Whether you’re looking to add major gift officers to your organization or help your current employees polish their skills, it’s crucial to understand what makes an effective fundraiser. Clearly, people who bring in large donations need strong communications skills, the ability to build rapport, and passion for your cause. But recent research by Philanthropy Leadership Council uncovered three additional abilities that successful fundraisers must have.

And they’ll surprise you.

What Does It Take for Success in Major Gifts?

Philanthropy Leadership Council conducted a survey of 132 major gift officers from 40 institutions about their activities and performance. They looked at results in relation to the size and revenue of the organization, the fundraisers’ portfolios and how they worked with prospects. The research was designed to help non-profits benchmark their major gift programs against the market.

The survey found significant differences between stronger and weaker fundraisers. The top 25% of gift officers by revenue brought in 175% of their individual goals while the bottom 25% pulled in just 52% of their targets.

There was little correlation between high production and size of the non-profit or its annual revenue. And the gift officer’s tenure with their current organization or experience in major gift programs didn’t predict performance either.

Clearly, the skills institutions typically hire for, such as experience, personality and motivation, aren’t enough to boost an employee into the top quartile. But the study did uncover a strong connection between gift officers’ revenue and how they manage their portfolios.

Specifically, the most successful fundraisers have 3 skills others don’t; they engage more donors, spend more time with new prospects and make better use of their time in the field.

1. Top officers engage with more prospects.

Interestingly, the best revenue generators had smaller average portfolios, but they engaged with a much higher percentage of their prospects. The survey found the top performers had an average of 103 donors in their portfolios versus 121 for the lowest performers. But high producers interacted with 80% of their pool. Whereas the bottom quartile connected with only 60%.

2. Top officers spend more time with new prospects.

Conventional wisdom suggests that it’s more important to maintain relationships with current donors, who’ve already shown their willingness and capacity to give, than to spend time with new prospects who might never step up. But the study data suggests otherwise. The most effective fundraisers spent 48% of their time on new prospects while lower performers devoted just 38% of their time toward fresh relationships.

3. Top officers make the most of time in the field.

According to the survey, high performers don’t spend more time on average in the field than their peers, but they do more with it. For example, they conduct more personal meetings per year. Less effective fundraisers meet with prospects 101 times on average while top earners meet 125 times.

Strong producers also get to a donation faster. It takes them just 8.9 visits to acquire a gift, whereas others need 17.8 visits on average.

How Can You Help Gift Officers Raise Their Game?

If your team isn’t blowing out their individual goals, look for ways to help them develop the 3 working skills that make a difference. In particular, incorporate technologies like fundraising intelligence which lower the guesswork and increase efficiency of portfolio management.

Fundraising intelligence uses machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze your prospect data and identify probable donors. It then predicts how much each donor is likely to give and when they’ll be ready to write the check. With the insights from AI, gift officers can easily adopt the habits (and bring in the revenue) of highly successful fundraisers.

Lower administrative work so officers can engage more prospects.

Accounting for weekends and holidays, a gift officer has an average 18 days a month to engage with prospects. If much of that time is spent sifting through the customer relationship management (CRM) system for likely prospects, they’ll be hard-pressed to squeeze in meetings.

Use fundraising intelligence to scour data, identify prospects who are most likely to make a major gift and prioritize them based on how soon they’re likely to make it. Then gift officers can spend time setting up appointments, sending notes and meeting people face to face.

With fundraising intelligence, you can decrease size of an officer’s portfolio but increase the quality of each prospect because the AI assesses the database regularly. Fundraisers have time for more donor connections and each donor will be more likely to give.

Find the most promising new prospects to develop.

Fundraising intelligence also highlights new prospects who have a high probability of becoming major donors. Gift officers will be more willing to invest time with these folks because their effort will very likely pay off.

To capture the most promising new prospects, give the fundraising intelligence system as much data as possible. For example, for all donors, track event attendance, volunteer activities, email opens, website click, social media posts, calls, drop-ins, letters and any other interaction they have with you. These details strengthen the AI predications and further increase fundraising effectiveness.

Make each interaction count.

Top gift officers waste no time in the field. To move quickly from first meeting to donation, your fundraisers need to understand how best to capture a donor’s attention and motivate them to give.

With fundraising intelligence, the gift officer knows who is most likely to give, when and at what level. So when planning their meetings, fundraisers can prioritize people who are likely to give in the near future. And knowing the likely size of the gift and the prospect’s personal interests, the gift officer can steer conversations toward campaigns or organizational targets that match a contributor’s motivation and giving capacity.

When each conversation aligns with the donor’s goals and occurs around the time they’re likely to give, meetings are more productive, and contributions come in faster.

As the Philanthropy Leadership Council discovered, it takes more than a gregarious personality and good lunchtime conversation to drive a major gifts program. You need strong portfolio management skills. Fortunately, fundraising intelligence takes the guesswork and drudgery out of portfolio development, opening the way for your team to build the abilities and reap the rewards of market-leading performers.

Wes Moon is COO and co-founder of Wisely, a donor management platform that helps large nonprofits accelerate fundraising using AI. Prior to starting Wisely, Wes served in a strategic role at Blackbaud Canada and has helped numerous nonprofits collectively raise over $2 billion.