Unlocking Planned Giving Potential: CU’s Expert Model for Prospect Identification and Lead Tracking-Recording: Unlocking Planned Giving Potential

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The webinar explained how the University of Colorado improved planned giving prospecting and lead management across its complex four-campus system. Presenters Allie Eggleston and Tatum Smith described how CU built an expert-driven prospect pool called the Gift Planning Opportunity Pool (GPOP), using internal gift planning knowledge, research-backed indicators, and donor behaviors rather than relying solely on predictive vendor models. GPOP helps CU identify strong planned giving prospects, segment audiences, support marketing, and guide frontline outreach.<br /><br />They also introduced CU’s integrated lead referral system within Salesforce Ascend, which tracks hand raisers from email, direct mail, websites, surveys, and other channels. The system routes leads based on campus or unit, assigns ownership, and requires timely follow-up, with clear statuses such as assigned, in discovery, qualified, or disqualified. This creates accountability, reduces lost leads, and gives leadership better visibility into donor engagement.<br /><br />The presenters emphasized that adoption, speed, clean data, and simple workflows matter more than complexity. They shared examples of donors whose long-term engagement led to major gifts. CU is now working on dashboards, automation, and AI-assisted tools to further improve prospecting and follow-up.

Keywords

planned giving

prospecting

lead management

University of Colorado

Gift Planning Opportunity Pool

Salesforce Ascend

donor engagement

lead referral system

major gifts