Given that the basic aim of prospect research is to optimize your organisation's chances of getting the largest donations it can - specifically, to optimize your major donor fundraiser's chances - it is imperative that you appreciate how your research fits into the 'bigger picture' of major donor fundraising.*  

The Cultivation Cycle (or the Solicitation Cycle, the Seven Stages of Solicitation or the Prospect Pipeline) is an idealised series of stages or processes by which a major donor department goes from identifying a prospect through to receiving a donation.

The following seven stage process, which appeared in The Institute of Philanthropy's report, Managing Major Donors, published in May 2003, is a typical example:

Stage 1. Research and drawing up prospect list.

Stage 2. Evaluation and judging potential.

Stage 3. Getting to know the prospect, their motives and interests.

Stage 4. Identifying which specific areas of the charity interest them.

Stage 5. Asking for the money.

Stage 6. Thanks and recognition.

Stage 7. Consolidation and stewardship.

Another popular version of the Cultivation Cycle is the following five stage process, which has appeared in various publications:

1. Identify
2. Qualify
3. Cultivate
4. Solicit
5. Steward

Personally, I prefer the second model as it doesn't place research at the beginning and then not mention it again, as if the role of prospect research was to identify the prospect, gather as much information about them as possible, before passing them on to the fundraiser, effectively washing your hands of them. On the contrary, although research is not mentioned at all in the second model, to me this is because it is implicitly assumed that it is an integral part of each stage of the cultivation cycle, to a greater or lesser extent.

Research is an integral part of the whole Cultivation Cycle for two reasons:

1. Because any new information that you discover about the prospect may be relevant to how the fundraiser deals with the prospect, whatever stage you are at.
2. Because part of the research process is getting feedback from your fundraisers and adding this to the prospect's record, and this should happen at each and every stage of the cultivation cycle.

So, although the bulk of the research will take place at the beginning of the Cultivation cycle, it should continue to take place in the background all the way through the cycle. Yup, no rest for the wicked.

Next, the fascinating necessary topic of Ethics & Data Protection