6. Tracking activities - g) Record a prospect note

Prospect notes are used to record insights and decisions that arise at any stage of prospect development. Whenever a prospect is first identified or additional insights about a prospect are obtained from Board members, staff, donors or other sources, a prospect note should be created.

Specifically, prospect notes are used to track the following types of information:

Prospect insights
  • the person who identified or reviewed the prospect or from whom the information originated
  • insights on the prospect’s likeliness to give to Tides Canada or their potential alignment with specific Tides Canada programs, services or projects
  • tactically relevant insights about the prospect (e.g. information about their relationships, financial capacity, motivations, personal or philanthropic interests)
  • the names of any individuals who have agreed to help us connect with, cultivate or solicit the prospect; and the specific actions they have agreed to take in helping us to approach the prospect
  •  recommended next steps for approaching the prospect (e.g. actions a volunteer has agreed to take; other people to ask about the prospect)
Prospect decisions
  • an internal decision that may impact the strategy for a given opportunity, including changes to ask amount, designation, stage, probability, or close date.
  •  who made this decision, the rationale, and any other relevant contextual information

The recommended process for creating a Prospect Note is as follows:

  1. Open the relevant opportunity record that the activity you wish to record is related to
  2. If the Chatter feed for the opportunity is hidden, press Show Feed.
  1. Click More button and select Prospect Note
  1. The Prospect Note quick action interface will appear
  1. Set values for the following key fields:
    • Due Date: the date the information recorded in the note was obtained or the date the internal decision explained in the note was obtained
    • Name: if the information about the prospect was obtained from a third party (e.g. a Board member or another donor), select the contact record for that third party here. If the information was not provided by a third party, then you may choose the contact record for the person the information concerns.
    • Assigned To: the Tides Canada staff member who provided the information contained in the note
    • Comments: Record the content of your prospect note
  2. Press Create. The new task will immediately be visible in the Chatter feed. If you refresh the page, it will be visible in the Activity History related list.
  3. Optionally, if the content of the prospect note concerns a particular person (for example the prospect themselves or staff employed by the prospect), you may choose to associate the contact record of that person with the prospect note:
    • open your new task by clicking on the link the Chatter Feed
    • use the magnifying glass next to the Name field to open the Select Contacts window.  In the Search box enter the name of any additional contacts that you want to associate to the note . Select the correct contact in the lefthand pane, and press the add arrow (>) to add that contact. Repeat this process to relate the task to up to 50 contacts.
    • Press Save