A MIDWESTERN UNIVERSITY
222 Major Gift Prospects with $100k+ Capacity Quickly Identified
A Midwestern university with a $1.9B endowment was looking for the best way to target wealthy prospects. They wanted to assess which of their prospective donors had the highest propensity and capacity to give. With WealthEngine’s vast data and screening capabilities, they were able to narrow down their search and engage with the right people, leading to serious discussions about gift-giving.
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The Goal
The Midwestern university’s major gifts department needed detailed prospect development and expansion in order to target the right prospects needed for nurturing. Although fundraising was planned across all advancement departments, major gifts was lagging behind, and their pipeline of prospects was thin.
WealthEngine's Solution
By using a custom model based on information from the university’s donor database, WealthEngine was able to identify 222 prospects with gift capacities in the $100,000+ range. Out of the 222 prospects, Gift Officers called 10 members at random who had never donated to the university. Not only did all 10 accepted the call, and 3 members took a meeting, resulting in a 30% engagement rate. Two of these meetings led to serious discussions for $100k+ gifts, a 20% conversion rate.
Their Result
By using WealthEngine’s custom model, the university was able to find high potential donors that had been flying under the radar. Converting only 10% of the 222 members identified originally, averages to $2.2M in potential gift-giving that was not previously accounted for. The university’s normal time to get this far with major gift donors was 18 months, which was reduced to 2 months with the custom model. They are now actively reaching out to all the others on the list, which, based on initial close rates, suggest they have at least $4 million in potential gifts on the horizon.