WealthEngine

House of Ruth has provided housing and supportive services for abused women children in Washington D.C. and the metropolitan area since 1976. The organization helps more than 600 women and children as they learn the skills to live independently so they can eliminate homelessness and abuse from their lives.

As Director of Operations and a 16-year veteran at the House of Ruth, Joyce Grand is responsible for managing the infrastructure, processes and systems that are used to support the organization’s mission. Ms. Grand and her team selected DonorPerfect^TM from SofterWare, Inc.® as their donor management system over 10 years ago. The DonorPerfect system allows them to efficiently manage their fundraising activities and communications with constituents and donors. She and her team have gathered valuable data on their donors, but they needed more biographical and personal financial information to help determine which constituents should be solicited for major gifts and their planned giving program.

More Data for Better Fundraising Results

In preparing for the next stages of House of Ruth’s major gift and planned giving programs, Ms. Grand had to consider a research approach that was both comprehensive and efficient. She turned to DonorPerfect’s prospect research partner, WealthEngine, Inc.^TM.

House of Ruth’s prospect research and screening program now includes:

• FindWealth Online^TM data and screening
• WealthConnect^TM integration with DonorPerfect

With the integration in place, the House of Ruth is now able to enhance their entire database with demographic and financial information on their top donors and prospects, including: age, real estate, hard asset and stock holdings, charitable contributions, and more. All of this data, including WealthEngine’s Propensity to Give (P2G^TM) scores and estimated giving capacity ranges, is imported directly into DonorPerfect for reporting and moves management.

DonorPerfect has developed specific tools to import WealthEngine data directly into the DonorPerfect system. Any data not brought by these tools can be uploaded by the client via a Microsoft Access® file, which is included as part of the service. In addition, to help maximize the benefits of the new data, DonorPerfect clients are provided a user guide, which contains information, reports and selection filters that have been added to their database when they purchase WealthEngine services.

Integration Makes Prospect Research Easy and Effective

Using the additional data and DonorPerfect’s features to build reports and apply enhanced filters, Ms. Grand and her team were able to identify House of Ruth’s top 100 prospects, 50 for each of the organization’s two major gifts officers. As Ms. Grand explains, “Now our major gift officers won’t have to waste any time or money. With wealth data accessible from directly within DonorPerfect, they can focus all of their time directly on those most likely to donate a major gift.” She also noted how the WealthConnect button has aided her team, “If the gift officers need new or more data, they use the WealthConnect button to link directly to FindWealth Online to gather more information on each donor or prospect.” The added information also helped the House of Ruth build their Legacy Circle, which is their planned gift program.

Creating an Action Plan for Fundraising Success

Armed with the data from WealthEngine to select their top donor prospects, Ms. Grand used the Moves Management module in DonorPerfect to design, schedule, and carry out a set of contact “moves” for this group of donors.

For example, the development team created a plan to solicit donations from their major donors, including calls, mailings, and since most donors are local, a planned tour/visit to their facilities. Each plan includes the specific set of actions (e.g., phone calls, emails, and meetings) to solicit the donors. As each action is completed and tracked, the assigned officer is prompted to schedule the next action in the plan. At anytime, they can see where they are in the process. Ms. Grand explained, “We use Moves Management for a lot of our donors simply as a guide to see what we should do next. It really helps take donors from one gift level to the next and it’s easy to use!”

A Sustainable Return on Investment

Ms. Grand acknowledges that WealthEngine has helped move House of Ruth along the right path, “We certainly believe that we have earned back our investment in prospect research in the first year, and have since gotten more data for our second year.”

Though still only in their second year of usage and primarily targeting donors for the planned giving program, Ms. Grand is confident things are moving in the right direction. “With the new information we have, such as age and income level, it’s been much easier to pick out likely donors for the Legacy Circle planned giving program. We’re confident about meeting our goals.”

For more information, please email marketing@wealthengine.com.

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