TLDR
Prospect research is the process of identifying and gathering information about potential major gift donors — their capacity to give, their philanthropic interests, and their relationship to the organization — to prioritize cultivation and solicitation strategies.
Prospect research is how development teams decide where to invest their time. A major gift officer cannot cultivate every donor in a database. Prospect research provides the framework for identifying which relationships have the capacity and inclination for transformational gifts — and where to start those conversations.
The three dimensions of prospect qualification
Every prospect research assessment evaluates three things:
Capacity is a person’s financial ability to make a gift at the level being considered. Capacity is estimated from wealth indicators: real estate holdings (publicly recorded), stock ownership and insider filings (SEC public records for executives at public companies), business ownership and business valuations, compensation estimates for executives at public companies, and previous charitable gifts as evidence of disposable income directed toward philanthropy. Capacity is an estimate, not a certainty — two people with the same observable wealth may have very different levels of liquidity, debt, and competing financial obligations.
Affinity is a person’s genuine connection to the organization’s mission. High capacity with no affinity produces a prospect who may write a check once but will not become a long-term major donor. Affinity indicators include prior giving history to the organization, volunteer involvement, attendance at events, board or committee membership, professional work aligned with the mission, and personal experiences connected to the cause. Affinity is usually the more important dimension for long-term relationship development.
Propensity is a person’s demonstrated history of making charitable gifts — particularly at major gift levels. Someone who has made large gifts to similar organizations has demonstrated both the financial capacity and the charitable inclination. Propensity data comes from foundation grants databases (foundations are required to report grants publicly), publicly available donor lists in annual reports, and the organization’s own giving history.
Reactive vs. proactive research
Prospect research operates in two modes.
Reactive research (also called wealth screening) involves running a known list of contacts through a screening service or database to identify who among your existing relationships has major gift capacity that development staff may not have identified. A mid-sized nonprofit might screen its entire donor database every two years to surface dormant major gift prospects — people who have given at the $500 or $1,000 level but have the capacity for $25,000+ gifts.
Proactive research involves identifying people who are not yet in the database but might be prospects — finding the major gift relationships before they are donors. This might mean researching the board members of peer organizations, analyzing donor lists from events in the community, reviewing local business news, or analyzing who has made public charitable gifts to similar causes.
Common data sources
Several categories of public information are relevant to prospect research:
- Real estate records — publicly recorded in most jurisdictions; provide a direct indicator of real property wealth
- SEC filings — Form 4 (insider trading disclosures) and proxy statements reveal the compensation and stock holdings of executives and directors at publicly traded companies
- Foundation giving records — Form 990s filed by private foundations are public and searchable; they show which individuals control foundation assets and what causes they fund
- Court records — divorce proceedings and business litigation sometimes reveal financial information not available elsewhere
- Business ownership — state incorporation records identify business owners; revenue estimates for private businesses are available from commercial data providers
- Previous charitable gifts — organization-published honor rolls, event sponsors, building naming gifts, and foundation grants databases (Candid/Foundation Directory) reveal a prospect’s charitable giving history
Tools and platforms
Several commercial platforms aggregate and organize this research. iWave, DonorSearch, and WealthEngine are among the services commonly used by mid-to-large nonprofits. These platforms combine multiple public data sources, run screening against uploaded donor lists, and provide estimated capacity ratings and gift range suggestions. They are research tools, not definitive assessments — the ratings they produce are starting points for a researcher’s judgment, not substitutes for it.
Smaller organizations often conduct prospect research manually using free public records: Candid’s Foundation Directory for foundation grants, local property databases for real estate, SEC EDGAR for public company insider disclosures.
Privacy and ethical considerations
Prospect research uses only publicly available information. It does not involve accessing private financial records, medical information, or any data obtained outside of lawful public sources. The Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA) publishes ethical guidelines that govern how prospect research is conducted and how information is stored and shared within organizations.
One practical implication: the research findings should be held confidentially within the development office. A prospect’s estimated giving capacity is a working assessment, not a fact — and sharing it casually or using it insensitively in donor conversations can damage relationships.
Connection to moves management and CRM
Prospect research produces an assessment; moves management turns that assessment into a cultivation plan. Once research identifies that a prospect has capacity, affinity, and propensity, moves management tracks each step taken to deepen the relationship — assignments, contacts, actions — through the cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship stages.
In a CRM, prospect research findings typically live in the donor record as a capacity rating, gift range estimate, and research notes. Donor segmentation tools can then be used to filter the prospect pool by research-derived attributes — showing major gift officers a prioritized view of their portfolios.
For a practical framework for identifying and cultivating major donors, download the Major Donor Cultivation Playbook.
Free resource
Get the Nonprofit Grant Compliance Checklist
A practical checklist for post-award grant compliance: restricted funds, reporting cadence, audit prep, and common failure points. Delivered by email.