For organizations building or expanding major gift programs, wealth screening data is especially valuable. It helps uncover under-engaged high-net-worth individuals in your local or cause area, identifying promising prospects who may have gone unnoticed through traditional prospecting methods.

Funraise, builder of the best fundraising software in the galaxy, and Kindsight, the genius behind iwave's innovative information stream, are banding together to launch donor prospecting research in your donor management platform. If listening to a webinar isn't your jam read on for our summary of Justin Wheeler, Funraise CEO and Co-founder, Trent Beattie, Kindsight's VP of Strategic Partnerships, and Troy Schnack, Action Against Hunger Lead Major Gifts Officer, as they discuss the astronomically winning combination of Funraise + Kindsight.

Capacity, propensity, and affinity make an astronomically winning combination

When you combine capacity, propensity, and affinity data, you’re not just guessing who your best donors might be—you’re building a roadmap to real fundraising growth. With Funraise, Kindsight, and iWave working together, nonprofits get a smarter, more complete picture of their supporters, making it easier to connect with the right people at the right time. It’s all about turning data into action so your team can focus on what matters most: accelerating your mission and deepening donor relationships.

Here's what Justin, Trent, and Troy have to say about the combination of Funraise and Kindsight:

Justin Wheeler: Hey everyone, thanks so much for tuning in to today's webinar. I'm excited about today's topic as we're going to dive deep into wealth and donor prospecting data. With us, we have two experts in the field to really take us a bit deeper. We're excited, first off, to introduce a new feature in partnership with our friends over at Kindsight, which is an amazing platform that has driven lots of opportunities for nonprofit organizations as they look to really enhance their donor file with additional data. Joining from the Kindsight team, VP of Strategic Partnerships, is Trent Beattie. Trent, how are you doing this morning?

Trent Beattie: I'm great, Justin. Glad to be here. Thanks.

Justin Wheeler: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining. Maybe just as we dive in here, if you could give us a quick introduction of yourself and Kindsight.

Trent Beattie: Absolutely. Yeah. As Justin mentioned, I lead our partnership program. I've been working with Justin and the team at Funraise for a while now to put this together. We're really excited to talk about it today. Kindsight is entirely focused on supporting nonprofit organizations and their fundraising efforts through the technology that they use. We're really going to focus today specifically on the iWave solution, which is designed entirely around the fundraising intelligence that enables organizations to be the most effective in their communications with donors or prospective donors, focused on making the right ask to the right people at the right time.

Justin Wheeler: Awesome, Trent. Thank you so much for sharing that. And as listeners know, there are two technology vendors here, Funraise and Kindsight. It wouldn't have been right to leave the conversation just between the two vendors. Having a practitioner, boots on the ground, is really important to understanding the effectiveness of this partnership and how this data can be used for good to really accelerate an organization's mission. That's why I'm very excited to introduce Troy Schnack, Lead Officer, Major Gifts at Action Against Hunger, which is an impressive organization solving one of the biggest challenges we're facing in the world today, which is hunger. Troy, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself and more about Action Against Hunger.

Troy Schnack: Hey, thank you, Justin. Again, a pleasure to be here. I am the lead officer for major gifts, as you said, and there are three of us actually—our major and planned giving officers. We raise about $8 million a year through both major and planned gifts, and we've grown significantly over three years. We've just transitioned to iWave, Kindsight, and Salesforce integration, and we're incredibly excited about that. I have years of experience using iWave at my last nonprofit job as well as as a director of development. So, pleasure to be here today. Thank you for having me, Justin.

What is iwave? What data does it provide?

By pulling together wealth, biographic, and charitable giving data from over 40 public sources—including its own massive database of recent donations—iWave helps you pinpoint not just who has the capacity to give, but who’s actually likely to support your cause and where their interests really lie. The result? Smarter, more targeted outreach and a much better shot at building meaningful donor relationships that move your mission forward.

Justin Wheeler: Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing your expertise with many nonprofit professionals listening to today's webinar. That's very much appreciated. Maybe to get ourselves oriented, because we're going to be saying lots of different names around product today. For those listening, Kindsight, when we reference it, is a technology company that has many different products, and today we're really going to focus on one of their product lines, iWave, which is the donor prospecting and wealth data. Trent, maybe as we just orient a little bit more around what wealth and prospecting means from your perspective at Kindsight, maybe you could give us a high-level summary of the different types of data and what iWave is really all about.

Trent Beattie: Absolutely. Yeah. So, iWave has been around for almost 30 years and really focused on that traditional wealth screening or wealth intelligence as fundraising organizations look to understand more about their donors and constituents. Kindsight brings together a wide range of data sources, incorporating wealth, biographic, as well as giving data from more than 40 different sources today. Those sources are all publicly available information. This is not something behind the scenes that we're scraping from the corners of the earth that someone couldn't already find themselves, but we're bringing it together into the platform from sources like Database USA, ZoomInfo, Dun & Bradstreet, federal databases, as well as Verarig, which is our own charitable giving history data. The combination of these sources really enables the iWave solution to provide multiple indicators or scores that help fundraisers and their organizations better understand their donors and prospects.

The overall goal is to really help those organizations and the people within the organizations be more effective in the limited resources they have to deploy, making sure that they're again reaching out to the right people at the right time and having the right conversation or making the right ask. So, the overall Kindsight score that will be referenced within Funraise is actually an indication of someone's likelihood to be a high-value donor to your organization. It's calculated based on deeper level scores specifically around capacity—someone's financial wherewithal to be a donor of a certain level—and that level is very much determined based on an organization's goals and objectives, as well as propensity as the second indicator. Propensity is a measurement of someone's philanthropic tendencies. Do they show signs of being a donor in some way, shape, or form? The third measurement is affinity. Someone may have the financial wherewithal or capacity, they may have propensity of giving, but we also measure where that giving typically goes. Being able to show where their affinity lies when they are making gifts is really one of the things that sets iWave apart from other solutions in the space—the ability to look at the details and the granularity of each of those three things: capacity, propensity, and affinity.

Certainly, within propensity and affinity, one of the other things that sets us apart is the Verarig database. Verarig is our own database of charitable giving history. It's made up of nearly a quarter billion records today of past giving from the relevant past. We don't go back a hundred years in that giving history; it's really relevant to the constituents that would be in someone's donor universe today. Those pieces really come together to inform what is our propensity score or an individual's propensity score as well as affinity. That giving history is a big piece of where the overall measurement of someone's likelihood to be an important donor to your organization comes from. I try to emphasize "your organization" or a particular organization because we won't get into all the things that make iWave different today, but one of the other pieces is that it is very much oriented to a specific organization. If you think about affinity as an example, a single individual—Trent Beattie—may look very different to Organization A than Organization B because of that affinity pattern or that giving and affinity pattern. That's one of the things that makes iWave different. It can be very much focused on and dialed into, for lack of a better term, a particular organization or mission.

A Nonprofit's Perspective: Funraise + Kindsight success stories

When you really know your donor base—beyond just the gifts they’ve made—you unlock a whole new level of fundraising potential. By using Funraise and Kindsight together, organizations can spot distinguished philanthropists ready for deeper engagement and uncover hidden gems who’ve flown under the radar but have serious capacity to give. It’s all about combining smart data with genuine relationships, so you can focus on the right people, have meaningful conversations, and turn untapped potential into real impact for your mission.

Justin Wheeler: I'm going to take a breath when it comes to the wind. No, that was a great intro. I'll touch on a lot of what our partnership and our integration together is going to look like as part of the Funraise CRM. We're really excited to bring this data into the CRM for our customers so that they have more information at their fingertips to segment and target their donors in a more relevant way. These scores are incredibly important for effective fundraising, whether that's to retain donors or to even grow an organization's revenue. So, we're thrilled to be partnering. We talked with lots of companies in the space and definitely can agree that Kindsight was the standout in terms of the approach they take with the data, how they've productized the data to the end user, and just the robustness of all the scores that you just walked us through. From a technologist's perspective, I love it, right? Because there's just so much there.

Maybe we could take a step further, Troy, with you. As a frontline fundraiser, as a professional who's working with donors of all types, how has this data helped you in your career as a fundraiser? And what are some important things for fundraisers listening to keep in mind about this?

Troy Schnack: Hey, thank you and thank you again for having me today to talk about this. I'm really excited to share about how I've used this previously and now at Action Against Hunger. I think a common thing before I dive in—I want to emphasize something essential about hunger relief fundraising. While life-threatening hunger can inspire donors to give once or twice, it's usually a combination of that immediate relief and long-term sustainable solutions that inspire larger gifts. Hope is absolutely critical in our messaging.

I've used this to target three primary donor segments. I'll discuss our critical segment first—what you all call the distinguished philanthropists. These are our existing major donors with additional giving capacity. In our recent screening, I identified a few dozen donors representing significant, really untapped potential. What makes those donors special is that they've already established their relationship with us. They have very high RFM scores, for example. That's very specific to us—it means they've given recently, frequently, and at meaningful levels. But what we got through this solution is that their external philanthropy indicates that they have potential to do much more with this group. For example, we focus on personal outreach and deepening relationships—traditional major gifts work. I meet with them personally, where they connect with our country directors, CEO, board members. For example, one donor who'd been giving $10,000 annually increased to $50,000 after learning about our sustainable farming initiatives in East Africa. When he saw both the immediate relief work and the long-term food security solutions that we're implementing, he said, "This is exactly the kind of impact I want to support."

Justin Wheeler: To double-click on that, was that an individual that you would classify as a distinguished philanthropist, someone that was already giving a sizable contribution and you uncovered there's more capacity here, their affinity aligns with what we're doing, and so therefore it was an opportunity that you were able to surface as someone who could give more? Would you categorize it that way?

Troy Schnack: Yeah, that's a very good point. So, $10,000 is a meaningful gift, but when you have dozens of folks that are revealed through the screening that can clearly give multiples more than that, this is a person who fell into that category—clearly to be engaged deeper as a prospect for a true major gift.

Justin Wheeler: For those listening, I think this is a really important concept here, right? Because there's ways this could go horribly wrong, right? As a fundraiser, if you're like, "Oh, donor A is giving $10,000 but actually could give $100,000, so therefore I'm going to go and say, 'Hey, I know you could be giving more. Can you up your gift to $100,000?'" Probably not the best approach. It sounds like the approach you took was more of an engagement approach, like, "Hey, let's introduce you to more of our work." Maybe walk through your approach when you do identify distinguished philanthropists—how you engage them to really cultivate that next big gift.

Troy Schnack: Yeah, that's a great question. For folks in this category, you'll have a customized engagement plan. You will find their relationships, find more relationships, and then really showcase the type of impact that you can see they've had at other organizations and indicators through our organization. Just by doing that, for example, that one donor went from a $10,000 annual gift to really a major gift—$50,000. We steward that gift and continue to cultivate them for increased or continuing giving. Just that small group of folks who are in that distinguished philanthropist screening—they've increased their giving by about 35% already, and it's really that untapped potential that that represents.

Justin Wheeler: Wow. That in itself speaks volumes to the ROI that you're getting from the iWave data. That's very impressive. I had a similar experience prior to starting Funraise. I was a fundraiser—spent 13 years in the nonprofit industry. We had an opportunity to scan our entire donor base and we paid special attention to our recurring donors. We found several potential individuals that could give well beyond the $25 a month that they were giving. I remember there was one that stood out in particular because they'd been giving for about four years very consistently, $25 a month. I took an opportunity to fly out and meet with this donor face to face. I had no ask prepared—just wanted to say, "Hey, you've been giving for a long time. Would love to share some information about where the organization is going and would love to invite you to our next event that we're hosting in LA." The donor came out, brought his family, and at that event actually pledged and gave that night $100,000. Sometimes it's just understanding and knowing your donor base, understanding what the opportunity is, and just building real relationships with donors, and bringing them into the fold and

Justin Wheeler: Um, and sometimes it's just understanding and knowing your donor base, you know, understanding what the opportunity is, uh, and just building, uh, real relationships with donors, um, and bringing them into the fold and making donors aware of, you know, what you're not just accomplishing today, but what you hope to accomplish in the future. Um, and I think with Action Against Hunger in particular, uh, the mission of the organization is so noble. Uh, I imagine as you identify these types of donors, there's a lot of opportunity to really increase giving and get donors excited about the impact because of the good work that you all are doing.

Troy Schnack: That's exactly right.
And I'd like to, you know, one more segment I think that goes perfectly well at this point is really our qualification pool. So, how do we fill up our gift officer portfolios for prospects?...
You know, the qualification prospect pool. And two things that this solution does, I've found very effective, are what you call the hidden gems. They're high-capacity donors who've given significantly to other nonprofits, but not major gifts to us. So this happens a lot, you know, we'll get someone who gives $100 because of social media outreach, you know, paid ads. Um, but clearly, in other ways to other organizations, they're giving magnitudes more than that. And then secondly, for qualification, we also have the potential plan givers. So they're very connected to our organization, but they may, in your analysis that we see, be lacking some plan giving indicators, as you could say. So that, again, is additional research and cultivation. You put those two groups together, that represents millions of dollars in potential support. But to get that support as a small team, we have to be able to focus on those pools and go through them methodically and qualify them. Uh, and we're excited about where we're headed with this qualification for this year and next.

The Hidden Gems in your donor database

Hidden gems aren’t just a nice surprise—they’re the donors who’ve been quietly supporting your mission and have the potential to make an even bigger impact when you really get to know them. By combining Funraise’s first-party data with iWave’s third-party intelligence, you can finally uncover those long-time supporters with untapped capacity and start building deeper, more strategic relationships. It’s like finding gold in your own backyard: smarter insights, stronger connections, and a whole new level of fundraising efficiency.

Trent Beattie: So, I just wanted to jump in and kind of follow up on that. You both have been—I love that you're both using the distinguished philanthropist and the hidden gem terminology. Um, I'd love to take credit for that, but I'm sure these are, you know, things that make sense to everyone, but they are very much a part of the iWave solution in terms of those insights. And I think this is a perfect part of the conversation that gets into why our combined solution is so valuable and so important, right? The ability to surface and identify those constituents that may be the hidden gems that I just referenced, right? That they've been giving for a long time at a certain level but have a different wherewithal and a different propensity somewhere else or displayed somewhere else. That ability is only possible by combining the first-party data that lives within a Funraise and combining that with the iWave third-party intelligence. That's where that really comes to be known. Um, so that's what I'm maybe most excited about with our partnership is, you know, how well coupled that data becomes and the power that now gives to the organizations. I think both of your examples are great real-world examples of how those, you know, the actions that you need to take once you know. Um, but being able to surface that data is what we're really trying to focus on.

Troy Schnack: Yeah. Uh, the ability to have the integration in Funraise to see who are these people that are giving, either one time or multiple times, and have that in the CRM is just—it's gold. It makes us so much more efficient and effective.

Is it ethical?

Enriching your donor data isn’t just smart—it’s responsible stewardship. All the insights iWave brings into Funraise come from publicly available sources, wrapped up with top-tier security and compliance, so you can confidently deepen your understanding of your supporters without crossing any ethical lines. At the end of the day, knowing your donors better means you’re equipped to serve your mission more efficiently and make a bigger impact with the relationships you already have.

Justin Wheeler: Yeah. The way that I've been sort of talking about this internally with our team is that once this ships in a few days to the customer base, the CRM is going to get much richer—and no pun intended on that—and what I mean is you'll be able to see these, like, the hidden gems, the distinguished philanthropist, you know, all data coming from iWave on your donor profile in Funraise. So as a Funraiser, as you're working through a donor or looking at engagement, you now just have this enrichment that makes you a much smarter Funraiser and a more strategic Funraiser. And so that's incredibly exciting. And what I wanted to ask, because I've sat on many boards who have had conversations about should we enrich our data, should we get this type of information on our donors? Is it ethical? You know, are there privacy concerns? And so, Trent, just from the partnership level and the one, you know, with this data, how do you respond to organizations who maybe have questions around just donor privacy or issues of it maybe feeling like the board is saying, "Is this ethical?" I would love to kind of hear how you think through that and talk about some of those challenges.

Trent Beattie: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, entirely appreciate the questions that get asked around that. And, you know, from our perspective, like I mentioned earlier, all the data that is encompassed inside of iWave is available. It's not something that is private data or something that we don't get from a publicly available source. The reality is we're just bringing it together into an application that allows us to look at it through a lens of how would a nonprofit and a Funraiser be able to use it. So from an access perspective, the data is accessible to anyone anywhere, but not necessarily in the combination that we would serve it up through iWave. And then, you know, from a compliance perspective, we certainly support organizations in many different subverticals within nonprofit and we support HIPAA compliance. We abide by GDPR for those friends of ours across the pond, as well as the FEC Act. So some of our data comes from federal sources. So we comply with all those. And then from a security perspective as an organization, we are also SOC 2 Type 2 compliant. So our infrastructure is secure in terms of any data exchange that may be happening to facilitate that matching and enrichment that's going on. So there's a few different layers to that conversation. But I start with we very much appreciate and acknowledge the concerns that our clients have and try to address it with the fact that we're not serving up something that they couldn't find themselves really. It's just the way in which we serve it and the way in which we look at it to be able to combine the data together.

Justin Wheeler: Right. So, yeah, just to sort of play that back, from a compliance perspective, from a legal perspective, it is all good, right? And anyone listening who has boards challenging that, cut that minute piece out right now and send to the board because the way that you just walked through that was perfect. And then I think there's the sort of emotional response, and how I would challenge certain boards is: is it ethical not to know this information about our donor base? Because at the end of the day, we're stewards of our mission. We're stewards of achieving and accelerating the impact we make as an organization. And so by focusing on those already engaged or those already committed is the right thing to do, and it's probably even more efficient from a growth perspective to really build the donor base that you already have versus finding a lot of new donors. Both are important, but there's efficiency in just increasing the capacity of the existing donor base. So I think that it's an interesting conversation and hopefully, with your remarks, it's removed any sort of concern from any listener about that.

How does wealth screening inform your overall strategic plan?

Wealth screening can be a game changer for spotting planned giving prospects and monthly supporters who are deeply invested in your mission. With the right data, you can identify hundreds of donors who may not make a big gift today but are primed to leave a legacy or steadily support your work over time. It’s all about building long-term relationships and making sure every supporter’s impact lasts well into the future.

Justin Wheeler: Troy, I want to go back to something you were talking about in terms of how you use the Kindsight score, and you briefly touched on one of the use cases is the qualification pool. In earlier conversations, you've also talked about planned giving and monthly giving. And so I was just wondering if you could maybe double-click on how those scores are used to drive other strategies within your organization from a fundraising perspective.

Troy Schnack: Great. Yeah. So that actually hits on our third segment. I'll talk about first planned giving prospects. So in the international humanitarian relief area, we had so many donors who give between $25 and $200 a month, can't give a current major gift but absolutely are connected to the work that we do across the world. And that means that they want to make sure that impact continues after they pass, and they're incredible planned giving prospects. So through the Kindsight analysis, we're talking about identifying hundreds of ideal planned giving donors—prospects—who have just excellent potential to leave a legacy gift. And the ROI on the program is fantastic. So, you know, one person, Mckela, is our manager and planned giving officer. She is able to run our current legacy planned giving communications and program. And every year for the past few years, we've been adding about 25 people actively to that planned giving society. I mentioned earlier about qualification—that's the same thing with this. So having her with a large planned giving prospect qualification pool has just been critical. And we include them on monthly outreach, legacy-focused communications, and see how they respond to that planned giving communications. And we're excited. We have a steady growth of executed planned gifts year-over-year. Even if they don't want to share their specific intention with us, the results show that the targeting is working.

What next? Using your donor prospecting data

The real magic of wealth screening happens when you use it to stay focused and strategic. Start by building a manageable qualification pool for each gift officer, so you’re always working with the right prospects instead of getting overwhelmed by the numbers. And remember, donor data isn’t a one-and-done deal; staying on top of changes and regularly refreshing your insights means you’re always ready to connect with supporters in the most relevant, impactful way possible.

Justin Wheeler: To follow up on that—and this is really a question for both of you—as someone listening who maybe has never once scanned their database to enrich it with this type of information, you scan 10,000 donors and they have all this incredible data now at their fingertips. Where do they go from there? I would love to hear from both of you on what are the next steps once having the data. What would you recommend as a professional fundraiser, Troy, and Trent, as an evangelist of the technology, how would you advise organizations to then take this data and turn it into outcomes that really drive the results they're looking for? Troy, I'll let you kick this off.

Troy Schnack: So, it's really important to—even for a small shop—to remain focused. Using the analysis that this provides, in addition to what we see in our own database, we found that it should be about a 300-person qualification pool for each gift officer. And remember, that's a qualification pool, don't think active cultivation or solicitation, but in your cadence and through your travels and communications, you're working through about 300 people potentially a year to fill up about, you know, 75 to 100 actually assigned donors and prospects to a major gift officer. So this absolutely feeds into that process. We personally track it through a prospect pool for each gift officer.

Trent Beattie: Yeah. From the data and the technology standpoint, I think one of the things that we have been focused on more so recently than historically is that we should look at the screening, that initial enrichment, as not just a one-time exercise. And I think historically that has been the case. An organization will look at their data, they will do that initial screening and enrichment, and work off of that snapshot for a very long, in some cases extended, period of time. I think the reality being in today's world, information is constantly being accumulated and things change much, much quicker. So, from a technology and data perspective, we would encourage organizations to look for and find ways to stay on top of the data that's changing, not just within the iWave data—which we have means of making available—but in the entirety of the picture that you all have access to. So via Funraise, via the tools that you have your data within, to make sure that as things are changing with your constituents, you're able to respond to that. And not to at all counter Troy's comments about being focused and remaining focused, but ensuring that you can acknowledge things as they change and, for lack of a better term, leverage those changes for your communications or at least understand those changes and how they affect your communications and engagement.

Last Looks: More methods to maximize your major donor program

If you've got the basics like name and zip code, you can get your wealth screening on. So, by combining your donor CRM (Funraise) and Kindsight, even the getting-the-info step is practically effortless. Layering in this kind of smart data makes it easy for even small teams to spot the right donors, fill in gaps, and make sure you’re connecting with the people who matter most. It’s all about working smarter, not harder, so you can prioritize the donors who will drive your mission forward and make every effort count.

Justin Wheeler: Absolutely. Well, thank you, thank you Trent for that. And maybe as sort of just a final question here as we wrap up—and this has just been a great conversation and really appreciate both of your time to dig into this—but is there, for those listening, any other sort of practical takeaways? Maybe a question that I should have asked, I didn't ask, that you just would like to share with listeners around other actionable takeaways pertaining to this feature and this data that should help organizations really grow their fundraising.

Trent Beattie: I'll say that, you know, one very tactical thing that we often get asked when we talk about it—I know lots of organizations struggle with data and data hygiene and so on. And so from a data requirements perspective, as we're thinking about what does it mean, what does it take to get that wealth screening solution or that enrichment in place, in reality iWave needs a bare minimum of information: name, address—really, first name, last name, and zip code are kind of the fundamental requirements. I say that just to call it out because it's a question we get asked, but I also want to highlight the fact that with our integration with Funraise, that almost goes away, right? The data is there, the data is going to come automatically into that donor profile within Funraise. So it may be a question that's not in context of what we're talking about here, but in general that's what iWave depends upon to be able to match, to make sure we've got the right Troy Schnack, we've got the right Justin or Trent, that we're aligning all the different data elements to the individual.

Troy Schnack: That's great, Trent. And uh I think that's a perfect segue to my my point. Armed with this data plus a small team, we verify in Google to confirm exactly what you're talking about to make sure we have the right person. It really helps fill in uh blanks, especially if someone gives a gift that they only want to include include their email address or perhaps a phone number. With a little additional work from a gift officer in that qualification pool as gifts come in, it can really do a fantastic job of finding the right person in those hidden gems.

Justin Wheeler: Awesome. And we we've all heard the saying work work smarter not harder. Adding this layer of data to your your donor database really sets you up to work smarter and and not harder as you really think through prioritizing the right type of donors for your organization and your mission. We're so incredibly thankful for the partnership, Troy with with Action Against Hunger, you guys are coming up on nine years on on Funraise and it's just been an incredible partnership, being able to support uh your guys' mission. And Trent, as as a new partner, we're really looking forward to continuing to innovate with you and and the team at at Kindsight as we deliver products to organizations making our world a much better place to to live in. So both thank you so much for for your time. We appreciate it and look forward to continuing to follow both of your journeys. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you.