A

AFP: Association of Fundraising Professionals at www.afpnet.org

Affinity is how close (or distant) a prospect is to an organization and may be expressed as an affinity rating. For example, a prospect who has a high affinity to an organization might be one who regularly attends events, makes gifts and volunteers.

AIIP: Association of Independent Information Professionals at www.aiip.org

APRA: Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement at www.aprahome.org

C

Capacity is a prospect's ability to do something; most often it refers to a prospect's ability to make a gift within a giving range and may be expressed as a capacity rating.

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D

Data Mining analyzes the information contained in your database and finds statistical patterns that suggest or predict which types of people are more likely to give at various levels. It is a tool used to identify one or more subsets from a large set of records - just like sifting for gold!

Donor Acquisition happens as a result of an organization's activities such as special events, buying lists for annual appeal mailings, volunteer programs and other community activities where people identify an interest in your organization. Ideally, these friends and donors are housed in your database. After accumulating donors through these means, you are getting ready for data mining!

I

Inclination is a prospect's likelihood to make philanthropic gifts or demonstration of past giving and may be expressed as an inclination rating.

M

Moves Management is the system or process in the development office that ensures a prospect is moved from identification all the way through cultivation to solicitation and stewardship. It is often used interchangably with prospect management.

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P

Prospect Ratings are used to categorize and filter prospects to help development staff make decisions on where to focus their cultivation efforts. Ratings might include capacity, affinity and inclination.

Prospect Management is the system or process in the development office that ensures that prospects are identified and moved from identification all the way through cultivation to solicitation and stewardship. It is often used interchangably with moves management but is usually more broad, encompassing the management and reporting of information relating to identification of prospects and the various and often overlapping gifts expected from them.

S

Screening an entire database or a portion of it is a broad term used to describe the process of narrowing a large list of donors and prospects down to a manageable list of prospects for cultivation and solicitation. It is often used to describe the process of data mining and wealth screening.

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W

Wealth Screenings are used to identify which people in a set of records have wealth. Each person in a group of records, whether your entire database or a subset, is checked against public sources of information that suggest wealth, such as real estate and stock holdings. Matches are made on varying criteria. Very good matches might be made on exact name, home address or date of birth. Some commercial vendors also use demographic or other non-specific data to help determine wealth capacity. A wealth screening can be done using a commercial vendor or by an individual researcher. Wealth screenings that use only mathematical methods need to be confirmed by a person.

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