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Affinity, access and capacity

This is the standard major-gift framework, used by every large shop and taught in most fundraising courses. If you have never worked in a development office you will not have met it, and it is the piece of vocabulary that changes how you read your own donor list.

Some courses teach it as Linkage, Ability and Interest. Same three ideas, different words, and you will meet both. Linkage is access, ability is capacity, interest is affinity.

The three questions

Section titled “The three questions”

Before approaching anyone for a significant gift, fundraisers ask three questions about them.

Capacity. What could they give? Not what they have given, what they could give from their means. A donor giving $200 a year for a decade may be able to give $20,000 for the right thing at the right moment.

Affinity. How warm are they to us? Do they care about this organization? Affinity shows up in behaviour before it shows up in conversation: how recently they gave, how long they have given for, how often, whether they came to things.

Access. Can anyone open the door? Is there a person, a board member, a current donor, a staff member, who can make an introduction or ask for the meeting? A cold approach to a stranger is a different and much harder task.

Why one circle is never enough

Section titled “Why one circle is never enough”

The reason the framework is drawn as three overlapping circles is that each circle on its own describes a person you cannot ask yet.

Affinity, access and capacityThree overlapping circles. Capacity is the money someone could give. Affinity is how warm they are to your mission. Access is whether anyone can open the door. Capacity alone is a stranger with money. Affinity alone is a loyal small giver. Access alone is an introduction to someone who does not care and cannot give. Where capacity and affinity overlap you have someone who would give but nobody to make the introduction. Where all three overlap you have a prospect you can actually ask.CAPACITYwhat they could giveAFFINITYhow warm they areACCESSwho opens the doora strangerwith moneya loyalsmall giveran introductionto someone coldwould give,no way incould open it,no reason toask them

The single most common mistake in a small shop is to sort the list by estimated wealth and start at the top. That produces a list of strangers. A loyal mid-level donor whose neighbour sits on your board is a better prospect than a wealthy person with no connection to you, every time.

How Relae records it

Section titled “How Relae records it”

Each donor record carries the three ratings.

Affinity is read from their giving. Relae works it out from recency, how long they have given, and how often. A recent, loyal, repeat giver rates high. A one-off gift from four years ago rates low. You can override it.

Capacity starts as a floor. Relae reads the largest gift someone has already made and treats that as the minimum they can do. Research or your own knowledge can raise it. Relae never lowers a capacity rating below what someone has demonstrably given, because their own cheque is the strongest evidence there is.

Access is yours to set. No system can know that your board chair plays squash with someone. That is the rating only a person can supply, and it is the one that most changes what the worklist recommends.

Capacity is rated on a wider scale than the other two, because the difference between a $1,000 donor and a $100,000 donor matters more to your planning than the difference between warm and very warm.

Setting ratings honestly

Section titled “Setting ratings honestly”

An unset rating is better than a guessed one.

The ratings queue stages the prospects whose ratings need a look and says which kind of problem each one is: never reviewed, gone stale, or drifted from what the giving data now shows. An unset rating is a state, not a zero. If you guess that someone has high capacity because they live in a good neighbourhood, the guess will sit in your system for a year looking like a fact, and it will send you to the wrong meeting.

Set what you know. Leave the rest. Fill it in as you learn.

Ratings drift

Section titled “Ratings drift”

A rating is a snapshot of what you understood at the time. People retire, sell companies, lose interest, join boards. Relae flags ratings that have gone stale or that have drifted from what the giving data now shows, so the picture stays current without you auditing the whole list.

Next

Section titled “Next”