Connections & similar donors
The Connections section shows who in your network knows a donor. This article covers strong vs. potential connections, building your network, and Similar Donors.
The Connections section shows who in your network knows a donor. This article covers strong vs. potential connections, building your network, and Similar Donors.
DonorAtlas maps relationships between donors — shared boards, employers, schools, and households — and shows you who in your network knows each donor, right on their profile. Let's walk through the Connections section, and then Similar Donors, which helps you find more prospects like one you already love.
The walkthrough below opens on the Connections section of Eric Schmidt's profile. Strong connections come first, then potential ones. Click the +1 chip or See All to see every connection and the relationship behind it.
Strength is how likely a relationship is to lead to a real introduction. Serving on a board together is a strong connection; having once worked at the same large company is only a potential one. Strong connections appear in the blue banner, and potential ones in the gray bar below it.
Example: you're preparing an ask for a major prospect. Check the Connections section first — if a board member knows them, ask for an introduction instead of reaching out cold!
If we don't find any connections, the section doesn't appear on the profile. That usually just means your network is small so far, not that the donor is unreachable.
Add more people to your network. Your network is the set of people who can make introductions for your organization — board members, major donors, well-connected volunteers. The more people you add, the more connections appear across every profile. See Managing your network.
The Similar Donors section sits at the very bottom of every profile. It lists people who match this donor on signals like overlapping giving, shared boards and schools, and comparable net worth. Every match shows the specific reason it was surfaced — also donates to, also sits on the board of, also attended, or a comparable net worth — so you can judge the match yourself.
Example: you just found a perfect prospect for your campaign. Scroll to Similar Donors and turn that one donor into a whole list of prospects like them!
Save the strongest matches to a list. Before you leave the profile, add the best similar donors to a list so you can come back to them later — see Managing lists.
Next comes the biggest section of the profile: Net Worth — how DonorAtlas estimates what a donor is worth, and how to use it to size an ask.