Tag Archives: donor research

Net Worth: Nasty, Nice, or Neutral?

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cash-1169650_1280There was a cry for help on the PRSPCT-L list-serv: “I’m a new researcher and my boss wants me to provide net worth on a prospect. He says it was the previous practice to do this and I can get what I need to calculate it from Dun & Bradstreet.” What would your response be?

To begin, a simple definition of net worth follows:

Assets – Liabilities = Net Worth

The Three Common Responses to Net Worth

If you mention “net worth” in the prospect research field, you will likely hear one of the following three responses:

  1. Don’t do it! Or you will be voted off the prospect research island!
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    The argument against estimating net worth is usually this: If we cannot find or know the values of all assets and liabilities (which of course we cannot), then we have no business estimating net worth. This is often a strong, unequivocally held opinion.
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  2. Hide that you are doing it by using another term or keep it behind the capacity rating calculation.
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    This is the most common practice in our field. Instead of using the words “estimated net worth”, researchers rephrase with a term such as “estimated wealth”. Even more common is to use the results of wealth surveys, such as the chart on page 19 of the Capgemini 2016 World Wealth Report, to estimate net worth based on a known asset such as real estate and then take a percentage of estimated net worth as the gift capacity.
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  3. Boldly present estimated net worth.
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    There are researchers who feel comfortable presenting estimated net worth. Some provide disclaimers or educational explanations to communicate better generally or to clarify outlier situations.

Easy Formula, Tricky Calculation

Assets – Liabilities = Net Worth

The formula looks so simple, but this is deceptive. As prospect research professionals we know that we can’t discover and value all of a prospect’s assets or liabilities. It is the reason we use the word “estimated.”

Among the challenges in estimating net worth, there are two that jump out quickly:

  1. Many assets (and liabilities) are troublesome to value – none more than private company ownership.
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    I have discussed the difficulty of private company valuation before. A common route to wealth is to start a private business, and many of these successful entrepreneurs want to “give back”, among other motivations for giving.
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    And it brings us back to our fellow researcher’s list-serv plea. Dun & Bradstreet (DNB) sells data, including estimated values of a private companies. Assuming we know how much of that company our prospect owns, we could use the DNB dollar amount to estimate the prospect’s ownership value. Or could we? DNB uses its own formulas to estimate and can be very far off the mark.
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  2. Are we talking about titled ownership such as a name on the deed, or influence over money, such as sitting on a grant-giving family foundation board?
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    Our prospect could be a child of a wealthy family with very few public assets identified. And yet, we may find she has influence over millions of dollars in a family foundation. Estimated net worth and gift capacity clearly diverge at this point. You might estimate a low net worth, but still consider her to have a million dollar gift capacity because of her influence over grant giving.

Logic and Emotion – Let them Collaborate!

There is nothing simple about money. Money is one of the most emotionally volatile topics you can discuss, and those emotions flow into the workplace. Addressing your own emotions and biases about money is the first step.

You might want to seriously consider whether your difficulty imagining the wealth of multi-billionaires is affecting your ability to logically estimate net worth or gift capacity – and whether you have negative emotions attached to great wealth accumulation. Emotions are not your enemy. Ignoring them is.

Now you are ready to balance how you and your gift officers “feel” about your prospect’s potential wealth with the logical, quantifiable assets and liabilities found in the public domain.

Following are the most frequently used tools or ratings:

  • Estimated Net Worth
  • Gift Capacity Range
  • Affinity (how close they feel to your organization)
  • Philanthropic Inclination (do they give at all?)
  • Linkage (how are they connected to your organization)

When used responsibly, estimated net worth is one more tool prospect research professionals can provide to assist frontline fundraisers in creating major gift solicitation strategies. Don’t be afraid to use it!

More Resources You Might Like

Capacity_Ratings_icon_v2

 

Join the Resource Collections online community to access this handout. Use it to facilitate discussion with your gift officers and leadership.

 

Fire your Prospect Researcher! Artificial Intelligence (AI) has arrived.

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For years now we’ve been told that Artificial Intelligence was going to take over prospect research tasks. Truth is, it has. Well, some of them anyway.

Consider wealth screenings. What used to take month after month of tedious, routine, baseline capacity rating work now takes less than an hour. Upload your file, it processes, and presto! You have gift capacity ratings on your prospects based on external wealth matches.

Or how about the user-friendly lookup tools, such as iWave’s PRO, that remove the first step of searching that prospect research professionals used to perform?

Does all of this mean prospect research is on the fast track for complete takeover by the machines? Should you fire your researcher? No way!

Artificial Intelligence has had a lot of hype over the years and very little real action – until now. A few events have led to some breakthroughs:

  • The internet has made vast amounts of data available, which can be used to train computers.
  • Graphical Processing Units (GPUs), the specialized chips used in PCs and video-game consoles to generate graphics, have been applied to the algorithms used in deep learning, a type of Artificial Intelligence.
  • Capacity to run GPUs can be rented from cloud providers such as Amazon and Microsoft, allowing start-ups to innovate.

Self-driving cars may still be on the horizon, but the bots are on the road already! They can schedule appointments on your calendar, draft replies to emails, and even read radiology imaging studies more accurately than a radiologist. The Economist describes the opportunity and threat quite succinctly as follows:

 “What determines vulnerability to automation is not so much whether the work concerned is manual or white-collar, but whether or not it is routine.” (6/25/2016)

 

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It’s easy to leap to the conclusion that prospect research professionals will lose their jobs to the machine – much of what we researchers do is routine – but that would be forgetting how machines have changed the world in the past.

Across the centuries, people have feared the march of the machines. In the late 1700’s to early 1800’s the Industrial Revolution rocked our world. As recently as the 1980’s, the rise of personal computers revolutionized the way we work. And with every introduction, much hand-wringing and predictions of unemployment were had.

How will prospect research professionals likely weather the advancing army of machine algorithms and programs?

Much the same as we adapted to wealth screenings and tools like iWave’s PRO. We learn new skills that wrap around the new technology. We leverage the new technology to work for us and for our fundraising team. We change the tasks we perform.

Prospect research professionals have a unique blend of skills. We can scan mountains of information and pull it together in a way that is meaningful for your specific need, whether that is creating a $5M gift strategy or a $5B campaign. We recognize the opportunities for our organizations in the data patterns the machine discovers.

If you want your organization to keep in step with the advances of machine learning, do NOT fire your researcher! Instead, reassure your prospect research professional of her value and insist that she take advantage of training that will give her the skills to use new technology. If you do this, she will be better able to guide you into new worlds, such as fundraising analytics … and beyond!

More Resources You Might Like

 

Prospect Profiles and Private Co. Valuation

4Researchers, , , , , , ,

customer-563967_1920How many times have you lamented: “Yet another prospect involved in the family business. The family’s privately-held business, that is. What valuation number am I going to pick out the air this time?!” We’ve all been there. Valuing private companies is a tricky business indeed (pun intended).

We know why so many of our prospects have ownership interest in private companies. According to a 2013 Forbes article:

  • Out of the 27 million firms in the U.S., nearly all are privately held.
  • Among the 5.7 million firms with employees, less than 1% have shares listed on a U.S. exchange.

So it’s no surprise that there are many firms specializing in valuing private companies. The need for a valuation could be a desire to buy or sell, investments looking to exit, or in anticipation of an initial public offering (IPO), among other reasons. Hoovers and Dun & Bradstreet may be among the best known search tools in our field, but there are many others. For example, Prospect Research Review did a product review report on PrivCo.

Law of Diminishing Returns

Before you dive deeply into any specialized research, consider the law of diminishing returns. At what point are the time and resources you spend going to outweigh the benefit? If your prospect qualification to gift ratio is 7:1, you could be spending twelve hours on a dud. Then again, if you are researching a prospect likely to give her largest gift ever to your organization, you want to be gung-ho!

You also want to consider the full wealth picture before you dive deeply into one piece of that wealth. If the prospect is listed on Forbes Richest People in America are you certain you need to spend hours valuing one or more companies owned by him or her?

Return on Education

You also want to consider your return on education. Why value one private company, when you could give yourself the foundation to value all kinds of companies in the future?

When you have a prospect that demands a deep dive into company valuation, do your research on how to make a valuation and keep notes so that you can apply what you learn to the next private-company-owner prospect.

Top 3 Private Company Valuation Resources

Following are some of my favorite resources for deciding how to create a valuation and a jump-start of links to get you finding the data:

  1. ARTICLE: Jarmuz, Bill. “Private Company Valuation for the Prospect Researcher” APRA Connections magazine, Jun 23, 2006, Membership Paywall
  2. WEBINAR: Lamb, David. “Refresh: How to Estimate Private Company Value – And Rate A Prospect With The Information” APRA on-demand, Members $49 | Non-members $79
  3. LINK LIST: Aspire Research Group LLC, Favorite Link List-Business, Free

 

More Resources You Might Like

3 Ways to Use Social Media for Smarter Fundraising

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Guest post by Kanwei Li, Double the Donation
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social media iconsHow often does your phone light up with a social media alert? Whether someone liked your picture on Instagram, retweeted that funny joke on Twitter, or commented on your latest Facebook status, you’re likely getting notifications of some kind.
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While social media is a powerful tool at the individual level, it’s also useful for organizations who are trying to raise more money.
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Gone are the days when all of your donors mailed in checks once a month. Many more are using technology like mobile giving and online donation forms to give to their favorite causes.

Check out the top three strategies for harnessing social media to fundraise more effectively.

And for more guidance on fundraising, check out Double the Donation’s Ultimate Guide!

1. Start asking for donations on Facebook.

Social media, and Facebook in particular, can be a great avenue to ask for and receive donations.

While you are likely already posting statuses to remind donors of how they can give to your organization, you can now receive contributions with a donation tab right on your Facebook page.

Of course, you won’t want to constantly be asking your followers for donations.

You should also use Facebook to:

  • Promote your events.
  • Let donors know about other ways to donate (like text-to-give).
  • Advertise for your upcoming fundraisers.
  • Praise your donors and volunteers.
  • Give updates about projects.
Asking for donations on Facebook is a great way to meet donors where they are. If you know that a majority of your donors use Facebook, encourage them to like your nonprofit’s page and interact with them on a regular basis.
According to a recent study, 84% of social media users share content on social media sites to show their support for a cause.
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With numbers like that, your nonprofit can’t afford to ignore Facebook and other social media sites as a way to ask for donations!

2. Use social media to stay in touch.

It’s vital that you use social media as a way to stay in touch with your advocates, donors, volunteers, and prospects.

It’s important to remember that social media is a dialogue, not a monologue. You aren’t just posting, tweeting, and commenting into a void.

Your supporters are interacting and talking to each other on these different platforms, and if your nonprofit wants to be part of the conversation, it’s crucial to be aware of what you’re posting.

  • You should be responding to donor messages on social media in a timely manner.
  • You should be liking or commenting on donors’ statuses that mention your organization.
  • You should be posting pictures of your volunteers and donors during events.
There are endless ways to connect with your supporters on social media. Find what works best for your organization, and get to work!

3. Promote corporate giving programs on social media.

Some of your biggest supporters may work for companies that will reward their gifts of money and time with matching gift programs and volunteer grant initiatives.

But your donors and volunteers might not know these programs exist at their jobs!

Your nonprofit can help by promoting corporate giving programs within your social media posts.

However, just like you don’t want to bombard donors with donation appeals on Facebook 24/7, keep your promotions of corporate giving programs to once or twice a week. The more saturated the information becomes, the more likely it will be tuned out.

Social Media Affects Everyone

Social media isn’t just for teenagers and millennials anymore. More and more people of all ages are looking to sites like Facebook and Twitter to interact with each other as well as nonprofits. Make sure that your organization is optimizing its fundraising potential with social media!

About the Author

kanweiLi

Kanwei Li is the CTO of Double the Donation. He has over 10 years of software development experience. He holds a master’s degree in Computer Science from Emory University and resides in Atlanta.

He is passionate about developing software to solve everyday problems.

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More Resources You Might Like

Prospect Research Perspectives on Social MediaEvery fundraising professional – whether a researcher, gift officer or vice president – needs to know how to harness information to achieve fundraising goals. Prospect Research Perspectives delivers the big picture and the details behind the ideas and trends in fundraising information.

4 Tips for Finding Major Donors for Your Next Capital Campaign

4Researchers, , ,

Guest Post by Ryan Woroniecki, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at DonorSearch

Before we dive headfirst into tips for finding major donors for a capital campaign, let’s briefly back up and discuss capital campaigns on the whole.

On a very general level, “A capital campaign is a combination of fundraising and outreach strategies that is designed to raise money for a specific need.”

On a more practical and concrete level, capital campaigns are most commonly associated with funding such projects as:

  • Building renovations
  • Purchasing pricey equipment and/or supplies
  • Acquiring new land
  • Fresh construction
  • Adding to an endowment
  • And other similar, large-scale endeavors

Needless to say, you can’t really think about organizing a capital campaign without having a strong system in place for securing major gifts. And that’s when you need prospect research.

This site is already brimming with excellent information about prospect research, so we’re not going to retread well-covered territory here.

Instead, we’re going to propose four key tips to help your organization find and cultivate major donors for your next capital campaign.

The four tips are as follows:

  1. Look to your annual fund.
  2. Reach out to your feasibility study participants.
  3. Seek out donors whose interests align with your campaign.
  4. Come up with creative ways of engaging your candidates.

Let’s get started.

1. Look to your annual fund.

DS_Aspire_Look to your annual fund

For the first point on this list, we’re going back to the basics.

We know that past giving is the greatest indicator of future giving. In fact, DonorSearch’s research found that a donor who has made a gift between $5k-$10k to a nonprofit organization is 5 times as likely to donate in the future as an average person is.

That correlation trickles down to donors of all giving levels, including your annual fund.

As you embark on your campaign’s quiet phase and attempt to secure roughly 70% of your goal before going public with your efforts, you should start your search by looking inwards. The proof is in the data.

Loyal, annual fund donors might be just the prospects you’re looking for. Cross-reference your list of annual fund donors with databases that can clue you in on donor wealth, and you could discover that some of your best major giving candidates were right under your nose.

For instance, someone who donates $500 regularly to your cause might have donated $5,000 to a political campaign. You won’t know until you look.

And once you find those donors, you can leverage the momentum behind your capital campaign’s timeline to encourage them to make those kinds of contributions towards your organization.

2. Reach out to your feasibility study participants.

DS_Aspire_Reach out to your feasibility study participants

A feasibility study is performed prior to an organization ever launching a capital campaign. During the study, the nonprofit surveys a group of around 40 community members to test the interest in and likelihood of success of their possible capital campaign.

What does this have to do with major donors?

A portion of the people you’ll be surveying for your feasibility study will be major giving prospects.

After the report is complete and you’ve decided to move forward with your campaign, consider reaching out to the study participants who:

  • Had a positive reaction to your campaign.
  • Are high-quality prospects.

In order to sift through the group and figure out whom your major gift officers should reach out to:

  • Perform a screening of your participants.
  • Find out who meets the wealth and affinity requirements.
  • Complete prospect profiles on those donors.
  • Pass the information along to the right fundraisers.

The donors on that list will have already given you affirmative feedback; don’t let their enthusiasm go unchanneled.

3. Seek out donors whose interests align with your campaign.

DS_Aspire_Seek out donors whose interests align with your campaign

One of the biggest benefits of fundraising for a capital campaign is that you are fundraising for a very specific purpose.

That specificity can make a huge difference in your ability to sway donors to contribute.

Take stock of your major donors and prospects. Then, use the information you’ve collected about them to segment them into groups that would or wouldn’t be interested in supporting your capital campaign’s particular cause.

Once you’ve done that, solicit major gifts from those who are most likely to be open to contributing to your campaign.

There are two benefits to this kind of selective segmentation:

  1. You’re making better use of the limited time and resources of your major gifts team.
  2. You’re offering support opportunities to those who are most likely to want to hear about them.

If you study your donor data with an eye for past giving patterns such as:

  • Frequency of giving
  • Average gift size
  • Common reason for giving
  • And so on

You’ll be able to piece together a solid list of prospects for your capital campaign’s major gift efforts.

Just remember, in order for this kind of selection to work, your prospect profiles are going to have to be top notch!

4. Come up with creative ways of engaging your candidates.

DS_Aspire_Come up with creative ways of engaging your candidates

The truth of the matter is, even when you find major giving prospects for your capital campaign, you’ll then have the challenge of cultivating and soliciting them.

You should certainly employ the standard solicitation best practices, but, as well all know, you really need to go the extra mile when it comes to major donors.

Especially with a capital campaign, where you’re under a strict timeline and chasing a firm goal, major gift solicitation is of the utmost importance.

That’s why this last tip emphasizes the need to find inventive ways of engaging your major donors.

What qualifies as creative is in the eye of the beholder, but suggestions include:

  • Asking your major donors to volunteer.
  • Seeing if they’re open to advocating for your cause.
  • Inviting them to special events.
  • And generally, any step you can take to make their time with your organization more meaningful.

When you go out of your way to engage with your major donors in a manner that other nonprofits aren’t taking the time to do, you set your capital campaign apart from the crowd.

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Capital campaigns take careful planning and a strong focus on the future. And your capital campaign simply won’t survive without a strong major gift showing during the quiet phase.

Take these tips, mix them with the ideas you’re already using, and go forth to secure that 70% of your fundraising total!

About the Author

ryanRyan Woroniecki is the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at DonorSearch, a prospect research, screening, and analytics company that focuses on proven philanthropy. He has worked with hundreds of nonprofits and is a member of APRA-MD. When he isn’t working, he is an avid kickball player.

 

More Resources You Might Like

Donor Research: A Two-Way Street

Focused Fundraising, ,

motorway-1033322_1920Guest post by James Gilmer, compliance specialist for Harbor Compliance

Just as fundraisers research prospective donors and new sources of funding, experienced donors also seek out worthy causes and charities in their communities. Your donors care about where their money is going, and they do extensive research before making a gift. One clear way to demonstrate your charity’s worth is through fundraising compliance. By staying on the right side of the law, and having the right people on the ground, you may find greater fundraising success!

The first thing to remember is that your donors research your charity and mission as much as you scout them (and their capacity to give). Experienced and first-time donors alike want to know their gifts support the cause you advertise, and make a difference in the community.

In other words, while prospect research is vital, it may not be enough. Your nonprofit has to look its best to prospective donors.

Your success begins with your cause, your people, and your “pitch.” Your fundraising researchers have done their homework, created comprehensive donor profiles, and have many tools at their disposal. At the same time, your frontline fundraisers probably have a packet of materials with your nonprofit’s work in the community, history, and reasons to give. Chances are, these individuals are enthusiastic go-getters with compelling stories (and a heck of a sales pitch). This human element can certainly win donations and recurring gifts from engaged individuals, yet you could find yourself losing donations and not even know it.

Charitable solicitation compliance is the backbone of your fundraising efforts. Many fundraisers and nonprofit executives believe that being 501(c)(3) tax exempt is enough to fundraise limitlessly. This misconception can lead you to lose out on grant funding, corporate donations, and your credibility. Forty-one states require your charity to file an additional registration before you solicit donations. Without registering, you could find your charity in violation of state and IRS law, but also in hot water with your donors.

Most states have an online database of charities, where anyone can research registered charities before they give. Experienced donors will do their research, as will corporations making their planned annual gift. If they see your charity is not registered or is delinquent, your chances of earning their donation and trust are lowered. When you apply for foundation or government grants, you’ll have to submit proof of registration along with your grant application. Without it, you may find your grant application held up or denied.

Charitable solicitation compliance may not be sexy, but it will help your nonprofit look its best to potential donors. Compliance affects everyone in an organization, so if this topic is new, be sure to review this Fundraising Compliance Guide. Your state has unique requirements in place to protect its citizens from unregulated charities. By staying on the right side of the law, you make your donors research, and their decision to give, that much easier.

James Gilmer is a compliance specialist for Harbor Compliance, which establishes 501(c) nonprofits and helps them stay compliant. Harbor Compliance assists charities in every state and several countries abroad. James serves on the Board for two nonprofits in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Connect with us: @HarborComply

3 Steps To Social Media Major Gift Prowess

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Were you aware that social media is a competitive edge in major gift fundraising? You must have heard by now how organizations are leveraging giving days and crowdfunding as well as incorporating social media into annual fund drives – but what about major gifts?

As a fundraiser who asks wealthy individuals to make gifts to your organization, deliberate and professional use of social media will not only separate you from the pack, it could put you in league with your prospects. It’s time to own your participation in social media!

Start with Prospect Research

If you have a prospect research professional on staff, it’s time to have a talk about social media. Agree on the social media sites you want to know about and ask your researcher if channel participation and user ID can be added to the profile, or better yet, put into a database field that can be pulled into a report.

prospect-research-perspectives

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To get on the same page with your colleagues, you could order copies of the Prospect Research Perspectives: On Social Media and have informal discussions about articles over lunch or coffee.

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Every organization has a unique constituency. Global and national statistics on social media use may or may not apply to your donors. As your prospects get researched, you will begin to see which social media channels are preferred.

Audit Your Personal Social Media Presence

You are probably on social media already. It’s time to audit your presence. Accept that there is no privacy online, no matter how diligent you are with your privacy settings. Decide how you want to be perceived – what your personal brand is – and make that uniform across every platform from LinkedIn to Facebook and beyond. Don’t underestimate the power of a professional head shot.

Consider what would happen if a seven-figure prospect invited you to connect on Facebook. What will your Facebook presence communicate to the prospect? You should also expect that prospects will explore your work history in places like LinkedIn.

You can get ahead of the requests and craft an action plan that will best demonstrate your personal brand and interests and your organization’s brand and giving priorities.

What does that mean? Take one channel at a time. Following are two easily accomplished examples that demonstrate channel-appropriate activity:

  • LinkedIn: Liz picks two days a week when she catches up on industry reading, posts about something she has read, and links to the article or commentary. Whenever she learns new information about a giving priority, she shares the related press release, video, or other content. She decides to write a short article this year about integrity in major gift fundraising to post on Pulse and have it show on her profile page.
  • Facebook: Liz uses Facebook to connect with friends and family, but colleagues and donors have requested to friend her. She’s a foodie and a country music fan so she decides that each time she goes out to eat or hear music she will find something unusual about the experience to share on Facebook. She also shares related articles, videos, and pictures on those topics. She still shares things like family and vacation items, but she’s careful not to share deeply personal information, saving that for offline. She posts occasional pictures from work events and office fun, too.

Now Get Your Edge On!

Once you know which social media channels have a critical mass of your prospects and donors, make sure you have an account on those social media sites. You can’t be everywhere, so choose carefully based on the data.

Now you are poised to use social media for cultivation. Many fundraisers successfully reach prospects through LinkedIn, but you could do much more.

When you discover a prospect is very active on one or more social media channels, connect with him or her there and regularly post content that is of interest to the prospect, as well as engage the prospect by sharing his or her content and making comments. This builds trust and rapport through genuine interactions – and all from your laptop, tablet, or smart phone.

Social media isn’t the way to reach out to every prospect, but if you polish your online brand and use prospect research to guide your social media activity you can sharpen your major gift edge.

#ResearchPride, Advocacy, and Me

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researchpriderainbowAre you proud of the work that you do? Do you get excited about solving information challenges at work? If so, why not take the opportunity this month to share your #ResearchPride?

Because I am proud of the work I do to support not-for-profit organizations, I advocate for the profession in many ways. But I wasn’t always an advocate. It happened over time. My hope is that by sharing my advocacy story with you, you might realize that you, too, have been an advocate for prospect research – probably without really thinking about it. And just maybe you will be inspired to share some #ResearchPride this month with all of us!

I am a Professional

Prospect research has given me a profession where I can utilize the variety of skills I have acquired and apply them to making the world a better place. I have been able to hone my talents with the help of fundraisers and prospect research professionals around the world. It has been extremely rewarding and a tremendous amount of fun!

Being a professional is about more than excelling at work, though. It’s also about being prepared for work and keeping up with trends. I consider myself a fundraiser who specializes in prospect research. Because of this it’s important for me to understand what is happening in philanthropy around the globe and the many ways that impacts my work in research. I also endeavor to keep up with information technology and the changing attitudes to privacy.

My work is more than a j-o-b, it’s a profession. When I am excellent at my work I am advocating for the profession. Staying interested and informed also makes it easy to engage with others about what I do.

I share and engage with the public about my work

When I first began speaking in front of fundraising groups nearly ten years ago, I made a habit of mentioning the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement or APRA (pronounced “APP-rah”). I would ask the room if anyone knew about it. Rarely was a hand raised. When I moved to Tampa Bay, Florida from the mature fundraising environment in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I was challenged – not only did people not know about APRA, but most fundraisers didn’t know what prospect research was either. Yikes!

Those were the pretty early years of electronic screenings. I often think of those first vendors such as P!N, Blackbaud, and WealthEngine as early advocates for the prospect research profession. Their marketing efforts were very successful. Suddenly fundraisers had heard about prospect research – and they thought it was a software product!

While that was annoying, at least it opened the doors to better conversation. I love what I do and enjoy telling people all about it – anyone in fact! People greet my explanations with curiosity and frequently more questions. Sometimes they share stories with me about their interactions with a charity of choice. By sharing my profession with others, I’m also encouraging people to have positive relationships with not-for-profit organizations. Advocacy is awesome!

I collaborate with and support the growth of my colleagues

While I was growing Aspire Research Group, I volunteered with APRA Florida, including serving a term as president. I would also volunteer at APRA conferences and it was a great way to meet new people. All of that felt pretty comfortable – almost easy. But then two big choices came my way that threw me out of my comfort zone and changed the way I viewed my role as an advocate for the profession.

First, two people at my local Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Suncoast chapter encouraged me to answer a call for authors to write about prospect research for the Wiley/AFP Fund Development Series. This was an amazing opportunity to share my profession with the more than 30,000 members of AFP. It was also quite terrifying. Sure I was an excellent researcher, but I had very little experience with really large organizations or higher education.

That’s when I decided I would collaborate with someone. Although I barely knew her, I called up Helen Brown. She was the biggest name I knew in our profession and she had the complementary experience. She said “yes”! We had some of the best discussions as we aligned our experiences under a shared philosophy about our work. As we each wrote our chapters there was continued discussion. It was an exhausting and exhilarating experience. And eventually there was a book, Prospect Research for Fundraisers: The Essential Handbook.

The second event was as the result of success. Aspire Research Group was growing and I reached out to other independent and freelance researchers. It didn’t always go well. Sometimes I knew things they didn’t, sometimes they knew more than I did, and often they did not have access to the paid tools needed to do their best work. Should I invest in those relationships? Should I share knowledge and tools with -gasp- my competitors?

What would you do?

Recently I saw something like this on social media:

  • CEO: We need to get training for our employees
  • CFO: But what if they get the training and then leave for our competitors?
  • CEO: What if they don’t get the training and they stay?

That captures my final decision. I did share knowledge and tools with colleagues that I developed a close working relationship with and I have never regretted it. A small group of us are now exploring ways in which we could more formally work together and retain our autonomy.

I want our profession to be full of highly-trained, well-resourced individuals! Prospect research professionals are some of the most intelligent, creative, and collaborative people I have ever had the privilege of working with.

A big THANK YOU to Helen Brown for launching #ResearchPride month two years ago and for inviting bloggers to share the love!

Now it’s your turn… consider engaging with the #ResearchPride hashtag on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or any other social media platform where you participate. Comment on this blog post or visit the other blog posts listed below and share your thoughts there.

But most importantly, find your voice and speak. Practice your explanation of your work. Test it out on everyone who looks remotely interested. Share your #ResearchPride!

Other #ResearchPride Articles

3 Steps to Building a More Comprehensive Prospect Profile

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By Jill McCarville, Marketing and Communication Manager, iWave Information Systems

head-746550_1920It’s almost lunchtime when a fundraiser comes to you with a new assignment:  They have a meeting with Suzie in two weeks and need to know who this person is – does she have a history of giving, does she have a connection to your cause, how much does she have to give?  Next stop, your prospect research tool.

The 3 fundamental steps to building a prospect profile remain the same: Create, customize, complete.  Okay, so those may not come as a surprise to you.  But from a software company’s point of view, there may be some profile building features within your tool that you haven’t been leveraging.  Use these features to gain deeper insight into your prospect and make your job easier. At iWave we recognize that there are many different research tools, each with different functionalities.  However, some of the features highlighted below may exist in your tool and you just didn’t know about them or haven’t had a chance to try them.  Try these steps to make your profile building easier and faster and -who knows- maybe even in time for lunch.

Creating

Our data tells us that the majority of users begin with a general integrated search (360search) across all datasets at one time.  In fact, in our tool, there were over 1.3 million 360searches done last year alone.  This broad search will help you identify which datasets/categories contain lots of information on your prospect and in which datasets you’ll need to dive deeper.  Now you can start painting the picture of your prospect’s employment, income, real estate holdings, board affiliations, net worth, stock holdings, history of charitable giving and political giving, etc.  Simply start selecting the records that you know, or are pretty confident, are your Suzie and add them to her profile.

Now, you might be saying, “But what if it’s a common name?”  No problem.  Once you’ve done a broad search across all of your tool’s datasets, you can narrow your search to find more information about your prospect, their spouse, and even their private companies or trusts. Exploring individual datasets with additional filters might even uncover key information you weren’t able to find using a broad, high-level search.

For example, if you’re trying to find Suzie’s real estate holdings, but your initial search didn’t turn up any property, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t own real estate.  As you know, it’s much more likely that she does.  After all, real estate accounted for about 20% of a HNWI’s total assets globally (CapGemini World Wealth Report 2013).  It’s possible that the property is listed in someone else’s name, a trust, or LLC.  Time to check the real estate database.  Try reverse searching by Suzie’s mailing address (rather than her name) because in many cases people link all of their properties to a primary residence for billing and other mail.  You can find additional search tips for other datasets here.

As you explore each of the datasets and “tease out” real matches to your prospect, select those records and add them to the profile you created in the broad search.  But first, ensure your tool automatically filters out duplicate records to maintain the accuracy of your scores and ratings.

Customizing

A common perception we hear in the industry is that profiles must be created externally because tools simply don’t deliver the quality of profile you need.  For some tools though, this isn’t the case.  In our tool alone, researchers create over 40,000 profiles each year containing over 1.8 million records.  One of the keys to creating so many profiles is customizing your research tool.

In the first step, you chose which records to add to Suzie’s profile.  Now, you need to add and delete records as you validate them.  This will eliminate false positives so you can be confident in the accuracy of the profile and the scores/ratings within it.  Depending on your tool’s features, you’ll also want to select your own capacity ranges (used to determine Suzie’s capacity rating), and the proper affinity ranges (so the score accurately reflects Suzie’s connection to your specific cause).

Completing

Almost there!  Once you’ve sketched out the prospect profile, it’s time to add the finishing touches.  Consider adding Suzie’s picture to the front for easy identification.  Then add any articles you may have found on her from other sources.

Jen Filla, along with other industry leaders, also suggests you add additional value to a profile by synthesizing the data you’ve gathered.  As a researcher, you are the expert on your prospects.  This is your chance to analyze the records and provide observations.  For example, what do Suzie’s SEC transactions tell you about her?  Do you see any patterns or trends in her charitable giving?  What clues can you find from her board affiliations?

Use the front page lead summary section to summarize your prospect’s current situation and provide recommendations.  In fact, in our tool, this lead summary was created based on the requests of researchers. A front and center spot to highlight the one thing the fundraiser needs to know about Suzie.  You can then use the built-in notes sections to tell the full story about Suzie as a prospect – who she likes to give to, when she likes to give, and how much she can give at one particular time.

Many people like to create and use the profile, score, and notes built within the tool.  However, this isn’t the only option.  Feel free to export the profile in a Word document for further treatment, or print a short summary profile to share right away.  And don’t forget to set an alert on the profile so you receive updates when there are any changes to Suzie’s records.

You are the expert at creating prospect profiles for your organization, and hopefully these tips will help you leverage your research tool to build better, smarter profiles.  Happy profiling!

Now, what’s for lunch?

About the Author
jill color

Jill McCarville is the marketing and communication manager at iWave Information Systems, a company that delivers software solutions to education, healthcare and nonprofit organizations to help them raise more major gifts.  iWave’s solutions are an asset to fundraising departments of any size. From Ivy league schools like Yale and Stanford, to healthcare and arts organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the Smithsonian Institution, iWave has assisted organizations in the United States, Canada, and overseas.

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Why a Really Good Prospect Profile Isn’t Good Enough

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chess-454098_1920I don’t know if this has happened to you, but all too often I find an amazing product – a special soap or leak-proof mug – only to discover a few years later that the company is out of business and the amazing product is gone forever. Good products perform, but successful companies steward their customers.

We researchers provide great products – such as prospect profiles – that perform, but are we stewarding and listening to our end-users? All too often we are not.

We complain that our end-users think we can press a button and print a profile; that people tell us we should just Google it; or that gift officers demand every prospect be deeply researched before making the first phone call.

You are not going to want to hear this, but I’ll tell you anyway. It’s our own fault!

We accept work requests without any conversation. Sometimes we even create complicated forms to avoid contact. If we really fall down the rabbit-hole we obsess over the process of requesting, completing and delivering. And then we deliver as if we dropped the profile over the cliff never, ever to be seen again.

Okay, I am being dramatic.

But imagine if we did things a little differently…

  • We talked to the requestor. “Gosh, Jan, this prospect just made a $10M gift to us two years ago. Was there something specific you were hoping I’d find? Oh, you are looking for planned gift opportunities. Sure thing.”
  • We talked to the requestor. “Hello Josh. Do you have a few minutes to talk? Great! I wanted to ask you about Mr. Bucketloads. I had so much fun researching a hedge fund manager. It doesn’t happen every day. So I wanted to be sure I presented his information clearly. What did you think of the occupation section?”
  • We talked to the requestor. “Liz, thank you for taking time to meet with me. Another year has passed and as I was reviewing my work I realized that you have asked for twice as many profiles as anyone else. I’d love to know what you like best, what we could change to make them better, and how you feel it helps you raise more money.”
Are you noticing a pattern here? Talk to the requestor.
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Mass Produced vs. Fine Art Masterpiece
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When we ignore our end-users, our prospect profiles become a mass-produced item. We are training end-users to ask these kinds of questions:
  • This is cookie-cutter stuff so why can’t I get more faster?
  • Why are we spending so much on research? I bet we could find a way to do it cheaper.
  • A specific piece of information is missing. I’m not sure we’re even getting quality.
  • There is an error here. How many other errors are in the work?

When we talk with our end-users – creating relationships where questions are regularly asked, ongoing dialogue occurs, and improvements are made to the product – trust builds and our prospect profiles become perceived as fine art masterpieces!

We are training our end-users to ask these kinds of questions:

  • I really want to see a specific item on the first page to help make decisions in the prospect meeting. I wonder if the researchers can add that?
  • The vendor at the conference says many research departments use their tool. It’s amazing! I have to ask our researchers about it. They would know if it’s hype or not.
  • This profile is fantastic! I feel so much more confident about my gift proposal.
  • Geez. There is an error here. It’s probably just a mistake, but I’d better mention it.
This is Chess, not Uno.
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Building relationships and trust is a slow process with setbacks and triumphs along the way. You need the focus and attention required for a game of chess, not the immediate gratification from a card game of Uno.
And the reality is that sometimes our ability to build relationships is complicated by the hierarchical staffing structures of our organizations. If we have no contact with the vice president, it’s tough to build a relationship.
We can find a million (mass-produced) reasons why we can’t build relationships. It’s the top performer who collects (fine art masterpiece) relationships. Make no doubt about it, you can too. One conversation at a time.

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