Data Analysis Guides Fundraisers Toward Smarter Strategies

Boston College is wielding a new weapon in the fight to hold onto the most talented fundraisers: data analysis.

Like a growing number of nonprofits, Boston College creates statistical portraits of its major donors and then combs through its database to find other supporters who fit the profile.

Such analysis allows the fundraising department to quickly put together a portfolio of strong prospects for new gift officers, with clear guidance on where they should focus their efforts, says Beth McDermott, associate vice president for development at the college.

“It accelerates their ability to be successful, which helps us retain them,” she says. “There is nothing worse for a fundraiser than to be feeling like they’re spinning their wheels.”

That’s a stark change from past practice, says Linda McIntosh, who heads up analytics and prospect research at Boston College.

New major-gift fundraisers used to receive a long list of prospective donors based on supporters’ wealth, location, and past giving to the college, she says. The list wasn’t prioritized, and it was up to the fundraiser to weed through the names to find the people most likely to make a large gift, says Ms. McIntosh. She says getting a handle on who the best prospects were could take several years, and by that time, frustrated fundraisers often were looking for new jobs.

Having a more detailed picture of the college’s supporters and their likelihood of giving big also helps Boston College reevaluate open fundraising positions and make smarter hiring decisions.

When a longtime gifts officer who worked with donors in the Boston area left in the spring of 2013, leaders of the fundraising department reviewed its roster of fundraisers and the donors they worked with and found a mismatch: an experienced fundraiser focused on donors in California, an area that didn’t have a lot of supporters who were ready to make significant gifts.

So the college reassigned that gift officer to the Boston portfolio to work with its more robust pool of prospective donors. He got off to a fast start, bringing in several seven-figure gifts in the past year.

The institution hired a more junior fundraiser to talk with supporters in California and assess where the college fits into their giving priorities.

Says Ms. McIntosh: “We weren’t doing that person any justice out in California because the prospects weren’t ready for him yet.”