Gauging Donor Propensity to Give: From Inclination to Donation

Knowing why someone is inclined toward philanthropy may be more important than how much they can give, and whether that inclination aligns with your cause or mission. Moreover, fundraising isn’t just critical to your success and survival; it’s also the most staff-challenging and time-consuming part of your daily, monthly, and annual operations. And since a person may be just a person—not a donor—you can’t afford to waste any of your resources chasing down people who aren’t philanthropically motivated. 

Luckily, donor prospect research tools and techniques can help you refine your search and narrow the “person universe” to find individuals with the propensity to give—specifically to you.

Understanding propensity starts with donor prospect research

Finding donors with the propensity to give is like solving a nonprofit whodunit: ask questions, follow the clues, examine the evidence—maybe even bring in a sketch artist—and build a profile of possible suspects. 

Donor prospect research requires the same strategic approach to identifying individuals whose philanthropic behavior, personal interests, and values, professional affiliations, wealth indicators, etc., make them likely giving candidates.  

Study your existing data for “inclination indicators”

The best—and most convenient—starting point is already at your fingertips: your existing donor data. From there, you can analyze prospect profiles to develop a core set of inclination indicators and start your propensity prioritization with the most important indicator: past giving.

But that isn’t the only indicator. Others can include: 

• Donations to other organizations 
• Donation frequency and amount 
• Service to and participation in your and other organizations (volunteer, consultant, board member) 
• History of philanthropic event attendance 

Use technology to drive your donor research

Whether you’re working with existing data or surveying the prospective donor universe, donor research platforms that combine wealth intelligence, predictive analytics, and relationship mapping can help you find new opportunities. On top of that, they can also identify those you missed standing at your own front door.   

It’s not just prospective donors whose giving propensity you need to gauge. Fundraising professionals Valentina Guerrini, Altrata VP of Philanthropy, and Goran Radin, Impact Partners Philanthropy Expert, agree that up to 75% of new donations often come from existing donors. 

A nonprofit constituent relationship management system (CRM) lets you study your existing donors through the lens of giving indicators. Rather than trying to fundraise your entire database, you can instead focus on those who pass the propensity test. Your staff doesn’t just get a targeted internal list: they now have the time and resources to use your donor research tools to prospect the larger universe of potential givers.  

CRMs—the heart of propensity data

CRMs are more than data repositories. They help your team capture, organize, and analyze the full range of constituent interactions. As a result, you can uncover donor behaviors, patterns, and engagement history to pinpoint individuals with the strongest propensity to give and understand how to act on it.  

As the heart of your nonprofit’s donor research, a CRM can give you: 

Cleaner donor data

• You’ll reduce duplicates, data gaps, and inconsistent information. Standardized data entry practices ensure cleaner, more reliable, giving propensity.

Increased operational efficiency

• Real-time access to donor data improves collaboration across your teams as you work together to uncover and tap your giving-inclined donors and prospects. 

Improved strategic decision making

• Dashboards and analytics can help you find and track the critical propensity trends you can turn into actionable insights. 

The critical CRM features your nonprofit needs

When evaluating a fundraising CRM, nonprofits should prioritize capabilities that go beyond giving propensity and enhance donor intelligence, operational speed, and long-term stewardship.  

Centralized donor data management

A CRM should house a complete picture of every donor and prospect, including contact details, communication history, event attendance, volunteer engagement, gift history, pledges, and notes. This becomes your mineable giving propensity data to improve how you segment and target your fundraising.  

Wealth and philanthropic insights

By integrating external data sources like Altrata’s Matching API or Profile API, organizations can surface additional data to identify donor propensity, including wealth indicators, philanthropic affiliations, career milestones, and board connections.

Moves management workflows

Fundraisers need visibility into qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship stages, supported by customizable workflows and portfolio tracking tools. Learn more about data-driven moves management.

Email, marketing and communication tools

Marketing integrations or built-in email capabilities support targeted appeals, segmentation, and engagement tracking.

Reporting and analytics

CRMs should offer dashboards, goals tracking, campaign reporting, and data visualizations that guide strategic planning.

Integrations and open API capabilities

A modern CRM must easily connect to donor intelligence platforms, payment systems, event software, marketing automation tools, and visualization platforms, helping reduce manual data transfer.

Role-based permissions and security

Access controls are essential for safeguarding donor data; at the same time, they keep information accessible to the right teams.

Altrata Fundraising Academy helps you understand giving propensity—and more

The Altrata Fundraising Academy is a free learning program where nonprofit leaders, fundraisers, and prospect researchers tap into industry experts for hands-on training, cutting-edge intelligence, and operational best practices. You’ll expand your knowledge of prospect development, wealth screening, and major-gift giving strategies through live workshops, on-demand learning modules, curated educational resources, and guided instruction.  

When it comes to uncovering giving propensity, you’ll learn how to use inclination indicators to identify hidden prospects and make more informed fundraising decisions. Ultimately, these insights can help improve your teams’ efficiency—just like these organizations did. 

Turn giving propensity into fundraising opportunity

What’s the net-net for improving how you define and take advantage of giving propensity? In 2024, 81% of affluent households made charitable contributions. On average, these donors gave $33,219 each—more than ten times the giving level of the general population. 

The question is: which of these households is inclined to make an impactful donation to your nonprofit? The answer lies in advanced intelligence solutions. With the right intelligence, you can uncover, analyze, and apply meaningful inclination indicators in your existing data. Append existing donor profiles or tap into a donor database to access a world of new prospects to whom you can apply the same parameters.  

Altrata can help you with a fundraising intelligence platform built for relationship-first donor engagement. We empower nonprofit prospecting professionals with global HNW/UHNW data, board and executive mapping, and warm path insights. Together, these capabilities accelerate major gift strategies and maximize donor potential. 

Contact us today to learn how we can help you turn propensity into opportunity – and take your fundraising efforts to the next level.