WHAT YOU CAN FIND
When trying to build a prospect base, whether to locate new prospects or learn more about current donors, it's important to review the resources you have on-hand including central files, institutional knowledge, and your existing constituents. Within these sources, there is a wealth of data that is often underutilized. This data can be brought to the forefront using an enhancing product, such as a database overlay or wealth screening, and allows you to increase your knowledge of your current constituents as well as discover new potential prospects.

Many nonprofit organizations recognize the benefits of regular wealth screening. For example, if you are a health care organization, what if you could find out information about an individual's interests, relationships, and wealth indicators at the time of their service? For hospitals, new prospects are entering the doors of their facility on a daily basis; yet, it is estimated that only a third of hospitals are wealth screening them to identify new potential grateful patients and donors. The next generation of prospect research provides routine screenings that create faster prospect identification and qualification.

"Routine wealth screenings, like WealthEngine's WebExpress product, expands the capability of our staff," says K. Murray Fournie, Director of Major Gifts and Planned Giving at the Indian River Medical Center Foundation. "At a hospital, your best opportunity to build a relationship with a prospective donor is when your services are being used or have just been used. We are using WealthEngine to help us not to miss these moments of opportunity."

With educational institutions, new students enter the school each year and alumni are obtaining the assets necessary to make gifts. This provides a unique opportunity to learn more about their parents or maturing alumni through wealth screening. Membership and event driven organizations can also benefit by routinely reviewing those new to the organization. We are often times overwhelmed into inaction by the amount of information that we come across during the course of our regular work efforts. Smaller, more frequent wealth reviews provide the opportunity to implement a more focused, user-friendly, and affordable effort than your larger wealth reviews.

WHAT YOU CAN TRACK
Wealth screening of individuals on a routine basis can significantly benefit an organization. The process of wealth screening allows an organization to survey, segment and prioritize current and potential prospects. This helps by streamlining fundraising efforts through developing a pipeline of potential contributors. Routine wealth screenings allow an organization to regularly identify their top prospects and quickly execute development plans accordingly. This research can provide timely information to enable action rather than reaction.

"It's been smart business from my standpoint. Dozens of patients are admitted or treated each day, but there are three or four who might make a difference in the future of the Medical Center," Fournie explains. "If I know which patients have the ability, I know with whom to work on building a relationship. Routine screenings identify my greatest opportunities for major gifts."

WHAT YOU CAN OFFER
Fournie also finds that hospitals have a limited amount of time with patients to recreate themselves-either in a good or bad way. Fournie explains, "Care is, and should be, the same. Customer service is where we can make the difference. WealthEngine screenings make sure that we don't miss opportunities with key prospects." By identifying key prospects in a timely manner Fournie can arrange for a volunteer to visit these patients during their hospital stays. "The bottom line is that our daily wealth review schedule expands the capabilities of our staff," continues Fournie. "Then, because of the better philanthropic return on our time, the increased contributions allow our hospital to continue to improve patient care."

The dollars and "sense" of a wealth screening do add up. For hospitals, education organizations, large nonprofits, membership-oriented groups and those with increasing numbers of online donors, routine wealth screening is a great way to act rather than react to an opportunity. No longer do you have to search for that needle in a haystack, chances are your next big donor is quietly waiting in a database already in your computer or coming through your organization's front doors in the next 24 hours. Use a routine wealth review product like WealthEngine's WebExpress to act more quickly on prospects and determine more accurate ask amounts-not only is it smart development but it works.