Managing a high volume of requests while balancing long-term projects is a constant challenge in prospect development (PD). It requires not only strong organizational systems, but also clear communication, thoughtful prioritization and a willingness to adapt. Below, we dive deep into practical strategies for managing task flow, setting expectations with requestors, protecting time for proactive work and more.

Set up Your Request System To Work for You

No matter what tool you use — a formal ticketing system or simply an email inbox — making it work for you is key. A good system should help you track requests, communicate clearly and avoid duplicating work. Start by ensuring you can document deadlines, both hard deadlines (e.g. a profile is needed for an upcoming meeting) and internal ones (e.g. aiming to complete a certain type of request within a week).

Categorizing the type of request is also important. When you know whether it’s a profile, a list or something else entirely, it becomes easier to manage your workload and balance multiple priorities. Alongside that, tracking the scope of work and time spent on requests gives you helpful data for negotiating timelines and prioritizing effectively.

If you work with a team, assign each request clearly to avoid confusion or duplicated efforts. And don’t forget to note who the requestor is and keep a record of your communications. This is particularly helpful when questions arise after someone has gone on vacation — or moved on to another role entirely. Centralized communication, even if it’s just cc’ing a shared inbox, helps keep everyone in the loop.

Finally, make sure there’s a way to take notes or add project context. As a team leader, I often pass along tips or customer notes that are easiest to reference when they’re documented in the same place as the request. All of this adds up to a system that supports both your current workflow and your future self (who will be thanking current you).

Set up Standards and Guidelines

Having shared standards helps bring consistency and clarity to your work. You don’t need to go overboard with documentation, but some core templates and sample projects can go a long way. This should also include a style guide for common questions — like how to handle names and nicknames, formatting for degrees and job histories or what level of detail is appropriate depending on the type of project. Remember: not everyone needs everything every time.

Communicate openly with your requestors, too. If they specify a deadline, you can (and should!) ask why. Is it for an upcoming meeting, or is it just their preferred turnaround? Understanding what’s truly time-sensitive will help you prioritize better.

Training your requestors can also be a game-changer. For our team, becoming a part of new employee orientation and being able to establish what our team can help with and what we need from requestors to be good partners has been tremendously helpful for the team. Follow-up meetings after orientation can reinforce these concepts and provide an opportunity to get to know a requestor’s working style and evolving needs. Even a quick coffee or Zoom chat helps build mutual understanding and collaboration.

It’s also worth digging into what your requestors really mean when they say things like “full research.” Do they want a comprehensive report, or are they looking for a quick overview that feels robust? Maybe they say they want a 20-page profile, but they’d actually prefer a Word document you could mail-merge with bullet points downloaded from your database (to save you time and get them what they need). The more you learn about their preferences, the better you can tailor your delivery.

You can even use templates or email summaries to spotlight your key findings and provide added value, like we did by adding a “researcher comments” section to our profiles. This section is where we summarized key details, highlighted recommendations about ask strategy and noted unique findings that perhaps were relevant but didn’t fit anywhere else in the template. It’s a small change that’s made a big impact on how our work is received and understood.

Use Data When Negotiating With Your Requestors

Being able to talk about your workload with real data changes the conversation. If you know how long certain types of requests take — both in hours and days from request to delivery — you’re in a stronger position to negotiate scope or deadline. If a polished product isn’t feasible under the timeline, maybe a streamlined version will do. And if “special circumstances” become the norm, that’s your cue to revisit tools or processes to adapt more sustainably. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or adjust expectations. You’re the expert in how long your work takes—and your requestors will respect that more when you can share the ‘why’ behind it.

Tailor Your Research Work to the Prospect Stage

One of the most impactful changes our team has made is adapting our research based on where a prospect is in the pipeline. Gift officers don’t need every detail at the outset — just enough to have a productive first meeting. Framing your work around what’s needed right now not only protects donor privacy but also conserves your team’s time and effort. As the relationship deepens or an ask becomes imminent, you can always provide more detail later.

Managing Proactive Prospecting

When developing or refining a proactive prospecting process, start with strategy. Think critically about how to identify the right leads. Should you focus on recent donors? People who just entered the pipeline? Are there prospects showing strong engagement or affinity, even if their capacity is unknown? Where have your best prospects come from in the past and how can your strategy surface more like them?

Once your strategy is in place, automate and reduce as much manual work in the process as possible. Automate reports, use templates and document your process. That way, your time is spent evaluating promising leads — not formatting spreadsheets. It’s also helpful to set up an efficient tracking system for your leads, preferably within your database. You’ll want to be able to identify which prospects eventually gave or engaged in a meaningful way — and to celebrate your success and also to inform future changes and growth opportunities with your process.

Set limits for yourself, too. Give yourself permission to spend only a set amount of time per prospect, especially when balancing other priorities. You can always do a deeper dive later if needed. Many teams schedule dedicated “proactive time” each week to protect this important work—treat it like a meeting you can’t skip.

Managing Analytics and Larger Projects

Big projects can feel overwhelming, so start by defining the scope and breaking the work into smaller tasks. Set deadlines — even if they’re internal or arbitrary — to keep yourself on track. Consider what’s realistic to accomplish this week, next week and in the next month.

As you dig into the data, keep your colleagues or requestors in the loop. They may have context that explains unusual findings or evolving priorities. If the project is long-term, offer early deliverables or regular check-ins to maintain momentum and alignment. Yes, meetings can feel tedious, but recurring updates have helped us avoid miscommunication and keep everyone excited about the final result.

Don’t be afraid to delegate. Someone else may be better positioned to pull data or assist with a specific task. And if a teammate has worked on a similar project, ask what they learned and incorporate their findings into your approach.

Always back up your work. We’ve all been there: a bad sort or a power outage wipes out hours of effort. Keep backup copies of your work at different stages throughout the project.  Not only will this provide a safety net for your time, but being able to reference your process in the future is very helpful.

Finally, celebrate and reflect. That might sound like a luxury, but it’s crucial. What went well?  What do you want to learn more about for next time?  This reflection not only helps you grow, but also prepares you for the inevitable follow-up request when someone hears how great your project turned out. And don’t keep that knowledge to yourself — share it with your team so they can benefit too.

For Continued Learning: Lessons From Agile

Agile is a project management methodology.  Some of the principles can be adapted to fit prospect development work, such as:

• Prioritizing customer satisfaction. It is crucial to ensure that our work is impactful and effective for our colleagues. 
• Adapting to change. News tools, methodologies and priorities arise constantly. We have to be ready to pivot. The curiosity that comes naturally for most of us who work in prospect development will guide you as you learn and adapt.
• Communicating with your requestors/customers and frequently. Maybe this is something that is a challenge for you, or it’s something you wish you had more time for.  When managing big projects or heavy workloads, sending frequent updates, asking questions or possibly even sharing parts of the project along the way, can help keep you and your requestors engaged and also help understand if the scope of the project/workload shifts.
• Empowering your team (or just you) to have control over your workload. This is the dream, right? With Agile, the focus is on planning ahead and looking over the next bit of time (a “sprint” in Agile terminology) and ensuring your time is allocated to the highest priority and most impactful tasks. There will always be more to get done than you can get done. How can you organize your work, perhaps using planning and negotiation, to help you focus?
• Attention to excellence in finished work. Excellence is a key word here, because we want to strive for excellence, but also recognize when a project is complete and that excellence shouldn’t equate with perfection.
• Focus on simplicity. As prospect development professionals, we can always look at more data or dive deeper into this prospect’s story. Should we, though? When is the deep dive impactful, and when would simplifying our approach empower us to shift to other, perhaps higher priority workload? Even if we provide lots of information, can we start the profile/report with a quick summary to help our requestor understand what they’re about to encounter?
• Celebrate your wins and reflect on your work. This one is super important! Find a small way to celebrate your wins and especially completing big, meaningful projects. Did you try something new and learn from it? Be sure to document what you did!  A few minutes documenting your process now will save you time the next time! Reflecting on what went well, changes to make and ideas to explore in the future. If you are part of a team, consider hosting regular demos or show and tells to share out what you’ve accomplished, highlight key successes and also learn from each other.

Final thoughts

Lastly, give yourself grace. Over time, our team has done better with some of the above and improved on certain aspects, but then something will shift with our organization’s priorities or procedures and suddenly it feels like we’re back to square one. Guaranteed you’re already crushing some of the above, and celebrate it! Hopefully you were able to learn something new you may want to try from this article. Recognize that no one or at least very few of us are truly succeeding at all of the above, especially at once. Be kind to yourself, your team and your requestors. Celebrate the wins of today and look forward to the wins you’ll build tomorrow. We are all learning and growing together. And if you learn a great tip, please, share it with the Apra community! We’d love to learn from you, too!