Actionable Results From Screening and Segmentation—NC State University Case Study

Client: NC State University

Industry: Higher Education

“You can’t beat the screening results.”

At a Glance

Challenges

• High volume of donor and prospect records in an unorganized database
• Wide range of fundraising needs
• Limited access to third-party data sources

Results

• $1 million giving increase from parents of alumni and doubled current parent giving in 18 months
• Custom database segmentation system developed in collaboration with client support
• Access to actionable, accurate data from a variety of sources

Client Overview

Founded in 1887, North Carolina State University is a public research university based in Raleigh, NC. It’s the largest university in the state of North Carolina, enrolling more than 38,000 undergraduate and graduate students (as of fall 2023) across 12 colleges. A leader in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), NC State has become a fixture of North Carolina’s growing Research Triangle region while providing world-class education to its student body.

NC State began working with DonorSearch in 2015 and has since succeeded in identifying and engaging donors to support many of the university’s key initiatives, from capital projects to scholarship funds.

Background

Because NC State is a land-grant institution, they “have a duty to open the doors of education for everyone,” as their website states. To accomplish this purpose, the Prospect Development team has to find and cultivate many donors at various levels for a wide range of initiatives. 

Due to the breadth of NC State’s fundraising initiatives and the institution’s size, they also have hundreds of thousands of records stored in their database—including alumni, parents, and friends of the university—which proved challenging to sift through to identify the best prospects.

Strategy

Sharon Paulson, NC State’s Director of Prospect Development, decided to turn to a trusted tool to assist in sorting the university’s high volume of records.

“I’ve been using DonorSearch at several different institutions—all the way from higher ed to healthcare institutions—and I’ve really had the pleasure of seeing the platform expand and grow over the course of the time that I’ve been working with it,” she said.

Once they had established their goal of identifying both lapsed and brand-new potential donors in their database, Paulson and her team collaborated with DonorSearch to create a custom screening template to assist in donor segmentation. She explained that “that’s been such a breakthrough…it’s really been so great to free up my team’s time for the other important work that we do.”

DonorSearch’s screening results also helped the team at NC State think more holistically about prospects’ giving potential—not just whether they have the capacity to make a large donation, but also if they’re philanthropically inclined. This comprehensive approach to screening allowed them to increase their donation revenue from parents of alumni by $1 million and double the amount of funds raised from parents of current students in just 18 months!

As Paulson put it: “Who’s not for getting more money with less work?”

Benefits

• Actionable screening information. Paulson and her team have been able to leverage DonorSearch data in qualifying and reaching out to donors for various initiatives, from major gift solicitation to annual fund contributions. She explained that “as far as the results with the screening tool [go], you really are going to get so much actionable information…you can’t beat the screening results.”
• Concrete guidance through prospect ratings. Since DonorSearch rates each prospect’s giving capacity and philanthropic potential, the team at NC State took these scores and dove deep into their meanings to move prospects into the correct cultivation pipelines. “DonorSearch has allowed us to really move into the lapsed and the non–giving area of our database, particularly for parents, to try to build portfolios so that we can really make the best use of whoever we have in our database,” Paulson said.
• Access to new data sources. Not only did DonorSearch show NC State which prospective donors were philanthropically inclined, but it revealed for the first time exactly how much each prospect had given to higher education institutions and nonprofits in other verticals. Paulson was particularly impressed with the access she received to political giving data.
• Dedicated customer support. In addition to mentioning their collaborative screening template creation effort, Paulson praised the DonorSearch client support team’s prompt and tailored attention to her team’s unique needs. “Of all of the tools that we use, [DonorSearch client support is] probably my favorite and most responsive client services team.”

Identify more high-impact donors for your organization with accurate prospect research data and time-saving tools. Demo DonorSearch today!