Wealth screening for nonprofits: 5 tools you need

Before you make "the ask,” you need to know how much your supporters can give. That said, wealth screening can be a tricky process.

You’ll need the right tools and technology to incorporate it into your larger fundraising efforts. Below, we dive into what wealth screening is, why it's important, and several wealth screening tools available on the Givebutter platform.

What is wealth screening?

Wealth screening is the practice of tailoring your outreach strategy to your donors’ respective income levels. By gaining a deeper understanding of your supporters’ assets, you gain a clearer picture of their capacity to give.

Benefits of donor wealth screening

Wealth screening is often used to uncover major gift donors within your audience (after all, the top 50 largest donors in the U.S. gave a whopping $28 billion to charity in 2021). And the top 1% across income distribution are responsible for roughly a third of all charitable giving.

However, soliciting these high-net-worth individuals isn’t the only benefit wealth screening offers. In fact, the average American household donates $2,581 to charity annually—a figure that can significantly impact your organization. Plus, the average online donation ranges between $79-$118, a number many income brackets can afford.

⭐️ Translation: Wealth screening isn’t just about uncovering major donors. It's about customizing your messaging strategy to match a potential donor’s income level, increasing your chances of securing a gift to your organization.

5 must-have wealth screening tools

Wealth screening software allows you to capture donor data related to supporters’ assets, income brackets, and total net worth. We've rounded up five tools you’ll want to implement into your wealth screening process.

1. DonorSearch 🔍

To better understand a donor’s capacity to give, you’ll probably need to invest in wealth screening software.

Fortunately, Givebutter offers a native integration with DonorSearch, one of the most trusted wealth screening platforms available. With DonorSearch, you can access the platform’s rich prospect research data and store it directly within your customer relationship management (CRM) platform (more on this below).

More to explore

See how Givebutter and DonorSearch wealth screening can take your fundraising to new heights →

Nonprofit organizations of all sizes leverage DonorSearch to help estimate supporters’ giving capacity. The platform stores past giving history, actionable insights, and other wealth tools in one place, so you can tailor your ask amount to the individual. Plus, wealth data for all prospective donors is stored directly in your Givebutter contact profiles.

2. Givebutter’s nonprofit CRM 📊

Once you acquire wealth data from DonorSearch, you need a place to store it—this is where Givebutter’s built-in donor management tools and CRM come in.

If you plan to make wealth screening a key component of your fundraising strategy, you need a CRM platform. A CRM platform allows you to keep a database of all current and potential donors in one place, offering you a clear depiction of your audience. Plus, it provides an in-depth profile of each supporter, allowing you to view past donations and communications with each individual.

Givebutter’s donor management suite includes the world’s first completely free CRM, built exclusively for nonprofit organizations. Givebutter’s free tools make donor management easier, allowing you to quickly build contact profiles, implement activity tracking (like past donations!), and record custom fields like income level, net worth, real estate ownership, or other wealth markers.

3. Donor segments 👯

Once you’ve gathered data on a donor’s wealth and stored it in your CRM platform, it’s time to cultivate an effective outreach strategy.

Custom segments allow you to divvy up your database based on several different traits, such as geographic location, past donor history, demographics, or—in this case—wealth indicators. By segmenting your list based on supporters’ respective assets, you can customize your messaging to each group, getting you one step closer to your fundraising goal.

For example, for individuals earning an annual income of $50,000 today, you might send out a quick text blast that reads,

“Donate $20 today!”

For households earning between $100,000-$250,000, you might ask for a gift in the $100-$500 range.

Finally, for the few major donors on your list, you might ask for a substantial gift in the four-to-five-figures range (these asks are particularly common under special circumstances, such as a capital campaign).

4. Double the Donation 💰💰

Your wealth screening services will often have data points related to supporters’ occupations. And if your screening results show a potential donor owns their own business, you might consider soliciting them for matching gifts.

Matching gift campaigns can be an excellent way to increase corporate gifts to your organization, as a company pledges to match donations up to a certain dollar amount. Shockingly, $4–$7 billion matching gift revenue available to nonprofits goes unclaimed each year.

Givebutter’s integration with Double the Donation makes it easy to solicit corporate gift prospects. With Double the Donation’s 360Match Pro platform, nonprofits can easily identify match-eligible donors.

From there, you can seamlessly integrate corporate matching into your larger fundraising strategy, whether you’re launching an SMS campaign, hosting a ticketed event, or embedding a donation form on your website. Pair it with Givebutter's built-in matching donation software to take your campaigns even further!

Dive deeper

Learn how to set up a matching gift program at your nonprofit →

5. Automated thank-you messages 📬

It’s no secret that a small “thank you” can make a large impact on your fundraising campaign. In fact, research shows that first-time donors who receive a thank you within 48 hours of donating are 4X more likely to give again (that’s a 400% boost in retention!).

Fortunately, Givebutter’s automation tools allow you to send thank-you messages after every online contribution. And you can easily customize these automated receipts with a special message expressing your gratitude for their gift.

If a major gift donor makes a sizable contribution to your organization, an automated thank you might not be enough. You can use ThankView to send personalized videos to your donors in these cases. With ThankView’s integration with Givebutter, you can send personalized videos at scale to anyone who contributed to your campaign.

Launch your wealth screening strategy with Givebutter

Wealth screening allows you to create a data-driven outreach strategy based on a supporter’s net worth. However, implementing a wealth screening strategy can be tricky—which is why you need the right tools to get you started.

Fortunately, Givebutter is the all-in-one, donor-centric platform that makes it easy to incorporate wealth screening into your fundraising strategy.

With Givebutter, you get integrations like DonorSearch, 360MatchPro, and ThankView to research and thank new donor prospects. Plus, Givebutter comes with highly-rated fundraising tools, a built-in nonprofit CRM, and nonprofit marketing features to help store donor data and customize your outreach strategy.

Ready to see how Givebutter can transform your fundraising strategy? Sign up today to get started.