TL;DR:
- Giving history tells you the trend, not just the total. Check both before you set an ask.
- Wealth screening data expires. Anything older than six months needs a second look.
- The best opening line in a donor meeting is almost never about money.
- Stop assembling this by hand. Let the tools pull the data so you can spend your prep time reading it, not gathering it.
Fifteen years in advancement services taught me that most bad asks are not so much a relationship problem. But a bit more of a homework problem. Doing the research to know that Peggy loves mint chocolate chip ice cream and that David is the great grandson of the first University president (homework) made it easier for us to build deeper connections with donors faster (relationships).
The data in the CRM is the key to giving you access to the research you need to build those deep relationships.
But too often, that data is fragmented, hard to find, or time-consuming to obtain.
At Virtuous, we believe that good donor research shouldn’t eat the hours you need for the meeting itself. That’s the idea behind Virtuous Insights, our AI-powered prospect research tool: instead of digging through a wealth screening tool, the CRM, and a search tab separately, it pulls that context into one place so fundraisers can spend their time on relationships instead of data entry.
Here’s the checklist we used to give our Major Gift Officers before every major donor meeting, updated for what’s actually possible now with tools like Virtuous Insights.
7 Prospect Research Steps to Follow Before You Book the Meeting
I’ve divided these prospect research steps into 3 phases:
- Ahead of Time
- The Night Before
- In the Room
Give yourself a little runway, so nothing feels rushed once the meeting’s on the calendar
Ahead of Time
1. Pull the full giving history, not just the last gift.
One gift on its own doesn’t tell you much. Pull in the full context of their journey as a donor, and you’ll find there’s a story there.
Some questions to ask:
- Is giving increasing, flat, or slowing down?
- Did it spike around a specific campaign or event?
- Is there a gap year that lines up with something going on in their life?
Those patterns matter more than whatever number happens to sit at the top of the record.
2. Check when the wealth screening actually ran.
A screening from two campaign cycles ago tells you who this person used to be, not who they are now.
Confirm the data is current before you lock in an ask range, or run it again if you’re not sure.
Nobody enjoys re-running a screening by hand. So, this is the step that gets skipped most often. But it’s worth not skipping over.
3. Look for the connection before you look for the number.
Connection first. In a social setting, we almost always acknowledge common connections and relationships when meeting someone for the first time. The same concept applies to meeting a potential donor.
A shared board seat, a family foundation, a mutual donor who made the introduction: any of these is worth more at the start of a meeting than a capacity figure.
Look for them before you look at the number.
4. Check for anything that changed in the last 90 days.
Stay up to date on your knowledge. A stock sale, a new job, a retirement, a death in the family, a gift made to a peer organization.
Any one of these can change what the conversation should sound like, and they’re also the details that go out of date the fastest. If it’s been six months since your last check-in, assume something has shifted.
The Night Before
5. Write down what you don’t know.
The point here is the gaps, not what you already know. Meetings go sideways over missing information more often than bad information, usually because nobody flagged the gap ahead of time.
A short list of open questions keeps you from getting caught off guard…and doubles as something you can ask the donor directly.
6. Use technology to save time on the manual work.
Doing all of the steps above the old way means opening a wealth screening tool, digging through the CRM by hand, running a search, and checking a LinkedIn tab, then pulling it all into one place yourself.
It works…but it can cost hours you don’t have, and details slip through when you’re racing a deadline.
The AI Research Agent inside Virtuous Insights was built for exactly this problem.
It pulls everything sitting in the donor’s CRM record, not just the gifts, but how the relationship has actually been logged over time, along with wealth and capacity data and live web research, into one briefing with sources cited so you can trace where each detail came from.
You can then ask it follow-up questions directly, the way you’d ask a colleague who already did the digging, and download the full narrative before you walk in.
It steps you through each item on this checklist. Just in a fraction of the time.
I explain more about Insights AI Research Agent in the video below if you’re interested.
In the Room
7. Use the research. Then, put it away.
Everything above is prep. Once you’re actually in the meeting, the job is to listen.
The research just needs to be there if you need it, a detail in your back pocket rather than a script in your hand. The donor should feel like they’re talking to someone who’s paying attention to them, not being read a file about them.
The Checklist, Recapped
Ahead of Time
- Pull the full giving history
- Confirm the wealth screening is current
- Find the connection before the number
- Check for changes in the last 90 days
The Night Before
5. Write down what you don’t know
6. Let a tool assemble it instead of doing it by hand
In the Room
7. Use the research, then set it down
Run through this before your next major gift meeting and see what changes. From my experience, you’ll feel less scrambling beforehand and have a better conversation once you’re actually in the room.
You Deserve Tech That Works For You
Many of the prospect research steps above haven’t changed. What has changed is how much of the pulling and stitching you have to do yourself.
Learn more about how the Insights AI Research Agent works in the article below.
[Read the full breakdown here]
Or see the Research Agent in action when you book a Virtuous Insights demo.
Prospect Research Checklist FAQs
What should I check before a major donor meeting?
At minimum: giving history and trend, current wealth and capacity data, any personal or professional connections, and recent changes in the donor’s life or circumstances. Write down what’s still unknown so you can address it directly in the conversation.
How often should wealth screening data be refreshed?
As often as you can manage, and always before a high-stakes ask. Data older than six months should be treated as a starting point, not a fact. Life changes like a stock sale, new job, or inheritance can shift capacity quickly, and screening data doesn’t update itself.
What is the Virtuous Insights AI Research Agent?
It’s a feature inside Virtuous Insights that compiles a donor’s full CRM relationship record, wealth and capacity data, and live web research into a single cited briefing. You can ask it follow-up questions through AI chat and download the full narrative ahead of a meeting.
Does using an AI research tool replace doing my own prospect research?
It replaces the manual work of pulling data from multiple tools and stitching it into a profile yourself. It doesn’t replace your judgment about the relationship, or your read of the person in the room. Those still come from you.
How much time can better prep actually save?
It depends on the prospect and how much data exists, but most of the time savings comes from not having to open four or five separate tools to build one picture. The bigger win isn’t the minutes saved so much as walking in knowing you didn’t miss something obvious.
