Rethink prospect coding to optimize fundraising

• Traditional prospect coding limits fundraising insights by focusing only on the solicitation cycle, failing to capture the broader, evolving relationships donors have with institutions.
• Modern coding models classify prospects by relationship depth and activity history, enabling clearer visibility into portfolio balance, performance trends, and pipeline health.
• Smarter coding enhances forecasting, optimizes resource allocation, and strengthens strategic collaboration between development leaders and fundraisers.

Prospect development teams are essential to fundraising success. They evaluate the donor pipeline, segment portfolios, and surface critical insights that fuel strategy. But many organizations still use outdated coding systems that limit the accuracy and usefulness of these insights.

Most systems still rely on the classic solicitation cycle: identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. While useful, this framework often fails to reflect the full scope of a prospect’s relationship with your institution.

Some organizations wisely use the prospect status code to reflect a constituent’s overall philanthropic relationship with the organization, rather than the stage of a singular solicitation.  

By approaching prospect coding in a way that better reflects the nuances and depth of your constituent relationships, your team can create stronger, more balanced portfolios and improve the efficiency of your fundraising engine.  

Establishing a coding structure within your donor management system and defining the policies and procedures for tracking relationships with constituents play important roles in prospect development. Well-structured coding provides clear insights into:

• Portfolio strength and maturity
• Fundraiser performance
• Pipeline forecasting
• Constituent engagement

A coding structure embedded in a CRM system, supported by policies and procedures, is not there for structure’s sake. It allows advancement teams to gain real-time insights into the quality of portfolios and the depth of relationships with key supporters. These insights, in turn, can shape strategic hiring decisions, team structures, and even institutional budget projections.

Traditional status codes are usually designed to mirror the solicitation cycle. Most CRM systems include a field labeled “Prospect Status,” which assigns a prospect to a broad stage of the fundraising journey: identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, or stewardship.

However, this model has significant limitations:

• It overlaps with proposal tracking systems.
• It creates ambiguity when multiple proposals are active.
• It does not indicate portfolio maturity or prospect history.
• It burdens gift officers with additional manual data entry.

Worse yet, these codes are often inaccurate or outdated. Gift officers are focused on building relationships and closing gifts, not updating fields in a database. Inconsistent data undermines confidence in reports and limits your ability to forecast accurately.

Automation can help improve accuracy, but without thoughtful coding logic, even automated systems may reinforce outdated frameworks. The solution is to design a new way to interpret and assign status codes.

Forward-thinking teams are shifting toward coding that reflects the overall philanthropic relationship, not just a single solicitation.

One model uses proposal history to define prospect status:

• Established: Donors with a funded proposal in the last five years.
• Developing: Prospects with no funded proposals in the last five years, but an open or unfunded proposal was created in the previous three years .
• Discovery: Prospects with no funded proposal in the last five years and no unfunded proposal in the last three years.

 This coding structure allows prospect development teams to:

• Track relationship depth across time.
• Prioritize resource allocation based on prospect maturity.
• Identify which prospects are closest to a gift and which need additional cultivation.

Importantly, this system encourages strategic conversations between development leadership and gift officers. Instead of tracking who is “in stewardship” or “in cultivation,” the focus shifts to broader engagement and overall trajectory.

Prospect coding systems are more than mere categorization. They are tools for strategy. By tracking the number of prospects at each relationship stage, advancement leaders can:

• Assess portfolio balance.
• Determine which portfolios need new assignments.
• Set reasonable fundraising expectations by officer or unit.

For example, a mature portfolio may include 40–50% established prospects, while a new officer’s portfolio may be weighted more heavily toward discovery. Portfolio composition provides key context for evaluating officer performance and setting individual goals.

This data also helps in pipeline forecasting. Institutions can more accurately model future revenue when they understand how long it typically takes prospects to move from discovery to commitment, and how many qualified prospects are in each stage at any given time.

From governance to guidance: The evolving role of prospect development

Too often, prospect development is seen as a back-office function focused on rules enforcement. But modern teams serve as strategic partners, offering forward-looking insights that improve outcomes.

By applying relationship-based coding and using performance metrics, prospect development teams can:

• Highlight when portfolios are stagnant or over-weighted in early-stage prospects.
• Identify “ready” prospects who have lingered too long in discovery or cultivation.
• Provide fundraisers with timely prompts to move prospects forward.

Advanced reporting and dashboards can enhance this work. Rather than static spreadsheets, dynamic reports can show the distribution of prospects across portfolios and track changes over time.

Code for relationships, not just cycles

Fundraisers will always work the solicitation cycle, but coding systems should evolve to reflect the full journey of your institution’s supporters. Adopting a modern, story-driven approach to prospect categorization can unlock deeper insights, better performance, and a stronger donor pipeline.

Modern coding systems empower institutions to move beyond reactive management and toward proactive strategy. When implemented well, they become a source of institutional intelligence, supporting long-term planning, driving efficiency, and enhancing the donor experience.