Donor Wealth Screening Prospect Research Form

This form is used to document wealth screening findings and prospect research for major gift qualification. It brings together capacity indicators, philanthropic history, known affiliations, and a recommended rating so the team can review one record instead of scattered notes. It is especially useful when you need a consistent basis for assignment and next-step decisions.

A prospect researcher, development operations staff member, or major gift officer usually completes it, depending on your workflow. The person filling it out should be able to interpret vendor data, internal relationship notes, and public-source information. If your team uses assignment committees, the form can also be prepared for review rather than final decision-making.

Update the form when a prospect moves into active cultivation, after a major gift, or when new information changes capacity or connection status. Many teams also refresh it on a scheduled cadence for top-tier prospects so ratings do not rely on stale data. The key is to revise it whenever the underlying facts change, not just at annual review time.

Collect only the fields needed to support a giving recommendation, such as estimated capacity range, giving history, affiliations, and internal connections. Avoid collecting unnecessary PII or sensitive personal details that do not affect fundraising decisions. If you include any personal data, the form should clearly state how it will be used and who can access it.

The consent, disclosure, and submission section gives you a place to acknowledge data use and limit collection to what is necessary. That supports data minimization and helps staff document why the information was gathered. It also makes the review trail clearer if a prospect later asks how their information is being used.

Common mistakes include treating a vendor score as a final answer, leaving the rationale blank, and mixing verified facts with speculation. Another frequent issue is over-collecting details that do not change the rating or assignment. The form works best when source notes, confidence level, and next action are all completed together.

Yes. You can tailor the rating scale, add fields for planned giving or event history, or adjust the assignment recommendation to match your moves management process. If your organization uses different prospect pools, you can also create versions for annual fund, major gifts, or principal gifts while keeping the same core structure.

Ad-hoc notes are harder to compare across prospects and often lose the source trail behind a recommendation. This template standardizes the fields that matter most, which makes reviews faster and reduces missing context. It also helps new staff understand why a prospect was rated a certain way and what should happen next.

After submission, the record should move into review, assignment, or enrichment follow-up depending on your process. The next action field should make that handoff explicit so the form does not become a dead-end note. If your team uses an audit trail, submission should also preserve who researched the prospect and when.