Uncovering Valuable Database Insights – Wildlife Conservation Society Case Study

Client: Wildlife Conservation Society

Industry: Environmental

“DonorSearch provides really wonderful content and data to look at what you have…in your universe of prospects.”

At a Glance

Challenges

• Recent database migration of more than two million records
• Lapsed donors and former society members who had not been re-engaged
• Lack of a dedicated tool for growing the organization’s prospect pipeline

Results

• Added 800+ major donor prospects to the pipeline each year
• Deeper understanding of current and lapsed supporters for more effective cultivation
• Prompt customer service and a strong commitment to meeting fundraisers’ needs

Client Overview

Founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) operates on a global scale with the mission of “[saving] wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature.” In addition to running the four New York City zoos and the New York Aquarium, which attract more than four million combined visitors per year, WCS has established conservation programs in 70 countries around the world to protect biodiversity in the most vulnerable areas.

WCS began working with DonorSearch in 2019 with the goal of growing its prospect pipeline through more advanced data insights. Since then, WCS has discovered hundreds of qualified major donor prospects within its existing supporter base.

Background 

In 2019, the WCS team migrated all of its donor data to a new CRM, Salesforce. This process involved converting more than two million records, which led them to wonder if they could make the most of their data by screening for prospective major donors in their existing donor pool. Geoff Klein, the Assistant Director of Prospect Research at WCS, had used DonorSearch’s tools in a previous role and recommended them to the rest of the team.

Strategy

Once they decided to work with DonorSearch, WCS’s first task was to screen all two million records in their database. The screening results provided a wealth of information to guide their donor outreach and cultivation efforts.

“We have found a tremendous amount of value in what we already had in our database,” Klein explained. “DonorSearch provides really wonderful content and data to look at what you have…in your universe of prospects.”

Since their initial screening, the WCS team has consistently been able to achieve their annual prospect identification goals. Klein explained, “We have a goal of…[finding] 800 new prospects each year. And we have been on target with getting those numbers as we go forward with [our screening] results, so it’s been a tremendous help to our organization.”

Benefits

• Re-engaging lapsed donors. Among the two million records in WCS’s donor database migration were numerous lapsed donors and former society members. While the team had not previously identified these individuals as qualified prospects, their DonorSearch screening results made them reconsider and move several of them into their pipeline.

• Integrating DonorSearch with Salesforce. Klein praised DonorSearch’s user-friendliness, especially when it came to automatically transferring screening data to WCS’s CRM. “One of the great things is having Salesforce and DonorSearch… interactively ‘talk’ to each other, and we are able to get the results from the screening directly into Salesforce so the fundraisers are able to review what they are able to see as far as prospects and donors in our base,” he said.

• Prompt customer service. The WCS team was impressed with the speed at which DonorSearch returned the results of such a large database screening and the assistance the customer success team provided in setting up the Salesforce integration. Plus, whenever questions or needs have arisen, they’ve been able to contact their DonorSearch representative and quickly receive helpful answers.

• A commitment to meeting fundraisers’ needs. As Klein put it, “One of the strengths that I see in DonorSearch is that they come at [prospect research] from the approach of a fundraiser’s perspective. They really have a background in fundraising and know what the frontline fundraisers…need and want to help reach the goals of the organization.”

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