As prospect researchers, we’re always tasked with finding creative ways to utilize data to identify new prospects. I’m a senior prospect research analyst at Trinity Health; a national healthcare system which includes 101 hospitals, 126 continuing care locations, the second largest PACE program in the country, 136 urgent care locations and many other health and well-being services. My role is to provide centralized prospect research and management support to all our ministries across the country — as a team of one.

Preparation

At the directive of senior leadership, members of an internal strategy team and I embarked on a quest to innovate our approach to donor identification through a data-driven lens, with the goal of crafting a finely tuned strategy for varying fundraising initiatives. Being a team of one presents its own set of challenges, and this project was a perfect opportunity to employ the skills and resources of another team within the system. While historically reliant on conventional prospecting methods involving vendor tools, such as wealth screenings and predictive modeling, we recognized the need to introduce a fresh perspective into our fundraising strategy. Our first meeting took place in February 2023, where we defined and outlined the needs and project objectives.

Getting Started

Collaboration was a key factor in completing this initiative, necessitating close coordination between our philanthropy, marketing, and strategy/outreach teams. Leveraging the existing hospital service areas and zip codes within each market, we strategically allocated responsibilities, thereby alleviating some of the burden on the philanthropy team. The hospital service areas had already been established by our marketing department, which gave us a good starting point.

The overall project required clear communication from the beginning. We started by defining the role of philanthropy advancement services, and walking through what types of data points we would have access to in comparison to what would show an ideal prospective donor. The strategy team’s data exists outside of our customer relationship management (CRM) system, and wealth screening indicators are not a part of the project. In meeting with the strategy department, we learned of different marketing and demographic insight tools that they had access to that philanthropy did not, nor did we have the budget to acquire these resources. Examples of marketing data vendors include Experian, Qualtrics and Ntara.

Extracting the Data

With our zip code roster established, we employed lookup formulas to extract pertinent demographic insights, encompassing metrics such as median household income, age distribution, employment status and homeownership. The strategy team would then compile the data from the various sources and the data points would be included in the final deliverable. In July 2023, we presented the data to the sites and held several office hours to meet with both the strategy and philanthropy teams to discuss the results and next steps in utilizing the data.

The data employed in our analysis was aggregated and anonymized by zip codes, ensuring ethical utilization of the information. It should be mentioned that adherence to Apra's extensive toolkits for data projects of this nature remained at the forefront throughout our work. Please see the toolkits located on Apra University for more information.

Outcomes and Possible Uses

Our fundraisers are able to use this data to segment for targeted mailings, especially around planned and annual giving. We also can compare this data against our known donor data to see how many of our major donors also reside in our service area. Other potential uses include evaluating which zip codes we have the most potential for donor engagement and participation based on their marketing demographic data, researching targeted areas for a feasibility study for campaign, and fundraising event planning. We are in the process of refreshing this project with updated datasets so we can monitor any major changes over time. It will be interesting to see if we are still targeting the same zip codes three, five, 10 years from now! Our fundraisers will be using this data in the coming fiscal year, which will allow us to do preliminary analysis on overall project ROI, targeted mailings and donor acquisition.

Jennifer Schlager
Senior Prospect Research Analyst, Trinity Health

Jennifer Schlager embarked on her philanthropy journey during her time as a student at the University of Michigan – Dearborn in 2010. With a comprehensive background spanning various roles, she has demonstrated expertise in volunteer coordination, event management, front-line fundraising and currently works as the senior prospect research analyst at Trinity Health. She finds great joy and fulfillment in her work within philanthropy.

Schlager served on the Apra Ethics and Compliance Committee from 2020-2023. Outside of her professional endeavors, she finds joy in quality time with her husband and son, while also passionately supporting the Detroit Lions.