What Gets Measured Gets Done: Part II
by pfreedman on February 14, 2012
In last week’s post on gift officer performance measurement I wrote about establishing specific, quantifiable measures of performance, such as number of closed gifts, value of closed gifts. How do you determine what those numbers should be? Jeff Comfort suggests that the best way is to for the numbers to be “portfolio based.” What he means is the numbers are customized to the individual gift officer, based on his/her portfolio and tenure.
As an overall rule of thumb, he suggests that the total number of gifts forecast should exceed the current volume of mature gifts/year by at least 2. Then make an assessment of the top 50 annual prospects by calculating the probability that the gift will close this year by the likely amount of the commitment. Comfort recommends keeping your probability very low (1%) for mega gifts, 10% for larger gifts and 25% to 50% for the most likely prospects. Each forecast should include a number that represents unexpected gifts–someone not in the gift officer’s portfolio but who because of a life event, decides it’s time to make a gift commitment.
Tomorrow, I’ll describe Comfort’s approach to ensuring that during the course of the year, the gift officer is taking the steps to achieve these annual goals.
Phyllis
Tagged as:
Jeff Comfort,
Planned Giving,
Stewardship
