It’s important to know a donor’s interests–donors are much more likely to fund (hopefully, well) projects they’re interested in versus projects they’re not. Also, you don’t want to ask them for too much money and scare them off, but you don’t want to commit them to too little when they could have given a lot more. How can you get a range of their interests and giving capacity?
Check out nozasearch.com. At Noza, for free, you can search donations given to charitable foundations similar to your cause. You can also do people searches at Noza but to view the whole record (with the donation amount and recipient), you have to buy credits ($25 for 100) or a paid subscription to their service.
Fundrace.com lists people’s political donations and their address (which is handy). Do a search for your prospect by name or address and it will return how much they donated to what campaign. (You can also see how many people in their immediate area gave and in what amounts, which could be good for new prospects.).
Search through the websites of your competitors; do they have annual reports posted? Often, in annual reports, you can find a listing of their donors and at what level they donated. Is there anyone you’re interested in?
If you know what college your prospect graduated from, you can always check that website to see if they donated to their college and at what level.
Good old-fashioned Google searches work as well to get a general smattering of articles, blogs, organizations your prospect is linked with (but make sure it’s your person and not just someone with the same name!).
These are some ways to get enough information to start a relationship with a prospect; from here you can write a letter or make a phone call to get that prospect in the door or out to lunch. The best info always comes from face-to-face interviews.
