Turning Data into Donors: Best Practices in Prospect Research

Effective fundraising starts long before the ask. In this session, Dawn Cattoor, Manager, Prospect Development and Susan Loh, Senior Research Strategist, Principal Gifts share practical frameworks for identifying, qualifying, and prioritizing your organization’s strongest donor prospects. You will learn how to evaluate wealth indicators alongside affinity markers, leverage modern research tools without getting lost in the data, and build an ethical, repeatable workflow that empowers your fundraising team to cultivate stronger relationships.

ABOUT OUR PRESENTERS:

Dawn Cattoor, Manager, Prospect Development – University of Calgary

When moving to Canada from Belgium, Dawn, Prospect Management Coordinator at the University of Calgary, wanted to engage more with the community. Before joining the University, she transitioned from quality management and strategy to philanthropy by serving as a development coordinator and grant writer at smaller non-profits in Calgary.

Starting out in a small development team was ideal for quickly learning all aspects of fundraising – from accepting small donations and strategizing with leadership to solicit major gifts to managing the donor database and doing prospect research. By contrast, her role as prospect management coordinator at 1Advancement Services for the University of Calgary is more specialized. That role has enabled her to hone her relationship-building and data-analysis skills. On top of maintaining relationships with major gift fundraisers from 6 faculties, she acts as a fundraiser liaison to the broader Advancement Services team. As such, she has helped to streamline interdepartmental stewardship processes, provided support for the CRM database conversion, and created several dashboard reports for the prospect management team.

She has a master’s degree in Applied Economics (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium) and a certificate in Business Intelligence and Analytics from Continued Education at the University of Calgary; all her education has guided her to be a star contributor as a prospect management coordinator.

Susan Loh, Manager, Prospect Research – University of Calgary

Susan has spent over 20 years building and advancing the institution’s prospect research and intelligence capabilities. Beginning her career supporting the university’s REACH! Campaign and Principal Gifts team, Susan has developed expertise in prospect identification, qualification, wealth assessment, and strategic prospect engagement strategies. Today, she leads a team of four experienced researchers who work in collaborative partnerships with frontline fundraisers and the prospect management team to support the university’s philanthropic priorities.

Susan is always excited by the evolving landscape of prospect research and in recent years has focused increasingly on utilizing CRM to track and refer new prospects; due diligence and risk assessment; and the emerging applications of artificial intelligence in prospect research.

Prior to immigrating to Canada, Susan spent more than a decade in Singapore in communications roles within the banking and education sectors. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the windy city of Wellington, New Zealand.