More than a Checkbook

Using Peer Screening to Inspire Supporters and Find New Donors

(In APRA-DC Chapter Newsletter, November 2014)

Peer screening is a traditional prospecting method for identifying new major gift prospects and potential high-level volunteers. Peer screening (or peer review) is a process of gathering information about prospects from a nonprofit’s key volunteers. Peer screeners review lists of people they might know and indicate whether those they know might have major gift capacity and interest in the nonprofit’s mission. Peer screeners can also be asked to help introduce those people to the organization. Peer screening can increase the pool of major gift prospects and at the same time engage current donors and volunteers more deeply in the work of the nonprofit.

Peer screening is used most often by nonprofits like universities, museums and health care organizations that have constituents who are also clients, many of whom may have substantial means. Nonprofits that provide a service directly to their potential supporters have robust databases with information about people who already know them and whose trust (one hopes) the organizations have already earned. These nonprofits with natural constituencies of means find most of their major donors in their databases.

Cause-related nonprofits, on the other hand, may not have natural constituents, or may have constituents without the means to become major donors, and so face a different kind of prospecting challenge.  Environmental organizations arguably serve everyone. Child welfare organizations serve children who often are in need of help precisely because they or their parents and communities do not have resources to make major donations. Social justice organizations serve people some may even consider undeserving of help. Because these cause-related nonprofits do not have natural constituencies of means, they have to look outside their databases for new prospects.

Asking major supporters and volunteers to recommend others to become involved with a nonprofit organization is a longstanding fundraising practice, and the process does not have to be formalized or systematic. Engaging supporters and volunteers in meaningful fundraising activities that make them feel valuable beyond their ability to write large checks is an important goal in itself, and can inspire higher levels of giving. That being said, precisely because of the greater need of cause-related organizations to look outside of their databases for major gift supporters, a peer screening process that systematically leverages supporters’ relationships to their peers—friends, colleagues, neighbors, business associates—can be an effective and efficient way to find new donors.

To accomplish both goals—enfranchising and inspiring current supporters and finding new donors—there are three essential steps: choosing the peer reviewer, building customized lists for review, and following up effectively.

Choosing the Peer Reviewer

Peer screening is a real opportunity for nonprofit major donors and other volunteers to leverage their personal resources and to contribute their time and effort, not just money, in order to see their values put into action in the world.

A peer screener should be someone who is highly connected through his or her professional or civic work, and who is willing to help. Most major donors understand fundraising and the value of providing resources to an organization whose mission they believe in, but they still may be uncomfortable with the process of disclosing financial or other information about people they know. It is important to assure volunteers that they will not be asked to reveal or to do anything they feel uncomfortable about, and that the purpose of the peer screening is to connect people they know with an organization whose mission they believe in. It is important to determine a peer screener’s willingness to participate in one or more of a range of activities, from simple identification, to hosting a group event, accompanying the staff person to a meeting, or even asking for a donation.

Building Customized Lists

Building the list for a peer screening session can be time consuming. The list can include full name, job title and employer, city and state, internal donation information and the name of the organization (for example, professional or nonprofit board) through which the volunteer reviewer might know the prospect. As mentioned, a university can pull lists efficiently from an internal database when the goal is to identify alumni who might become major gift prospects. Cause-related organizations, on the other hand, may need to find major gift prospects both from their pool of current donors and also from those who have not yet donated and do not have a previous connection to the organization. This makes the list building process more complicated.

Typically, universities conduct peer screening sessions where a group of peer screeners are each presented with a list of up to 400 names of alumni who attended at the same time, and who belonged to the same college organizations or played on the same sports teams. Volunteer peer screeners are asked to quickly scan the lists for people they know who might be able to make large donations, a process that can take about one hour. Peer screeners indicate a giving capacity range for people they know, note any other relevant information about the people in a notes section, and indicate whether they would be willing to facilitate a meeting, host an event, or participate in a gift solicitation. Results are then coded into the database to produce data points for prioritizing lists for qualification. These codes are combined with other kinds of data points (wealth screening scores purchased from outside vendors, giving likelihood scores derived from internal giving data, etc.) to create scores used to prioritize lists of the most likely major gift prospects. Often the process is treated as a numbers game, where the goal is to find as many highly rated prospects as possible.

Cause-related organizations have the opportunity to use peer screening a little differently. There can be less emphasis on producing codes to upload into the database, and more emphasis on engaging the peer screener in meaningful fundraising activities. A Development Officer might conduct a session one-on-one with a single peer screener, with a couple, or with close business partners, using a shorter customized list (perhaps 150 to 250 names). This session may then become a higher-value cultivation move in itself, and can produce more than just more codes to upload into the database—in fact, such coding may not even be necessary. The trade off to screening fewer names and getting fewer results or “hits,” is that the activity may result in a bigger cultivation impact for the volunteer peer screeners. As with other kinds of wealth screenings, a few quality “hits” can make the process worthwhile.

Because cause-related organizations do not have databases filled with natural constituents who have the capacity to make major gifts, they need to be creative in building lists of potential supporters for their volunteers to screen. Cause-related organizations will need to produce two kinds of lists, one from information contained in an internal donor database, which can be organized by location (within 25 miles of a peer screener’s home, for example) and include donation information, and a second from information gathered from external data sources. External sources will of course not include internal donor information. Several tools exist to make external list building easier. An initial list can be produced using a relationship mapping product like Relationship Science, BoardEx or Prospect Visual, which can then be filled in with information from company and organization websites that list current board members and employees. Explore the universe of possible connections to the volunteer peer screener to produce a solid list of possible connections.

A key is not to try to produce perfect information, but to keep it simple. If you get to the point where you are looking up information on people one-by-one (looking up people from outside board lists to see if any of them are donors to your organization, or researching donors from your internal database to find out where they work, if you don’t already have that information), you may want to stop, and consider whether this time-consuming research is worth the time. The volunteer peer screener will likely know only a handful of people on their list, so taking the time to make the list perfect will be wasted on the people the volunteer does not know.

Finally, having a professional looking list is as important as having correct information for the peer screener to review. Whether the peer screener follows the instructions exactly during the peer screening session (writing notes in the note section or consistently marking columns as to their “willingness to contact” or the strength of their relationship) is not as important as helping the volunteer to help you, and enhancing the volunteer’s trust in the organization. A well-organized list will make a good impression, but be prepared to go with the flow.

Following Up Effectively

Building trust and avoiding the loss of credibility are two sides of the same coin. After a staff member engages a volunteer—perhaps a board member—in the work of peer screening, where they might even have volunteered to reach out, someone from the organization should follow up productively. The last thing you want to do is persuade an important supporter to spend time and energy reviewing lists of prominent people they might know and be willing to engage, only to leave him or her wondering whether anything came of that effort. You don’t want to leave your board members and major supporters feeling ineffectual. A staff member may need to follow-up with the peer screener several times to verify information and to get to the next steps of qualifying and cultivating new prospects. Use the nonprofit’s existing well-functioning prospect management system to schedule appropriate follow-up.

Helping volunteers to help you by bringing others on board through peer screening not only increases the donor pool, but can be a gift to current supporters. Volunteering is a more personal way to contribute to a cause than writing a check, and by participating in peer screening, supporters can feel they had a hand in increasing the organization's capacity, and in helping their friends and colleagues to further their own values in the world.