Understanding the Opportunity Score

The Opportunity Score is a simple, powerful way to identify which supporters are most likely to engage or give in the future. It uses data already in your account—such as giving behavior, event participation, and influence—to generate a score from 0 to 100. Higher scores indicate stronger philanthropic readiness and a higher likelihood of responding positively to outreach.

The final score is stored directly on each Contact record and displayed wherever you view that contact, allowing staff to prioritize follow-up activities with confidence.

How We Calculate the Opportunity Score

The Opportunity Score is made up of four behavioral categories. Each category contributes a certain number of points to the final score, with a maximum total of 100.

1. Giving History

We look at:

How recently the contact last gave
How frequently they have donated over their lifetime
Their total lifetime giving amount

More recent and consistent donors earn more points.

2. Event Activity

Because most organizations have a single major event each year, event engagement is a strong signal of future interest. Points are awarded based on:

Whether the contact attended this year’s event
Whether they’ve attended in previous years
Whether they served as a table host, sponsor, or purchased premium-level tickets

Event roles—especially hosting—carry meaningful weight in the score.

3. Influence Attribution

If your organization uses table hosting or tracked referral activity, the scoring model considers how many unique attendees or donors a person has influenced over the last three years.
People who influence more guests or purchases receive higher point values.

4. Engagement & Internal Roles

The final component of the score awards points for:

High engagement with your emails or digital content
Holding an internal role such as volunteer, board member, or committee participant

These signals help highlight supporters who are deeply connected to your mission.

**What the Opportunity Score Does Not Include Today**

To ensure clarity and reliability, the current Opportunity Score does not use any external wealth or capacity data. Specifically, it does not consider:

Wealth screening or donor capacity ratings
Real-estate assets, business ownership, or other financial indicators
Social media reach or influence outside your system

Instead, the score today is built entirely from activity inside your account, including:

Gifts and giving history
Event attendance and table hosting
Recorded influence attributions
Internal relationship roles (volunteer, staff, etc.)

This makes the score both transparent and explainable—users can easily understand why a contact scored the way they did.

Future Enhancements: Adding Wealth Information

Wealth and capacity indicators can be strong predictors of giving potential, and we plan to include them in Opportunity Score calculations in future releases. As integrations become available, these enhancements may include:

Wealth screening scores or rating tiers
Estimated giving capacity (e.g., “likely to give $10k+ over 5 years”)
Additional signals from trusted third-party data providers

When wealth data is added, it will become an additional scoring component, not a replacement for behavioral scoring. The goal is to allow organizations to benefit from both:

Behavioral signals (what the donor actually does), and
Capacity indicators (what the donor can potentially give)

Until those enhancements arrive, the Opportunity Score remains intentionally conservative, focusing solely on observable actions and relationships in your database.

Why This Matters

The Opportunity Score helps your team:

Prioritize cultivation efforts
Identify supporters with the strongest giving momentum
Spot rising prospects early
Organize meaningful follow-up after events

Because it’s recalculated automatically as new data comes in, the score always reflects the most up-to-date picture of each supporter.