How are you currently using the prospect status field?

Dan Kirk

We are having internal discussion about the best use of the prospect status field under the prospect tab. Some feel that its best use is for tracking the current stage of the major giving prospect, like cultivation, solicitation, stewardship, etc. Some feel that the current prospect's stage should solely be tracked using actions, rendering this field unnecessary.


So, how do you current use this field at your organization?


Thanks,

Dan

Deborah Drucker 2

We use the Prospect Status field for relationship management stages (cultivation, solicitation, etc.)  The big drawback to doing this if you are not using RE NXT is that there are no dates attached to changes in the Prospect Status, so you cannot produce a stage-aging report (i.e., how long constituents have been in a particular stage). My understanding is that in NXT there are dates attached to the Prospect Status field (if I'm wrong on this, someone please correct me.) So if you want to know how long a prospect has been in a particular stage, I'd record this information elsewhere. If it doesn't matter and you won't be pulling this type of report, then Prospect Status works fine.


 

Dan Kirk

Deborah, it bewilders me that NXT allows historic tracking using this field, but the same exact field in RE does not. We would like to get our 'ducks in a row' in RE before introducing users to NXT, but this one issue makes that process more difficult then it should be. Borderline maddening. 

Christine Adams

Also, when building a list it will only list the prospect status - not the date. You cannot change/add these globally to records. It's worthless until they add the date as a filter and include as a column. Very frustrating!!


There are a number of ideas to vote for if you search for prospect status

Graham Getty

For what it's worth, we long ago decided that Proposals/Opportunities go through stages (Qualify, Cultivate, Ask, Follow-Up, Steward, Declined) but not Prospects. Prospects are people. So we use Prospect Status and Classification fields as a way to provide a final, internal rating for each of our Prospects. Our values for Prospect Status are (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) where each number correlates to a giving amount. For us, 1 = $5M+, 2 = $2.5M to $4.9M, etc. [you can decide on the levels appropriate for your organization]. We use Classification values of A, B, or C where A = Very Likely to Give, B = Somewhat likely to give, C = Needs cultivation. These are all set to expire/be reviewed/overdue after 365 days. So each Prospect Manager can re-evaulate. This is helpful for us as we can see our entire Prospect Pool at a glance - how many 1A, 2A, 3B, 5C rated prospects are there? If you're a front-line fundraiser and expected to raise $2M / year but your entire portfolio is made up entirely of folks rated 7C, that's a hard row. This lets us ensure that top prospects are evenly distributed and if donors ever see a 1A or 7B next to their name, it's a very subtle internal rating that is known only to staff. We keep Proposals/Opportunities in moves management stages and People/Prospects in separate status and classification. If you use Prospect Status for moves management and the Prospect is being asked for one than one gift by more than one person - which stage does it refer to - etc., etc.

shani traum

We use it to note the status of the Constituent as it related to majoring giving prospect status/PM assignment:


Unassigned - no Prospect Manager by design - Not a major gift prospect at this time, but may review this down the road

Assigned - PM assigned

Disqualified - not a major prospect and will never be a major gift prospect (no assets, doesn't like us, etc)

Disqualified - planned Giving - no longer a major prospect (made PG as final gift)

To be assigned - in need of a PM




 

Dan Kirk

Thanks for the replies everyone. It sounds like there is no consensus, which is ok as many fields in RE are what we make of them.


For those who use Prospect Status to track the relationship management stage, where do you then track the internal ratings?


For those who use Prospect Status to track internal ratings, where do you then track the prospect's stage (Graham, thanks for your explanation on how you do this).


Dan

Karine Ramirez

We primarily use the Prospect Status field for Moves Management in order to track what stage the constituent is along the donor pipeline (Qualification, Cultivation, Solicitation, and Stewardship). But is also used as a placeholder for those who are not assigned (Referral/General Pool, To Be Assigned, and Disqualified).

The way we are tracking the length of time a constituent is in a particular stage is under the Actions tab with an Action Type of "PR - Stage Change" which we review with our Development Officers quarterly. Since we are not on NXT yet, this is the best way for us to record dates to determine a timeline.

All internal ratings are recorded under the Prospect - Ratings tab. We have also used the Prospect-Classification field to identify prospects based on internal scores, but did not find that to be as effective as the Target Analytics modeling scores.