Wealth Screening: Not a Capital Campaign Silver Bullet (But It Can Help)

Wealth screening can be a helpful arrow in your capital campaign quiver.

However, it’s not a silver bullet.

It won’t magically uncover a hidden millionaire down the street who’s been waiting to bankroll your building project. And it definitely won’t save a campaign that lacks strong relationships and a clear case for support.

Still, many nonprofits go into a wealth screening process with unrealistic expectations. They think it will tell them exactly who to ask, for how much, and when. They hope it’ll surface wealthy strangers in their city who have never donated but might be interested. That is not how this works.

Let’s break this down.

What Wealth Screening Is Good For During Your Campaign

When used appropriately, wealth screening is a smart way to validate and prioritize the people you already know:

1. Your current donors.
2. Your board members.
3. Longtime volunteers.
4. The alum who shows up to every reunion.
5. The family behind the foundation that’s been giving quietly for years.

These are the folks most likely to support your campaign because they already care.

Who Can Give More to Your Capital Campaign?

Wealth screening helps you figure out whether they can give more. It gives you a capacity estimate so you can fine-tune your gift range chart or adjust ask amounts for one-on-one solicitations. That’s valuable.

It’s also helpful at key points in your campaign timeline. For example:

• Before a feasibility study, to identify who to include in your interview pool
• Before the quiet phase, to see who in your database might be capable of an upgrade to a larger gift
• During cultivation, to make sure your top prospects are prioritized appropriately

Used this way, wealth screening is a tool to inform your work, not replace it.

What Wealth Screening Won’t Do For Your Campaign

Wealth screening is not prospecting. It won’t introduce you to brand-new people who are rich and interested in your cause. It doesn’t assess interest at all. That is still your job, through relationship-building, donor conversations, and personalized outreach.

The most common misuse of wealth screening is looking for wealthy people in your city and assuming that is your new campaign lead list. It is not. Wealth means nothing without a connection. Just because someone has capacity does not mean they will give, or that they care. Worse, chasing strangers because they “look good on paper” wastes time and makes your campaign feel transactional.

That kind of approach also signals a misunderstanding of how philanthropy works. Major gifts don’t come from mailing lists or LinkedIn searches. They come from trust, commitment, and a shared vision. Wealth screening doesn’t measure those things; it augments them.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Another problem? Many nonprofits run a wealth screen without cleaning up their data first. Records are incomplete. Addresses are outdated. Names are misspelled. Then they wonder why the results look off.

The quality of your screening results depends entirely on the quality of the data you feed it. If your CRM is a mess, you’re going to get a lot of false positives and dead ends.

How to Ensure Your Records are in Good Shape

Before you run a screen, make sure your constituent records are in good shape. At a minimum:

• Use full names (including middle initials) and correct spelling
• Invest in data services to get accurate contact info, like mailing and email addresses
• De-dupe records and merge duplicates
• List spouses together rather than in separate records

A clean database makes your screening results far more reliable and saves you the embarrassment of calling a prospect who moved away ten years ago.

Use It as One Input, Not the Whole Formula

Wealth screening should be part of a larger strategy — not the strategy. It gives you clues, not conclusions. It can help you prioritize who to talk to, but it cannot tell you what to say, when to ask, or what matters to each donor.

For that, you need real donor conversations.

Pair screening data with what you know about each prospect’s giving history, engagement level, relationships with staff and board, and connection to your mission. Combine it with qualitative insights from feasibility study interviews or one-on-one meetings. Use it to test assumptions, but don’t let it drive decisions in a vacuum.

Your campaign success still depends on fundamentals — a compelling case, a thoughtful plan, strong leadership, and a commitment to personal outreach. Wealth screening can sharpen your focus, but it cannot substitute for those core elements.

Final Thought

If you think your campaign is going to rise or fall on your ability to identify rich people, you’re missing the point. Philanthropy isn’t about wealth — it’s about willingness. And that only comes through relationships.

Use wealth screening to support your capital campaign. But do not expect it to do the work for you.