Giving Tuesday is one of the most important days of the year for Canadian charities. Every Giving Tuesday, thousands of charities across Canada receive millions of dollars from donors.
In 2021, CanadaHelps estimates that Canadians donated $43.6 million on Giving Tuesday. As Giving Tuesday continues to grow in popularity, it’s a safe assumption that this number will continue to grow, as well.
In 2021, Canadians donated $43.6 million on Giving Tuesday
– CanadaHelps
It is clear that Giving Tuesday has a positive impact on Canadian Charities. One, it is extremely effective in encouraging people to give (some of whom will be brand new donors) and two, it raises the profile of philanthropy in Canada generally, creating an increased awareness of Canadian charities, the work they do, and the funding required to do that work. But is there a way Canadian charities can benefit from Giving Tuesday beyond the gifts made and the recognition received?
Consider a charity that receives $100,000 in donations from 2000 new donors on Giving Tuesday. Fantastic, right? $100,000 in incoming donations from people who have never given to the organization is an amazing accomplishment and should be celebrated. But is that organization maximizing the benefit these donors could provide?
To truly maximize the benefit of Giving Tuesday, charities should look beyond the initial gift, and funnel new donors into their pipelines. The best way to do this is through screening and segmentation.
Here’s an example:
Consider the charity that received $100,000 in donations from 2,000 new donors on Giving Tuesday. If that organization screens and segments those donors, the impact of Giving Tuesday will be far beyond $100,000.
Let’s say, if after screening, the breakdown of the group’s 5 year total giving capacity is as follows:
Suppose, if after segmenting: The top 5% (100 people) are funneled into the Major Gifts pipeline. After careful cultivation and stewardship 10% (10 people) of them make a major gift with an average size of $10,000 (which is just a fraction of this group’s total 5 year giving capacity). The result is $100,000 in additional revenue stemming from Giving Tuesday, just from the Major Gifts segment of the screened Giving Tuesday donors.
Giving Tuesday is an important day for Canadian charities. It generates fundraising revenue, increases recognitiion, and creates awareness. Screening and segmenting the new donors a charity acquires on Giving Tuesday and funneling those donors into appropriate pipelines will ensure the impact of Giving Tuesday lasts far beyond a single calendar day.
In this video, we assume the role of a prospect researcher entering a capital campaign and identify and do some quick qualification on a corporate giving prospect. This video also demonstartes how CharityCAN uses relationship mapping to show you connections your organization has to your prospect.
Donation records can tell you a person’s affinity for a cause. Salary records and real estate values are useful in gauging a person’s capacity to give. But to really get to know your prospect you need to look at biographical data. Biographical data tells us about a person’s experiences and interests. It helps answer questions such us:
What are this person’s academic interests and qualifications?
How has this person’s careeer progressed?
What are his or her recreational interests?
CharityCAN has a wealth of biographical data ranging from press releases to academic qualifications. Biographical data sources in CharityCAN include:
Thomson Reuters corporate biographies and academic qualifications
ZoomInfo press releases and web refrences
Canadian Who’s Who biographies
Here is a short video walkthrough showing you how to access CharityCAN’s biographical datasets:
We all know how important relationship mapping is to philanthropic prospect research. However, not all relationship mapping is created equal.
There are two main kinds of relationship mapping:
Relationship mapping done with internal data
Relationship mapping done with external data
Relationship mapping done with internal data uses information you know about your donors and prospects. Think creating a family tree that links a current donor with a prospect who know is his or her niece.
Relationship mapping done with external data uses information from outside your organization to show you how people are connected. Think a graph showing you how a prospect is connected to other people of interest based on the corporate boards your prospect sits on.
Now that we’ve got that covered, here’s the good news: you can combine both types of relationship mapping using Custom Relationship Mapping in CharityCAN. This feature opens up CharityCAN’s relationship data and mapping functionality and allows you to create and edit maps. You can define family, personal, and professional relationships by type and length and CharityCAN will automatically pull in everything we know about the people in your custom map.
Another great benefit about Custom Relationship Mapping is the ability to associate people with your organization. Let’s say your organization has a well connected donor or volunteer and you want to use his or connections while you are qualifying prospects. Or you are creating a fundraising committee and you want to reveal all of their connections in CharityCAN like you can with your Board members. All you need to do is create a custom relationship map and link these people to your organization. Then, whenever you are looking at a profile in CharityCAN, whether it is an individual, a company or a foundation, CharityCAN will use that person’s connections as though they are a current or historical board member and show if you are connected to your prospect.
If you have any questions or would like a quick walk-through of this feature please email us at info@charitycan.ca!
Donor screening and wealth screening are sometimes used interchangeably in fundraising. Since wealth screening is almost always a component of donor screening, this misunderstanding is understandable. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the limitations of pure wealth screening when compared to full donor screening. Let’s look a closer look at both types of screening.
Wealth Screening Overview
Wealth screening is solely concerned with wealth. Here are some of the things wealth screening can tell you:
Net worth
Dwelling value
Salary
Other assets and liabilities
Donor Screening Overview
Donor screening is also concerned with wealth and any quality donor screen will include the elements of wealth screening listed above. However, donor screening will also look for the following:
Past philanthropic gifts to similar causes and/or organizations
Non-giving philanthropic engagement such as serving on the board of a charity
Political giving
Capacity and Affinity
Where wealth screening and donor screening differ concerns capacity and affinity. Wealth screening tries to determine how much money a person has. Donor screening expands on wealth screening and looks at a person’s overall viability as a donor in addition to how much a person can give. Wealth screening focuses on capacity. Donor screening focuses on capacity and affinity.
Yes, it is critical to have an idea of a person’s capacity to give – this makes sure our gift asks are reasonable and accurate. However, we also need to know the person’s affinity for the cause or organization if we want to maximize our chances of success. Wealth screening helps determine the gift ask. Donor screening helps determine the gift ask and the likelihood of success.
Conclusion
Although sometimes they are confused due to their similarity, it is important to understand the differences between wealth screening and donor screening. If you are solely concerned with a person’s capacity to give, wealth screening is the exercise for you. If you are concerned with a person’s capacity to give and his or her connections to your organization and likelihood to give to your organization, donor screening makes the most sense.
