Category Archives: Uncategorized

desk with coffee and laptop and picture of jen filla

Upskill your Development Team with Research – Without Breaking the Budget!

Research in Fundraising, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

When people hear “prospect research” they often assume that prospect research is a software or using Google to find things like company bios or, sometimes, that it is an employee that creates prospect profiles. Usually, the definition relates to the kind and scale of development operations they have been exposed to. And, really, everyone is as correct as they are wrong!

When we consider the growth of an organization from start-up to raising billions of donor dollars, the core of prospect research is the act of better understanding your donors through data and information.

Even if you have the luxury of a full-time, prospect research professional, everyone on the development team needs to be good at some basic prospect research skills. And if you don’t have the luxury of having a prospect research professional on staff, there are great ways to upskill existing staff to provide additional research support.

Finding contact and occupation

When it comes to personally asking a donor for a gift – most often in a mid-level or major gift program – the first thing you need is contact information: address, phone, email, or social media.

Hand-in-hand with contact information is the donor’s occupation. Occupation is useful for a few reasons:

  • Finding business contact information is easier and usually more accurate.
  • Psychologically, at work we probably expect to be contacted by people we don’t know more than at home.
  • Especially in higher education, development officers can connect with donor prospects on LinkedIn, if appropriate.
  • Occupation is a quick and easy indicator of likely wealth.

Everyone on the development team needs to be good at finding basic information about donors and this is why Aspire and the Prospect Research Institute created the booklet, Search Tips for Fundraising Research.

Search Tips book cover

This 15-page booklet introduces the five fundamental building blocks for fundraising research and gives you tips, tricks, and resources to find what you need. Purchase your copy today!

Information is great – when it’s accurate!

Once everyone is upskilled on basic search —  from the president’s assistant to major gift officers to the database administrator and beyond – it’s time to address whether the information everyone is finding is correct.

The proliferation of misleading and outright erroneous information can be overwhelming. As anyone who has clicked through a scam email knows (and c’mon, we’ve all fallen for one at least once!), when you’re busy, stressed, or preoccupied, it’s difficult to maintain a critical, watchful eye for discrepancies or take the time to double-check information.

At Aspire, we were once asked to perform due diligence research on a donor prospect with whom the organization was in negotiations for a major gift. Beyond reputational risk, the question was whether he actually had the wealth he claimed to have.

It was super challenging! Why? Because the information we sourced seemed to be in a perpetually unconfirmable loop. For example, what appeared to be a published interview was really his own blog article. Live media interviews only seemed to cite information that he had seeded in his biographies and multitude of websites.

And the worst? He claimed to have bought out dozens of bankrupt companies – all incorporated in Delaware with no owner information published!

After hours of creative searching, we finally found the fatal flaw and it was in plain sight. If you tried to purchase any of the products or services on offer through the various companies there was either no option to purchase on the website or no physical address to visit.

Finding accurate information is so important, the Prospect Research Institute created a FREE course to educate your development team (and anyone really) – Solid Intel.

Solid Intel Course

Solid Intel is a multi-module course teaching you how to evaluate sources critically and feel confident in the accuracy of the information you present. Fun quizzes test your comprehension. Share with your team and Enroll Today.

Wealth and philanthropy indicators

If your organization needs deeper research to support major gifts and hasn’t had this support previously, you may want to upskill an existing staff member, such as a development coordinator or database administrator.

You probably have a few specialty tasks you’d like this person to accomplish, such as the following:

  • Identify major gift prospects from the database
  • Provide prospect profiles prior to solicitation
  • Help coordinate moves management for the team

Leveraging your existing staff member or hiring someone at entry level can be economical and helps build internal capacity for upgrading donors and moving toward major gifts. In the past, training a staff member on prospect research support for the growing nonprofit was challenging.

Prospect research industry conferences are expensive and dominated by sophisticated healthcare and higher education environments. Webinars and local conferences offer tidbits, but usually don’t give your researcher key skills with step-by-step instruction on how to apply the skills to their work.

Recognizing the need, Aspire developed a course at the Prospect Research Institute specifically for the nonprofit researcher that needs to do all the research things – and at an economical price.

The Essentials for Successful Fundraising Research course is at least 7 to 8 weeks of on-demand content with a downloadable textbook, homework feedback, ability to earn a digital badge demonstrating competency, and 12 months of monthly group coaching. Give your organization the research edge. Enroll Today!

Growing your Fundraising with Research

When your development team has the information it needs, big things – and gifts – can happen!

  • Routine stewardship can happen with better contact information
  • Stewardship calls can turn into major gift prospect qualification
  • Donors can be moved more methodically toward larger gifts
  • Deeper information can give development officers greater confidence to ask for larger gifts

Upskilling your development team doesn’t have to break the bank. Aspire, through the Prospect Research Institute, has created a variety of training options to meet your needs at affordable prices.

What are you waiting for?
Visit the Institute now!

 

Avoid the Rabbit Hole? When to Stop Searching.

Avoid the Rabbit Hole? When to Stop Searching.

Uncategorized

How many times have you heard a prospect research professional tell a story about how they dug just a little deeper out of curiosity and found the key piece of information that their gift officer used to make a successful solicitation?

We all want to be the hero researcher who expertly identifies the right information. But the truth is that most of the profile research we do is pretty routine. And for many of us craving the excitement of a scintillating find, we spend far too much time unraveling threads of information that have no substantial benefit to our work.

Continue reading Avoid the Rabbit Hole? When to Stop Searching. →
This year I tested out a new work schedule that included four weeks of no meetings. I scheduled them in two-week blocks of time. It didn’t go smoothly. But it did give me a new perspective on the remote vs. hybrid vs. in-office debate. Because I remember way back to when I first switched from multi-tasking work as an administrative assistant and then program manager to a full-time prospect research role. It was a challenge to sit still all day and work on the computer. I broke up the hours by regularly getting up from my desk to refill my water glass. Decades later I need to do concentrated work again, but only some of the time. Most of my days are spent in and out of meetings and writing short items such as emails and proposals. This makes it difficult to block out the hours of time it takes for content creation (such as new educational content) or planning. Both of these tasks require uninterrupted concentration – much like prospect research. This led to my plan for two weeks of uninterrupted, concentrated work in August and November. The goal was to complete everything on task for the current year and jump ahead on the next year. And I did get a good chunk of that work completed. But it was a struggle. First, I have no-one to back fill my position when I am unavailable. Telling a potential customer or a current client that they have to wait two weeks or more to speak to me doesn’t go over very well. Second, there was a flurry of activity that I did not anticipate and had to stop and act. But something else happened during this experiment. I lost touch with my team. We are a fully remote team and always have been. I was on the computer all day during each hiatus. So, what am I talking about? Sure, I was available via Teams and was monitoring email, but there were many hour delays as I willfully ignored both in my pursuit of concentration. But the biggest cause of disconnect for me was losing all of the “little” conversations. I could check our work queue anytime online. I still had access to everything as usual if I wanted it. But I did not participate in our routine weekly meetings. This can be a really good thing occasionally because it shakes up team dynamics and allows different people to step up. And yet, after two weeks I felt really disconnected. I use the word “disconnected” because access to information did not give me access to how people on my team were feeling or what they were facing at work or in their private lives. Text messages and emails don’t convey much in the way of emotion. In addition to the emotional disconnect, there was no-one for me to bounce ideas off of or share some of the content and plans I had developed. I had no feedback loop. My team isn’t shy about dishing out feedback and I value it highly. Many a gaffe has been avoided and good ideas get way better. Which brings me to the remote vs. hybrid vs. in-office debate. I have never quite understood why organizations wanted research staff to show up in an office when the work is very effectively executed, and pretty easily managed, remotely. It is pretty clear that keeping remote teams emotionally connected and on task does require different behavior from being in the office. My exercise in unplugging from meetings had me really thinking about the raging debate over where to work, following in no particular order: • Work-appropriate emotional connection is critical no matter where the team is working and is often done poorly everywhere. It’s about building personal rapport among all team members and creating a culture of healthy communication. Without it, false assumptions can run amok – especially in a text-only environment. • Ditto for onboarding new team members. Maybe it’s easier to pop over to someone’s cubicle in the office and check on progress navigating online and offline, but wherever it happens, the intensity of supporting a new team member is easy to ignore, most especially when that person is added to a team already over its capacity! It requires remembering to do frequent check-ins and when remote, requires scheduling them. • Training team members new to the role is a special challenge and to do it well remotely requires a clear and deliberate understanding of what is needed. For example, how do you set up a solo researcher, with no previous experience, for success in an all-remote environment? Multiple layers of learning are usually needed – hard skills in research, fundraising, and navigating the organization’s systems, as well as soft skills navigating the political culture. Solo researchers need to be able to explain their work and manage leadership’s expectations about their work. That’s a tall order for a new researcher. Heck, it’s a pretty wide mix of skills for an experienced researcher. • Meetings matter. The opportunity to get to know team members requires small talk and sharing about things that are and are not work. What used to be affectionally known as “water cooler chat” may have served this purpose in the office. But remote work requires intentionally creating boundaries around this to respect personal privacy and limit it to an appropriate amount of time. • Well-run meetings matter. I need to work on better agendas to create a cadence for how work is accomplished each quarter and each year. After listening to The Economist podcast, Boss Class, I want to be sure every item on the agenda is marked one of these three things: (1) make a decision, (2) provide input, or (3) build awareness. • Hybrid work baffles me. I understand why it’s ideal for a team to meet live and in-person at some point, but it would seem that it might require an even more choreographed effort to work well in a hybrid environment than either all in-office or all remote. Being in-person is not a substitute for intentional team building or successful collaboration across teams or departments. And hybrid anything, such as concentrated tasks and short tasks, requires a “gear shifting” that results in lost momentum. • Is there a replacement for the synchronous work environment? Is it useful to work alongside team members on a video call for the opportunity to ask questions and make comments in real time? This sounds awkward to me, but new things often are. This may be an experiment for our team in 2024! • Two weeks is too long without someone to back fill my position and active work requires connection with the team. It would be easier to block off one or two days at a time or even swap a weekend day. The experiment continues! And indeed, the experiment continues across the workforce as companies swing wide from forced all-remote during the pandemic to forced return to the office years later. If this article has you thinking about how you work or how you want to work, I hope you’ll consider sharing your thoughts on the debate. The more thoughtful voices there are speaking, the better the solutions we can create!

Reflections on Working the Research Life

Uncategorized

This year I tested out a new work schedule that included four weeks of no meetings. I scheduled them in two-week blocks of time. It didn’t go smoothly. But it did give me a new perspective on the remote vs. hybrid vs. in-office debate.

Because I remember way back to when I first switched from multi-tasking work as an administrative assistant and then program manager to a full-time prospect research role. It was a challenge to sit still all day and work on the computer. I broke up the hours by regularly getting up from my desk to refill my water glass.

Continue reading Reflections on Working the Research Life →
Warning! These Discovery Visits Will Amaze You

Warning! These Discovery Visits Will Amaze You

Uncategorized

In my first prospect research job I was asked to identify new prospects for a satellite office. I found people who had recently made a pledge of $1,000 or more at a fundraising event as first-time donors. I did a little research and discovered they all lived in the same Florida neighborhood on a golf course. Bingo!

And yet, not a single one of those donors was called or visited.

Researchers complain all the time about these kinds of scenarios. But could we be contributing to the problem? What could we do to help make our development officers more effective?

A lot!

Continue reading Warning! These Discovery Visits Will Amaze You →
A.I., Fundraising, and Trust

A.I., Fundraising, and Trust

Uncategorized

Is there anything that artificial intelligence (AI) can’t help us do better, faster, and cheaper? Businesses and the fundraising profession have clearly embraced AI as evidenced by the articles, webinars, and courses springing up to teach us all how to use various AI tools. For example, Coursera has a course on using ChatGPT with Excel to clean up your data and Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy has a course entitled, “AI & Fundraising: Revolutionizing Your Fundraising Efforts.”

Many good things are coming out of AI models, but there is a dark side, too. Inevitably, bias creeps into our algorithms and decision-making processes. Bias can lead to unfair outcomes, damage an organization’s reputation, and even have legal consequences.

Continue reading A.I., Fundraising, and Trust →
My Aspire Research Group team member, Elisa Shoenberger, is fascinated by the topic of cryptocurrency and philanthropy. I like to say that she has “gone all Alice in Wonderland” on the subject – falling down rabbit holes and getting curiouser and curiouser. She has written more than 70 pages of a book – Volatile Opportunity: A Guide to Cryptocurrency and Fundraising to publish in August -- and will be presenting on topic at the Apra Prospect Development conference that starts on August 28, 2023, in Indianapolis. Now, it’s wonderful that she shares her passion through writing and speaking, but how relevant is cryptocurrency to prospect research consulting? Is she so bored at work that she fills it with writing and presenting? As it happens, at Aspire we are not consumed with researching donor prospects steeped in cryptocurrency, and we don’t offer nonprofits advice on cryptocurrency donations. What we are doing is always cultivating excellence in our work. At Aspire, three out of our seven core values apply directly to Elisa’s pursuit of cryptocurrency in philanthropy: • Embrace and drive change • Be adventurous, creative, and openminded • Be passionate and determined Allowing team members the time and head space to hone their superpowers levels up everyone on the team. No one ever fully masters research. There are far too many ways to accumulate and give away wealth, and the speed of change driven by information technology is breathtaking. It’s easy to pile on the work assignments and to be proud of leaping over mounds of profiles in a single bound, or persuading staff to adopt a new database process by making them believe it was their idea. But there is a right-sized workload for a healthy mind. And a healthy mind is required for excellence. As the subject matter expert on crypto on our team, Elisa brings all of us up to her level of excellence on the topic – from which we can all move on to greater heights. This happens in a number of ways: • When a team member is struggling on a project, the struggle can be brought to the team chat for input from others and the bridge is made to complete the work. • During our weekly assignments meeting, discussion happens over the previous week’s work and information, experiences, and ideas take center stage. • Our “rabbithole” meetings spotlight individual team members – teaching a new skill, sharing a new tool, practicing a client presentation – or working as a team through a skill building exercise from the Prospect Research Institute. But if we aren’t researching a lot of donors with cryptocurrency, how is that topic helpful? I’m so glad you’re paying such close attention to ask! One of the greatest superpowers a researcher can have is unlimited curiosity. And that curiosity leads to creativity, which leads to innovation. The “kryptonite” to that superpower is overwork, stress, not enough autonomy, or the requirement that everything be “relevant!” I can’t predict whether or not cryptocurrency will become a hot sector to know in the same way alternative investments are, but thanks to Elisa, if it does catch fire, I will recognize and understand it! If you want your team to achieve excellence, you can’t afford NOT to take time for falling down rabbit holes. Shameless plug: If you’re attending Apra PD this year, attend Elisa’s presentation and ask her for a business card: Volatile Opportunity: Cryptocurrency in Fundraising

Going all ‘Alice’ on Crypto – and Excellence

Uncategorized

My Aspire Research Group team member, Elisa Shoenberger, is fascinated by the topic of cryptocurrency and philanthropy. I like to say that she has “gone all Alice in Wonderland” on the subject – falling down rabbit holes and getting curiouser and curiouser.

She has written more than 70 pages of a book – Volatile Opportunity: A Guide to Cryptocurrency and Fundraising to publish in August — and will be presenting on topic at the Apra Prospect Development conference that starts on August 28, 2023, in Indianapolis.

Continue reading Going all ‘Alice’ on Crypto – and Excellence →

Dog Days of Summer Research

Uncategorized

In Florida, summer starts in May. By June the pool has turned into a bath. By July the pool has become a hot tub! Whether I’m sitting by the pool or in and out of the pool, I like to take advantage of the summer heat to explore and re-think all the research things. And that means reading, watching, and getting training.

Because I really can sit outside under the shade of the umbrella and watch a training video, or read a book while floating in the pool, or focus on thinking through a problem while swimming laps. New thoughts are sparked when I physically re-locate away from my office.

So, instead of the traditional summer reading list, I’m suggesting a summer research adventure list!

Continue reading Dog Days of Summer Research →

Can you really turn words into bigger gifts? Yes!

Uncategorized

Finance Industry Series Part 5 of 5

How you, the prospect research professional, write up your prospect profile affects the eventual solicitation – especially when it comes to complex prospects in the financial field. Do you find that difficult to believe? Or are you nodding your head right now and feeling validated? And if you are a development officer, isn’t it incredibly helpful when you don’t need a dictionary and Wikipedia to understand what’s in the profile? Of course it is!

I get it. As a fundraising research professional you want to be accurate. You prefer having a source to cite and a formula to generate a value. But researching people and professions has never been as simple as working through a checklist – and never will be.

Continue reading Can you really turn words into bigger gifts? Yes! →

Affinity first or ‘Why is my prospect not on the Forbes list?’

Uncategorized

Finance Industry Series Part 4 of 5

Why is my prospect not on the Forbes list?

It can be tough to keep billions quiet. So why is it that although we in prospect research identify people that seem to be likely billionaires, we find them absent from the prominent Forbes listing?

And while I have been focused on the Forbes World’s Billionaires List, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index feels more aligned with us in prospect research – it’s conservatively calculated and the write-up for each individual is presented carefully and quite thoroughly.

Continue reading Affinity first or ‘Why is my prospect not on the Forbes list?’ →