the term, prospect development describes a strategic approach for identifying and cultivating high-impact gifts for your organization – often from right within your existing donor database. In this blog, we’ll outline best practices in prospect development to drive results.
Understanding Prospect Development
A prospect development strategy can help you team work smarter, not harder. Many development teams fall into a reactive rhythm, responding to individual gifts as they come in, rather than intentionally cultivating donors who can sustain the mission long-term.
Effective prospect development is a much better approach. We aren’t suggesting you just make an organized list of donor names. A strong prospect development strategy – and well-built donor pipeline – gives your fundraising team the clarity they need to do their best work. With the right information in hand, they can spot high-value prospects early, understand where each donor is in their journey and guide them toward making a transformational gift. Doing this well requires research, data analysis and relationship management.
Phase 1: Identification (Methods and Tools)
To identify major donors and prospects, you will use both data and anecdotal information.
For example, let’s say your director of advancement, Susie, had lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Jones last week. Susie comes back and tells the rest of the team that Mrs. Jones mentioned how much she has loved seeing the posts from your Catholic school on your social media recently. The conversation went on with Susie sharing about her own memories from Catholic Schools Week activities when she was younger.
Could that mean your organization has risen to the top in terms of the Jones’ giving priorities? Yes, it could! And that means a team member should make a note in their donor record in your CRM database.
Now let’s say the team member entering that note notices that the Jones family has steadily given for at least five years now. That data, combined with their newly expressed passion for your organization, might mean Mr. and Mrs. Jones should become high-priority donors to target for a larger gift.
That’s what we’re talking about here. There are many pieces of information that can help you learn more about your individual donors’ willingness and ability to give. And there are many tools you can use to help with prospect research.
An internal review of your current database is the first place to start.
You can sort donors by zip codes known for their higher income levels, for longevity in their commitment to your organization, etc. Your team could then discuss the report and what you know about the donors in each segment to help prioritize and assign donors. There are also many external wealth screening tools to assist your team in finding capacity within your current donor base. If your budget allows this service, wealth screening can be of great help to your team as you plan your time and resources. Check out this list of the 15+ best prospect research tools as named by DonorSearch.
Some nonprofits are also starting to use AI tools to help with donor segmentation and prospect identification.
Where we have seen the most success is with teams who spend most of their time on donors who can make large gifts and are passionate about the mission.
This is also an important step during a capital campaign feasibility study. Our clients identify new major donors during studies all the time.
Phase 2: Qualification (Indicators and Analysis)
There are three things to keep in mind as you categorize donors: capacity, affinity and propensity.
Capacity: Look at your internal CRM, as well as public records, such as real estate ownership and past gifts to other causes. Consider past donation amounts and total gifts overall. For some of the church capital campaigns we’ve worked on, some of the top gifts end up coming from a committed mid-level donor who hadn’t yet been specifically invited to engage at a higher level.
Donor research gives your team the insights needed to focus on prospects with the material means to make a substantial investment in your mission. It can be a delicate subject, but the more you’re able to discover about each donor or prospect’s level of wealth helps you set more accurate gift ask amounts.
Affinity: Look for signs of a personal connection and/or past involvement with your organization. Indicators of this may be past volunteering, attending an event, or providing a testimonial.
As you look at affinity with your organization, you can also estimate a donor’s life stage/age based on other factors in your database. This is a list you might want to keep an eye on for planned giving purposes. A one-on-one approach directly from your leader could be a good idea for those prospects.
Propensity: Look for clues in the research you’ve done for whether a donor is inclined to give at high levels in general – to any cause. This could mean they’re likely to give to your organization if it aligns with their values.
Things to keep in mind:
- The best prospects to focus on will be those who fall into all three of these categories.
- A second priority tier to consider is those with high capacity, but less affinity (involvement with your organization to-date), as you could steward those relationships in a positive direction.
- Consider creating a list of your middle-range donors who have either increased their giving amount or their engagement, to see if it makes sense to make an increased annual appeal ask this year.
Phase 3: Management (Strategies and Best Practices)
Let’s say you found a segment of donors in your research who met these criteria:
- Already in your database as a donor.
- Passion for your mission (maybe as a volunteer or board member).
- Multi-year donation history.
- Financial capacity.
Now what?
In general, it’s considered best practice to personalize your donor communication materials whenever possible. For example, if you use a platform to email your constituents, does the platform allow you to use donor first names or to tag donors with certain interests? Taking it a step further, if you can see from reporting that there are donors who consistently open and click your emails, note that in your CRM – that’s a clue as to their affinity! Same goes for if you notice the same handful of followers on your social media who like and engage with your posts. High affinity! You can cross-check those names with the other categories listed above to get a more complete picture of their prospect status.
Going back to the meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, if you know that they prefer a phone call to set up a meeting time, rather than an email, be sure that everyone in your organization knows and matches their communication preferences whenever possible. It signals that you value them as an individual, not just a donor. What an easy way to strengthen the relationship before the conversation even begins!
As with fundraising in general, there is no one-size-fits all approach to prospect development.
Fundraising Roles, Skills and Team Dynamics
Most of the Catholic churches we work with have small fundraising teams. If that’s true for your team, and you don’t have a dedicated data analyst or researcher, that’s okay!
Simple systems can make a big impact. Here are a few easy-to-implement ideas:
- Set up Google Alerts for the names of your key prospects.
- Train your gift officers in database research and prospecting skills (check to see if your CRM company puts on any webinars or other professional learning opportunities).
- Schedule a recurring block of time – a few hours a month – to review top prospects and/or vet new donors.
Effective donor portfolio management takes team collaboration.
If your organization is fortunate enough to have a team member dedicated to data, be sure to integrate them into all team meetings with donor-facing staff. Beyond report pulling and gift entry, utilize your data team as a critical thinking tool. For instance, if someone on your top prospects list has not had gift activity yet, discuss why and what information may be needed to move things forward.
Conclusion: Turning Insight into Action
Prospect development is an essential part of a strong overall development program. It allows for smarter decision-making so your team can focus on the relationships that matter most and use time and resources more effectively. It also boosts donor engagement by using data to enhance every donor touchpoint. The practices outlined above can help set up your organization for long-term success.
A final thought: focus on what you can control. In the development world, you can really only control where and how you spend your time and focus your efforts. By investing those resources into the individuals with both the capacity and passion to make major gifts, you position your organization for stronger campaigns and relationships.
Sources
15+ Best Prospect Research Tools to Find High-Impact Donors. (n.d.). In DonorSearch. Retrieved January 21, 2026, from https://www.donorsearch.net/resources/prospect-research-tools
Catholic Church Fundraising. (n.d.). In Steier Group. Retrieved January 21, 2026, from https://www.steiergroup.com/capital-campaigns/catholic-churches
Charitable Giving Statistics. (n.d.). In NPTrust. Retrieved January 21, 2026, from https://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics
Create a Successful Capital Campaign Plan. (n.d.). In Steier Group. Retrieved January 21, 2026, from https://www.steiergroup.com/services/campaign-planning
Vuorela, M. (2025). Donor Development Strategies for Maximum Impact. In Steier Group. https://www.steiergroup.com/blog/donor-development
