Donor Interaction: Don't Miss the Market Research Opportunities!

Recent fundraising results suggest that development professionals may be missing important prospecting information as they approach major gift donors. This is due to the fact that most fundraising research and literature have focused primarily on quantitative giving-capacity analysis (Panus, 2011). The quantitative research emphasis accelerated with the growth of the internet era and its plentiful access to hard financial information about potential donors (Hanberg, 2008). What appears missing is philanthropic research into values, insights, viewpoints, and firsthand testimony provided from the viewpoint of actual major gift donors. What would lead to this over-emphasis on quantitative analysis? The answer is easy. In a word, access. The internet makes it remarkably easy to search public courthouse records that were previously cumbersome to locate. Taking this information to a sophisticated level the market place is now full of vendors that have created a number of quantitative forecasting tools. These tools are readily available to the nonprofit industry (Guidestar, 2009). These profiles also provide philanthropic giving-capacity results for individuals, foundations, and companies (Mutz, 2010). All public record databases are scanned for the latest wealth information and then compiled into quantitative giving-capacity forecasts. Online search tools made this information available to almost the entire philanthropic community. Without question this has forever changed the philanthropic industry. One practical example of this quantitative donor research, that just about any nonprofit organization can perform, is the purchase of a prospective donor’s private residence. The value of the real estate and the amount of the mortgage are among the public records available to any interested party (Bray, 2009). Researchers also can access the most current data on valuable assets such as pension holdings and annual income levels, as well as philanthropic and biographical data (Guidestar, 2009). These quantitative capacity sources, while powerful and extremely helpful tools for major gift officers, are, however, limited to the potential financial giving capacity. A purely quantitative analysis does not inform the prospecting organization about the high-net-worth philanthropist’s personal convictions, giving intentions, passions, or pet issues (Schervish, 2009). Research further suggests that these values are constantly changing and the philanthropic industry might not fully understand these changes. Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner (2012) explains that the wealthy class in the United States are different than most ordinary people. And this difference is not always in a good way. Keltner's research suggests that their life experiences make them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish. Keltner states that the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market, and were major themes in the 2012 Presidential election, are partly rooted in an upper class ideology of self-interest (2012). In an academic version of a Depression-era Frank Capra movie, Keltner and the other authors of an article titled Social Class as Culture: The Convergence of Resources and Rank in the Social Realm, published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, argue that rich people are more likely to think about themselves. They believe that economic success have more to do with individual behavior and a good work ethic (Keltner, 2012). If Kelner is correct, and similar research findings suggest that he is (Vesterlund, 2006), then it is important that you hear directly from your wealthy donors about their views on your organization. This kind of “baked in” research has great potential for helping major gift officers gain insights about the attitudes and beliefs of their major gift prospects.