After the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vecova encountered several challenges in their fundraising journey. They had to restaff and rebuild their development team, which included hiring Kathy Bhana as a fundraising associate. Bhana began examining their Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT database and discovered that their data was inconsistent and outdated due to staff transitions and absences.

Having participated in an early adopter program for Prospect Insights—a new AI-powered tool that uses predictive modeling and wealth screening being rolled out to Canadian organizations using Raiser’s Edge NXT in 2025—Bhana realized this was the best tool to help them identify the highest value major gift prospects in their database.

“Prospect Insights has been instrumental in identifying potential donors who were previously overlooked,” said Bhana. “By analyzing the database, this tool flagged individuals with higher giving capacities and those who had contributed significantly to other organizations. This allowed us to fill gaps in our donor lists and target individuals more effectively for our fundraising campaigns.”

Vecova has a wide spectrum of loyal supporters, but many of them often weren’t flagged in the database for major gift portfolios because they were making multiple smaller gifts throughout the year. And with gift officers previously relying mostly on word of mouth to identify major gift prospects, most of those individuals likely would have gone unnoticed. Within the first few months of using Prospect Insights, Bhana and her team had qualified 72 major gift prospects. Four of those donors agreed to give matching gifts as part of the organization’s Giving Tuesday campaign.

“Prospect Insights has streamlined the process of assigning prospects to fundraisers, and our development team can now easily tag opportunities, create actions, and assign records to specific fundraisers based on the insights provided,” said Bhana. “This has led to more personalized and effective donor engagement. One donor identified made an online gift of $5,000 following an initial outreach who otherwise wouldn’t have been on our radar.”

Best Giving Tuesday Matching Donation Performance to Date
Achieved with Prospect Insights

Informing Future Efforts

Vecova is going through a time of change, and Bhana sees Prospect Insights playing a key role in their future success.

“As we prepare to close the doors to our main building and move to a new space, we are utilizing Prospect Insights to help us determine who we need to speak with personally and how we can best assign prospects to ensure strong lines of communication with our partners and supporters,” said Bhana. “Thanks to a more rigorous prospect management system supported by Prospect Insights, we are seeing a continual increase in giving and more people rallying around us as we work to create a more inclusive community for people with disabilities.”