From the Nominator

This project, requested by the new Vice President of University Advancement, was designed to provide a clear picture of our prospect pool and to identify program opportunity gaps in our fundraising. The end goal was to determine if our constituent population warranted hiring additional major-gift officers. To achieve this, a multi-pronged approach began in late spring of 2023. The first step was to complete an updated CRM (customer relationship management) wealth screening for all constituents. Each constituent segment was carefully reviewed prior to CRM import. The next phase was building out RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) Scoring on all constituents and reviewing Bentley University's existing engagement scores. Once that was done, constituents were grouped into engagement tiers (called connection labels) based on their new engagement scores (a combination of RFM and engagement scores). Finally, high and low yields were established based on the updated wealth ratings for all constituents. The connection labels were then intersected with yields, and those in the top two engagement tiers were assumed at the higher yield and those with lower engagement at the lower yield. With this complete, we explored different constituent populations and identified three major areas that could use more resources and/or staffing. To predict potential program success and growth for these areas, return-on-investment projections were also developed in an Excel table. The end result was the hiring of two major-gift officer positions, one of those overseeing a new parents program.

From the Judges

This entry provided an accessible method of combining scores to analyze and segment the prospect pool and improved the team’s ability to leverage engagement information. The project had actionable results, with the data ultimately influencing hiring decisions and fundraising focus areas, while also providing yield estimates.