Pipeline development must begin at the beginning: with a robust, active discovery operation. Yet the need for high prospect assignment rates and the tendency for MGOs to “claim” prospects mean that large groups of prospects sit in portfolios unattended.
To take advantage of their untapped potential, forward-thinking advancement leaders are focusing on the barriers preventing MGOs from doing discovery: MGOs’ distrust of newly assigned prospects’ potential, their discouragingly low outreach hit rate, and the distractions created by the “tyranny of the immediate.”
Deploy three strategies for supporting wider coverage of assigned prospects:
New lead generation practices such as student discovery callers and alumni relations prospect referrals turn gift officers onto “hot” leads and help them better allocate their scarce discovery time. Data analytics techniques such as discovery visit likelihood scoring and social media discovery targeting elevate hit rates on discovery outreach, improving efficiency—as well as trust in the worthwhileness of cold outreach. Digital pipeline nudges based in behavioral economics principles prevent the tyranny of short-term performance goals from crowding out pipeline development activities.At most institutions, development officers manage portfolios that are bursting at the seams. The over-assignment of prospects spreads MGOs thin and slows down cultivation cycles for all of their prospects. With so much on their plate, they get overwhelmed, and their portfolios become a log-jam of prospects moving imperceptibly—or not at all—toward a proposal.
To overcome portfolio inertia and increase major gift throughput, best practice institutions focus on speeding up the rate at which prospects enter—and leave—portfolios.
Reframe portfolio disqualifications as conducive…