Nonprofit Terms

An element of prospect research that nonprofits use to get a sense of prospects capacity. It looks at things like real estate ownership, business affiliations, and stock holdings in public companies to determine a potential donor’s wealth, and is mostly used to find major donor prospects.

A monthly donor increasing their monthly gift amount, or a one-time donor giving more the next year.

Also called a shared list, this is a list of names traded among peer organizations for donor acquisition.

A type of fundraising done over the phone. It’s used for conversion to monthly giving, encouraging upgrades of monthly gifts, acquisition and renewal, and reactivating lapsed donors.

Another word for a nonprofit organization.

Any person or group that has an interest in a particular nonprofit.

Also called a trade file, this is a list of names traded among peer organizations for donor acquisition.

The process of identifying groups of donors. This can be done either within a donor database or in the market at large. The reason you do this is so you can measure success across different segments, speak to different groups in ways that are best suited for them, and make decisions about strategic investment.

A pre-written dialog followed by a fundraiser (typically over the phone) to ensure a quality connection with the prospect.

A statistical method used to segment donors based on the Recency, Frequency, and Monetary value of their past gifts.