Ops Insights #038 Prospect Strategy vs. Portfolio Review Sessions
March 8, 2024 | Read Time: 3 minutes | Written by Jenny Kleintop
If you can grow and solidify your prospecting efforts and nurture a proactive and collaborative working relationship between frontline and data/ops team members, you will excel in your fundraising efforts.
One way to boost these efforts is learning to run effective prospect strategy sessions and portfolio reviews.
Would you like to watch a video on this? Go to Cup of Joe where Doug (my husband) and I discuss this with Joe Tumolo.
Prospect Strategy Sessions:
Led by leadership.
Talking about your proposals/opportunities in the pipeline.
Seeing who you need at that table to make the ask.
Prospect management or Ops is at the table to help support the conversations, but its leadership helps drive the conversations.
Portfolio Review Sessions
Led by prospect management or Ops.
It’s usually 1:1.
It’s usually diving into your portfolio and seeing how many prospects you have at each stage of the moves cycle.
It’s talking about if you have your activity in the CRM.
Portfolio review sessions are more focused on individual portfolios, whereas prospect strategy sessions are more team-oriented.
As you have these meetings, you want to ensure all the right people are at the table.
Prospect Strategy Sample Session - Sample Agenda
Purpose: Focus on talking through strategies that will move prospects to gift closure.
Prospects criteria:
Prospect that has an opportunity in the CRM with a target date of this FY.
Prospect that has an ask/solicitation either planned or the solicitation has occurred without a commitment from the donor.
Discussing additional strategies for the prospect would help secure the gift.
Sample questions for discussion during the strategy session
What needs to happen to make the ask?
Do you know what priority they want to support?
Do you know what impact they want to have through their philanthropy?
Who needs part of the solicitation process?
What is the timeline of the ask?
How much will you ask? Do we have prospect research to see if our ask is on target?
What obstacles or challenges may exist in closing the gift?
What are the next steps?
Portfolio Review Sample Session - Sample Agenda
Purpose: Review the portfolio to determine whether moves with prospects are in the CRM and whether it is balanced.
Discuss moves, last and next step, for each prospect and ensure they are recorded in CRM.
Discuss portfolio balance and see if more prospects are needed at various stages or if any prospects need to be unassigned.
Review reports to check activity and see what data updates are needed in the CRM.
Sample questions for discussion during the portfolio review session
What has happened recently with your prospects? Is that recorded in the CRM?
What prospects will you be reaching out to over the next 30 days? Are those steps documented in the CRM?
The prospects on this list do not appear to have had a touch in over a year… should they be unassigned?
What would help move these prospects to the next stage?
What does the overall makeup of your portfolio look like? Is it balanced?
Take Action
Now, it’s your turn to take action.
Here are 6 steps to start:
Use this newsletter as a starting point to define the difference between the two and adjust it to determine how it will work best for your nonprofit.
Watch Cup of Joe, where we discuss portfolio review vs. prospect strategy sessions. Cup of Joe
Share with your team, both frontline and data/ops.
Bring both sides to the table and talk through the differences and come up with a plan on how you will run them at your organization.
Implement and start running these sessions.
Then, in 3-4 months, assess and evaluate how it’s working. Don’t be afraid to fine-tune or adjust as you go. That’s all a normal part of the process as you and your efforts grow and evolve.
You’ve got this and I’ve got you!
👋 See you next time.
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