Finding Potential Donors and Influencers for Political Campaigns

It seems like we're in a never ending cycle of elections. Which candidates and issues win will often come down to which campaigns raise the most funds and garner word of mouth from influencers. Building a healthy campaign requires a continual effort to identify prospective new donors. It can be a demanding task, but Nexis® makes the process easier and more productive.

Here’s a quick glimpse at just one way our powerful donor research tool can help your campaign find new champions—and earn more votes.

Find prominent donors in any location

When hunting for prospective donors and influencers who your campaign doesn’t yet know, we recommend using our Power Search feature. While you can, of course, select any number of sources from which to pull information, searching in our Biographies and Newsworthy Person directories is a great way to find those who meet your donor profile. More specifically, a terrific place to start is with our large database of prominent, and often financially well-off, individuals in The Complete Marquis Who’s Who® Biographies.

This is an ideal opportunity to deploy the seemingly magical powers of our “and connectors” tools. For instance, you can search for people by political affiliation and, say, a particular geographic location. Or maybe you want to find politically active people who also have medical degrees. Our tool makes it easy to identify people whose biographies mention all your key terms, increasing your odds of identifying prospects who will respond to your donor appeal.

MORE: Search like a pro with these Nexis pro tips

Locate unknown donors who align with your mission

As experienced political operatives know, there are many people who don’t necessarily identify with a specific political party or policy matter, but whose tangential interests and concerns are such that they would likely be receptive to a particular fundraising pitch. Nexis makes finding these less obvious prospects much easier.  

Think about the typical demographics of your most loyal and generous donors and use those insights to help formulate your searches. For instance, some colleges and universities have reputations for attracting people of a particular political persuasion, so search for alumni from those institutions.

Another example: search for people who are somehow connected with other candidates similar in political persuasion to yours. Don’t forget to search for people associated with companies, clubs and organizations whose missions align with your candidate’s platform or your policy’s aims.

MORE: Top 4 Features Every Donor Research Software Needs

Do donor due diligence research

Once you identify a potential influencer or donor who fits your profile, searching through executive contact data can uncover more details about them, such as additional business and philanthropic connections. Run their names against news to determine if a potential donor has any unflattering baggage with which your campaign would rather not be associated.

Use the right donor research tools

Raising money for political campaigns often comes down to finding just the right people who share your campaign’s particular vision for a better society. Nexis for Development Professionals finding political donors easy with large databases and efficient search tools to help you identify the right champions for your campaign, so you can focus on an election night win. Schedule a demo today!