Tag Archives: donor privacy

Organization Loses Donor Trust – With Data Breach!

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keyboard-895556_1920Whether it’s a personal story or a media headline, we’ve all heard of incidents where data was mishandled or misunderstood and donors felt betrayed. And yet, many development and advancement offices continue to place little value on their information and data.
When I followed up with one of the beta testers for the Prospect Research Institute’s first-ever online class, Introduction to Prospect Profiles, she told me how thankful she was for the opportunity to take the class. Now she knew for certain that prospect research was NOT for her and she would seek a different career. Why? She couldn’t delve into other people’s lives that much. Privacy was sacred to her.
I didn’t think too much of it, but since then two more students have expressed discomfort about privacy issues. Because, of course, we cover this in the class; we walk right out there to examine the legal and ethical edges of privacy in fundraising research.
Why are prospective prospect research professionals nervous about privacy?
Could it be they don’t trust organizations to do the right thing with information? You know fundraising is predicated on trust – donors trust us to use their money for the greater good. Staff must also trust the organization to use its data and resources appropriately.
When prospect research is treated as a clerical function, anyone can do it, low-paid, and not heard – that translates to the same message about the information prospect research finds. Quite a few of my course participants are self-paid. And then they learn how deep we researchers can go. And then they see the dark edges of ethics. And they get uncomfortable.

If you are in the development or fundraising office, you are in a position to begin changing the culture of respect and trust toward your organization’s data.

You can leverage prospect research to (a) manage information legally and ethically, (b) lead with diversity and inclusion, and (c) use data persuasively to raise more money. How? Let me count the ways!
  1. Data Management: Prospect Research Professionals are uniquely positioned to research and be a part of the team creating information management policies that ensure your data is used and maintained effectively. This is the era of Big Data and your researcher is versed in mining the gold from it.
  2. Data Protection:The more important data becomes, the higher the risk that it will be breached and erode your donors’ faith in your organization’s ability to protect their information. Your prospect research professional is your trusted guide, helping you to navigate and translate vendor and IT products and jargon. S/he is also the voice helping you to create different levels of data access, such as who can print profiles, with how much information in them, and do what with them.
  3. Non-Traditional Donors: We’ve been using wealth screenings effectively, but it’s time to recognize that this identification method is limited. Encourage your researcher to work with you to identify non-traditional indicators of wealth. That means conversations, but it also means assigning and actively pursuing those minority prospects, too. If there is wealth there, why are you ignoring them?
  4. Relationship Mapping: This is a broad term for what requires a great deal of sweat equity, but software is inching forward to make it better and faster. Understanding the relationships among your major gift donors could be a healthy disruption to your usual processes. Understanding and learning to leverage the power of your other donor groups’ relationships could transform your organization’s fundraising reach! If you are not building the capacity for fundraising analytics to discover patterns such as these relationships, you will be left behind.
  5. Persuade with Data: Yes, you can work with your prospect research professional to illustrate the data that answers questions and use this to persuade donors to give. Infographics are particularly popular. But let’s use data to put a stop to fickle fundraising. How many times do you change strategies based on “I feel” or “s/he said” or “they say”? Use your prospect research professional’s analytical prowess to methodically gather data of all kinds to help leadership form a strategy it can stick to – and win. Jason Briggs outlines this brilliantly in his article on international research.
I’ve had clients learn the hard way. Initially shocked by my prices, they come back when they receive shoddy work from someone who has low rates, but lacks the skills and resources. The value of really good prospect research becomes clear when you receive synthesized information that gives you direction to raise more money.
Your organization needs a well-trained prospect research professional with an excellent ethical compass. Are you driving your best hiring prospects away by sending the message that information is cheap and anyone can turn that information into fundraising action?

Data Privacy – Biting the Donor Hand

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On March 27, 2012, The New York Times ran two articles on its front page: “U.S. Agency Seeks Tougher Consumer Privacy Rules” and “Private Schools Mine Parents’ Data, and Wallets”. I was standing in line at Starbucks when it caught my eye. There have been a number of similar privacy-gone-awry stories in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers across the country and it seems to be intensifying.

As a professional fundraiser, prospect researcher and donor, this news tactic hits a raw nerve. Yes, data and privacy issues should be reaching a crescendo as the online activities of great masses of people are creating a less-than-regulated world of data collection and sale across the U.S. and around the globe. But why pick on not-for-profit organizations especially?

Donor trust is the backbone of not-for-profit organizations. Without community support an organization is derailed and its mission discounted. This means that when an organization abuses donor or public trust, it is a very juicy news story indeed. But what kind of data transactions are really going on behind closed doors and what can donors do to ensure their favorite organizations are behaving appropriately?

Online activity in social media, shopping, gaming, reading and so many other activities has reached a critical scale. The numbers of participants are so big that meaningful information can be extracted from our behavior as it is tracked online and offline. For-profit companies are beginning to make exceptional use of this opportunity, as one might imagine. In 2011, The Economist magazine suggested how Europe’s Tesco appears to be using its retail sales information from loyalty cards to inform its recent auto insurance underwriting.

But not-for-profit organizations are not selling you a widget and are not involved in helping you get insurance. Not-for-profit organizations are attempting to achieve a mission of value to fulfill needs in your local or global community. They are data-mining to more efficiently raise money and that should translate into lower costs and higher dollars in gifts. Overwhelming, donors tell organizations that they want less money spent on “costs”; they want organizations to be efficient, just like the for-profit world.

What do we like about our favorite for-profits? They deliver good product, they treat us well (if not great), and we trust them. Same goes for not-for-profits. Except that trust takes on a much deeper meaning. Not-for-profits help those most vulnerable in the world and therefore they must be beyond reproach. Added to that is that I am GIVING them my hard-earned dollars!

Most data-mining efforts in the not-for-profit world attempt to prioritize donors and prospects so that those “most likely to be interested” and those “most able to make a gift” are approached for all of the different activities of the organization. This ranges from mail appeals, event invitations, online and offline content development, and, yes, major gift prospect initiatives.

Data-mining fails the donor (and the organization) in two primary situations:

  1. When the information is wrong – common names and other circumstances foil the best systems and the most skilled researchers
  2. When the fundraising program is not operating effectively

The donor needs to pay the most attention to item #2. As a donor or prospective donor, if you ever feel disrespected, insulted or otherwise uncomfortable you have to ask yourself: Is this the way in which the entire organization operates? The two premier associations for fundraisers and prospect researchers provide guidelines for the ethical treatment of donors and all the information wrapped around them. You can check them out here: AFP and APRA.

If you trust the board of directors, adore the program staff and witness the terrific results of the organization, why would you be worried about their data-mining practices? Most likely it would never cross your mind — until you pick up The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. And a professional fundraising office, like the one at your favorite not-for-profit, would be more than happy to discuss its data-mining, data collection and data privacy practices with you.

I would rather the news focus on for-profit companies and their secretive and very profitable data-mining practices, but if they are going to pick on not-for-profits — well, let’s use this as an opportunity to have some great discussions with our favorite not-for-profits and our favorite donors. Transparency in the not-for-profit world is the best weapon to secure and defend donor trust!

If you have a story about how you have used privacy concerns to have a reassuring conversation with your not-for-profit or your donor, please share! Those are the kinds of stories I wish the newspapers would include in their articles – even if they only drop them in at the end. We want fair representation!

Sources:

For a fun 7-minute video on Privacy and Prospect research, click the movie below:

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