Does anyone have any suggestions for identifying prospects in our database? I'm specifically looking for ideas of queries that I could create and run periodically. For example, I've created a query that looks at someone who has made a gift every month this year. I would also like to create a query that lets me know when someone makes a sizeable increase from his/her usual gift. Any ideas on how to do this? Currently, we count on our data entry person to let us know when this happens, but we process 1000 gifts a month and rely on volunteers, so I'd like to make the identification more systematic. Thank you, Carrie L. Sorensen Manager of Donor Records, Prospect Research, and Grants Humane Society of Indianapolis

In my experience you are going about this backwards. You should be working with your director to identify qualities of a good prospect, then develop your queries from the outcome of those discussions. Creating the query is details - you have to know WHAT you want to query to be successful. So, the bigger question is "What makes a good prospect?" Well, that depends? Is it for a phone-a-thon? Direct-mail? Major Gift? Planned Gift? Gift-in-kind? Are you looking for gifts of $100 or $10,000? You may want to have a look at BB's Analystics services (Wealthpoint/Prospectpoint) if only to see some of the techiniques they use to identify prospects. Peter Gulka Database Administrator NAIT Development Office Edmonton AB Canada email: [Email Removed] www.nait.ca/buildingondemand  Check out the "other" forum! http://reusers.server-planet.com

We recently started identifying prospects in our database. I used current Major Donors to find out what traits they had in common, donation history, membership history, etc. I exported a lot of information and looked for patterns like most major donors had made 5 gifts or given over $500 before their first major gift, etc. I then applied the criteria to constituents in the database who have not given a major gift and those are our prospects. I have done this internal evaluation and application of criteria with several appeals as well and it appears to work well. We then are able to target a section of the database instead of just blindly sending it to everyone. Our postal costs went down and revenue went up. If you have any questions, let me know. Elisabeth McMillon Database Administrator The Oregon Zoo Foundation [Email Removed]