Movers and Shakers: Why Prospect Development are the Influencers of any Development Team

We all know that Prospect Development are the brains behind our organisation's activity. We know what makes a good prospect, we hold the information that builds a promising engagement strategy and we know all the processes needed to ensure they move steadily towards a gift. However we do not always have the platform to advise and influence effectively. I will talk through the journey of my team to develop our relationship with fundraisers; how we developed a data system which put prospect development at the heart of driving activity and how we built the right forums to ensure the team's insight and expertise were heard. I will show the challenges we faced and solutions we implemented, including our moves management and activity reporting suite. We will also hear from a fundraising colleague on the impact working in partnership with prospect development has on fundraising activity. The benefits of developing these ways of working has been widely felt across our organisation, not just through increased efficiencies in fundraising but also through job satisfaction for prospect development colleagues. We truly feel we are having an impact on achieving our fundraising goals.