Tag Archives: fundraising

So much wealth in China! So little time!

Focused Fundraising, Major Gift Teams, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

asiaglobe_smThis past weekend I sat down and listened to frontline fundraisers and prospect researchers talk about how they work efficiently and respectfully to raise money in China. It felt long on a Saturday afternoon, but it was worth every minute. If you can find a viewing, go watch it!

If not, here are some of my top takeaways from NEDRA’s Panel: Inside Chinese Philanthropy recorded from their May 30, 2014 event with researchers from Tufts, Harvard, and MIT, and international frontline officers from Tufts and MIT.

On Teamwork

  • Put in place REALLY skilled fundraisers: the prospecting, cultivating and stewarding I heard talked about was very skillful and effective; this is not the time to practice
  • Teamwork between research and fundraiser MORE important: a constant feedback loop between frontline fundraiser and researcher is necessary to tease information out of sources
  • Develop a network of translators: you may be surprised how many people in your organization are fluent in other languages; these people can turn into keys unlocking the one piece of information that leads to a treasure chest full!
  • Contact information is the most important piece of information and the most difficult to find
  • A story was told about a frontline fundraiser sending cold emails in Southeast Asia and securing three $1M USD gifts for a specific initiative! (back to REALLY skilled fundraisers)
  • Get data collection and entry correct, especially events that are actually attended (back to the importance of contact information)

On Research

  • Create search tip checklists for each prospect: you don’t want to forget or make another researcher re-learn all the clever ways you found information on that prospect
  • Capacity requires country context research: because there are often fewer hard asset numbers to gauge capacity, you need to get a feel for how the prospect stands in her own environment
  • Names are so many different ways that it gets difficult (back to search tip checklists)
  • News is the best source for information: Factiva lets you search multi-languages
  • Access and connection is also key: they almost talked about relationship mapping, but didn’t

On Culture

  • Parents: get them in the first year!
  • This is the first generation of wealth: some may want to enjoy their wealth for a bit; don’t forget they grew up without luxuries like refrigerators; they are just reaching middle-age
  • The wealthy are often followers: showing peer giving is helpful
  • Attitude to U.S.: we appear very wealthy when they still have a lot of poverty; business and local pressures to support home projects; may want to show how their U.S. giving helps Chinese at home or abroad
  • Government: there are restrictions on exchanging USD and a cap on giving; may also want to be anonymous or hide wealth; party members and government dominated firms are not going to give

On Patience

  • Must be committed to cultivation over a long time: philanthropic culture is still transactional and local
  • Some programs started in the late 1980’s/1990’s and just now gaining serious traction

Research Tools Mentioned

Extra:

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5 Tips to Make Your CRM Successful at Change

4Fundraisers, , , , , , , , , , ,

ColorArrowsI dare you to try this search! Go to the search engine of your choice and type in…

CRM “change agent”

Are you surprised how many relevant results you get? There are many similar if not the same names for the process of putting the customer, or in our case the donor, first. Here’s a few:

  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
  • Donor Relationship Management
  • Relationship Management System
  • Moves Management System
  • Prospect Management System

So what’s this about being a change agent? How could anyone reasonably expect CRM software to be a change agent?!

Obviously CRM software is not a magic wand capable of implementing change. But creating or changing your relationship management system is a powerful opportunity to raise the bar in your fundraising efforts. Unfortunately, all too often this opportunity is missed because its role as a change agent is not recognized.

No matter what size your organization and no matter how many people in your fundraising office, any change to your relationship management system is going to affect a number of different players on your team – most potently when it changes performance assessments and incentives.

Following are five tips to help make your relationship management system a successful change agent:

1 – Listen to the key players first.

You are listening for a few critical items: (a) Are you using the same language as the key players? (b) Do your proposed changes match their values? (c) Might any of the proposed changes create undesired consequences? This is Internal Relationship Building 101. Yes, we must do it internally, not just externally with our donors.

2 – Create an internal campaign to sell the changes.

Have fun with this. Go all out. Create simple explanations you can recite in your sleep. Give it a brand and tagline. Use color. No person’s role is too small not to be an advocate of your change. If staff don’t want it or even know what it is, how successful do you think you’ll be?

3- Research suggested performance measures.

Whether you network with your colleagues, read vendor and association research studies, scan for blogs and articles online, or all of the above, do your homework so you can make as few mistakes as possible. Don’t get stuck on research, but don’t be skimpy. If you are recommending a smaller portfolio size, you’d better know the philosophy behind that approach or you may risk raising fewer dollars while you figure it out.

4 – Make sure you have a thoughtful implementation plan.

Why not find a way to test-run some or all of your changes before a full rollout? I’m not talking just the technology – a person should walk through the whole process too. Consider all the phases of your rollout and don’t forget to include training and re-training.

5 – Evaluation means it’s never over.

Your relationship management system will always face two persistent threats: (1) Change in the external fundraising environment such as donor behavior and the economy, and (2) Change in the internal organizational environment, such as changes in leadership and finances. Hopefully you won’t need to make big changes frequently, but if you regularly audit the performance of the system you will be better placed to react.

No matter how big or how small your fundraising office is, your relationship management system is a tool to help you get focused on your donors and prospects. One of the biggest obstacles to achieving success with any technology or system is getting everyone trained and willing to use it.

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Are You Hiring a Prospect Researcher?

4Fundraisers, Discussion, , , , , ,

WorkSMI am thrilled to share a guest post from Gil Israeli, Director of Prospect Research and Senior Writer for the American Technion Society.

Let’s say you’re a front-line fundraiser and your organization is providing a prospect researcher to support your work. If you’re new to this professional collaboration, what should you look for when you’re interviewing candidates?

Optimism

Every fundraiser knows that an ongoing normal part of their business involves rejection – rejection by prospective donors. Initially, most researchers are unaware of the challenges faced by fundraisers (be they professionals or volunteers). In an earlier position, one grant-seeking professor soberly told me that his (better-than-average) rate of success was one funded proposal for every five that he submitted to government agencies.

It takes an incredible level of optimism to be a fundraiser and this also applies to the researcher who is one degree removed from direct contact with the prospect. Sometimes an inexperienced researcher has limited contact with the fundraisers. This type of isolation can make it challenging to keep abreast of the broader issues which affect the organization. A good dose of optimism may be the most important trait in a good researcher. It starts the researcher on a solid path to acquiring essential skills and supports him or her in the next career activity: branching out into their organization to know its people and learn its processes.

Curiosity

There are three types of knowledge that are critical to a researcher’s success: knowledge of research methods and data; knowledge of one’s organization and its projects; and knowledge of the overall fundraising process and the actual industry. The best researchers go well beyond the first realm.

Not only do they know how to “drill down” deep to find a level of data that provides a detailed research-based story of the prospect, they need to make connections for the fundraiser that will apply the data to his cultivation efforts. This requires that the researcher understand how the fundraiser strategizes and even interacts with prospects. It also requires organizational knowledge, e.g., in a university operation (and most others), a capital project requires a cash gift to break ground. This information would figure into your analysis of a prospect’s liquidity for a capital gift. A researcher needs to have genuine curiosity that extends beyond the mere data.

Understanding all aspects of the organization’s work enables the researcher to prepare actionable research for the fundraiser. Having a second set of eyes – “fundraiser eyes” – enables the researcher to envision how a prospect’s data may ideally fit into the mission of the organization.

Good interpersonal skills also come into play which aid the researcher as he or she gets to know one’s colleagues and the rich world of fundraising practices, policies and prospect interactions.

Perseverance

Perseverance, the high-octane extension of curiosity and another critical characteristic, is going the extra distance in your work in the most calculated way. It is fueled by curiosity and the knowledge it brings. And perseverance is exhibited best in the type of research reports that researchers produce.

Today, generally, you’ll find two types of prospect reports. One, via the profile template, is organized in sections, which is particularly useful for exporting data from your database. However, it may lack certain types of information which can only be expressed in anecdotal reports of actionable information. This type of information comes out especially in the narrative report and can appear in a database’s open text field. You can also generate a final product that combines these two types of reports. So, what are the benefits of this?

I recently reported on a Boston-based technology magnate. My own position supports a major university with interests in science, technology, medicine, engineering and education programs. As the president of the university was to meet with this individual, I prepared a hybrid report which combined the template (with an estimated capacity rating, assets, boards, etc.) and additional, necessary, narrative sections. These required “insider knowledge,” which I had developed through 13 years of experience with the organization.

In the narrative parts, I was able to draw inferences and connect relevant information such as the prospect’s boards and past gifts to the immediate interests and current project needs of the university. For example, the prospect was critically involved in developing a national database to record comprehensive data about students in U.S. public school systems. Accordingly, I was able to discuss and recommend technology infrastructure projects that would enhance the university’s services to all students and also library projects that would serve the entire university community. The report helped the president strategize at a much higher level before even meeting the prospect. This type of “added-value” research requires real perseverance as it requires that the researcher maintain the most up-to-date knowledge of your organization’s work and the provision that you productively integrate it into your research reports.

Gaining Insight to Know When You’re Off-Target

Over time, perseverance will also bring the researcher experience to better evaluate the “cash value” of his or her own work. It’s also important to be able to recognize when research doesn’t meet the test of practicality. On one occasion, I identified a family that owned a lucrative multigenerational business with several dozen restaurants on the east coast. After my excitement peaked, I noted that their corporate headquarters and residences were located in a locale that made fundraiser visits exorbitantly expensive when compared with our usual visits to prospects. Even more so, allocating funds for these visits would have diverted the monies from other good uses, e.g., special events where several major gift prospects could be gathered and engaged. In this case, my knowledge of the fundraising operation (a business perspective) also helped me determine that this proactive research was simply not practical and actionable. I had gained this knowledge over years as I became involved in additional meetings and had the opportunity to converse more with my fundraiser colleagues.  And it made me better at my job.

Creativity

Prospect research reports can become homogeneous and suffer the problem of omission when we allow ourselves to be limited by our tools. For example, researchers need a reasonable level of comfort with numbers and formula to effectively calculate capacity ranges and ratings. Most of these measures of prospect capacity are then augmented with advanced knowledge that we have gained by analyzing other types of assets such as the value of private companies, pensions, collections, etc. Again, curiosity comes into play and in multiple ways.

Because each prospect is unique, each prospect research report may also need to be unique and require its own creative approach. Creativity turns out to be the critical characteristic for the researcher who can adapt to different prospect types. Learn the rules and then break them at the right time in a practical way for insightful returns.

Conclusion

We all know the litany: computer-writing-communication-analytical skills are essential to high performance in nearly all of today’s urban-based information-processing desk jobs.

I’ve focused on strong optimism, expansive curiosity, unflagging perseverance and practical creativity because they are often not given the explicit attention that they should receive when hiring a prospect researcher. A really good prospect researcher has these characteristics with the skill sets we expect and a social aptitude for connecting with fundraising colleagues. Without these characteristics, he or she remains tied to the first literal level of discovered data and is unable to further contextualize it for strategic use for his or her fundraiser colleagues.

The best news is that when the sparks of these four qualities exist, they can be nurtured with one’s colleagues for mutual professional development and fruitful collaboration.  Finally, these qualities are akin to sustainable energy: they can keep the prospect researcher growing throughout his or her career.

About the Author

Gil_Israeli_photoGil Israeli serves as the Director of Prospect Research and Senior Writer for the American Technion Society, which supports the Technion, Israel’s premier university advancing science, technology and medicine. He holds degrees from Johns Hopkins, Columbia University and the University of Virginia. He edits fundraisingcompass.com , a blog which presents pieces by seasoned fundraising professionals.

Score! takes the edge off analytics

4Fundraisers, 4Researchers, Fundraising Analytics, , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just read Score! cover to cover and here’s why I think you should too…

With Score! Peter Wylie and Kevin MacDonell have written a highly accessible book that works effectively as a beginner’s guide to driving your organization’s decision-making with fundraising analytics. It’s no surprise to those of us in the prospect development field. Peter has been writing entertaining and informative books and articles for years and Kevin’s CoolData blog is encouraging and full of easy-to-understand visuals. Both of them write about personal experiences that nicely demonstrate the ideas and concepts in the book.

This is not a do-it-yourself manual. Peter did that already with his book Data Mining for Fund Raisers. This book is for leadership and for aspiring analysts alike who want a guide to getting something great to happen. No-one feels like a fool for not knowing how analytics works (or even how to define it) and although Peter calls out leadership’s common foibles, an ambitious leader can easily swallow that pill because it helps him navigate past the pitfalls.

The book is conveniently grouped into three sections so you can decide what you want to read. Part one, Becoming a Data-Driven Organization, discusses how analytics can help you make decisions that lead to success. Part two, Your Data Driven Job, discusses what it’s like to pursue analytics in your prospect development career. Part three is devoted to case studies.

Part one launches with scenarios that are happening in advancement offices every day, but when highlighted in a short paragraph make one blush with embarrassment. You also get great information on obstacles you are likely to encounter as you seek to invest in analytics and a helpful discussion about whether to hire someone new or train an existing employee.

One of the salient points made in the book from start to finish is that fundraising analytics is all about valuing affinity – the relationship someone has with your organization. Wealth ratings and other external data is nice, but only works really well when paired with affinity. The wealth screening companies have drowned the marketplace with sales, advertising, and educational content that does not shine such a bright spotlight on using analytics to find and leverage the conversation your prospects and donors are having with your organization as recorded in your databases. Score! gets you back on track.

If you are facing the challenge of clueless leadership that does not value data, then this first section falls a bit short. Given Peter’s years of consulting I was hoping for a few guerrilla tactics and approaches to persuading leadership that analytics is the new, shiny object every leader has to use. Instead the authors give us brief vignettes of some of the good stories where leaders model the kind of behavior that encourages analytics efforts to succeed.

Part two is where the aspiring analyst gets some very thoughtful and perceptive advice about the skills needed to take on these kinds of tasks. By including a chapter on soft skills, and putting it first, there is a clear message. You can be awesome at analyzing data, but unless you can translate your results into information others can use and understand, you are not likely to achieve success. Kevin’s CoolData blog is a living example of good and useful presentation. As a bonus, Kevin and Peter share their personal stories on how they came to analyze nonprofit data for a living.

Part two also has some gems that surprised me and made me think more deeply. Although I have been using the term fundraising analytics as an umbrella term here, Kevin and Peter give you an education about the difference between data mining and analytics. You also get some terms and techniques defined – a few fundamentals. But don’t worry! The authors walk you through some step-by-step starter tasks. The highlighted quote is just one of many that should assure you that you won’t break anything by trying.

“Don’t let missing, incomplete, or suspect data stop you from jumping right in and trying to work with it just as it is.” (p.91)

Part three is a series of case studies. As the authors emphasize, these are not do-it-yourself instructions. They are case studies that illustrate the types of questions you might ask your data and some answers others have found. Kevin and Peter do a great job here of outlining the steps they took and then going into detail about what happened as a result. These case studies will give you big picture ideas to guide you as you craft your own projects. They are helpful to leadership too because they demonstrate winning applications.

In particular I was intrigued by the call center data case studies. And, of course, just a few days after reading the book a fundraising colleague described to me how she does not give to her alma mater and will not give to them, yet they have been calling, emailing and writing her repeatedly each year. She just rolls her eyes.

A huge shift is just beginning to happen as younger generations earn and accumulate income and wealth in an era of rapid changes in information technology that is creating new and changing expectations for communicating. The popular LifeHacker blog wrote a recent post with this title: How Can I Donate to Charity Without Getting Harrassed By Them Later?

It will be those organizations that listen to the conversations in their data and respond to them that will win those donors’ trust…and dollars. Score! is written about analytics in higher education, but the lessons apply equally to human services organizations. Don’t miss out. Buy, read and Score!

Don’t believe me? Read what Susan Bridgers of APRA Carolinas has to say about it!

Want to catch up on the most current buzz? Search the Twitter hashtag: #scorethebook

Warning! Wealth Screenings Create a Skills Gap

4Fundraisers, , , , , , ,

MindTheGapSMReally good wealth screenings are changing the way we fundraise and they’re bumping campaign results ever higher. That’s definitely good. Yet wealth screenings are putting research decisions into the hands of non-researchers. Like you. Is this a good thing or bad thing? It’s up to you to decide!

I’ve been having more conversations with nonprofits about training prospect researchers. And they haven’t been the typical “I want to set up shop” conversations. The director of development doesn’t want me to help them choose a research subscription or craft a profile template.

She wants me to teach the researcher things like recognizing when prospects have wealth types in common (recognize patterns) or to focus more on the information that will help the gift officer to create a cultivation strategy (fundraising analysis).

Notice I said I’m talking to the director of development (or advancement) – not the director of research. Non-researchers are being pushed into taking the lead on research decisions. And I blame wealth screenings. (Technically, it’s more than screening for wealth. Vendors now give meaningful ratings and data analytics too.)

What exactly is changing?

Imagine you are the director of development for a smallish university, hospital or human services organization (and maybe you are). Your fundraising goals keep getting higher every year and you’ve brought some 7-figure gifts through the door. Your database manager has transitioned into your full-time prospect researcher.

As you gear up for the biggest-ever campaign you are faced with some challenges:

  • Your researcher has been churning out profiles for eight hours a day for months. She’s become a profile zombie!
  • Yes, your researcher can find information, but she doesn’t seem to really understand how prospect cultivation and solicitation works, which makes her work less helpful. She’s disconnected from the actual fundraising.
  • You’ve been prioritizing with wealth screenings and ratings, but now that information is a jumbled mess in the database. You don’t know how to fix it and your researcher is busy doing profiles.

Why are the wealth screening vendors to blame?

Because now that raw data has become more tightly matched, you have enough confidence in it to prioritize your donor prospects and get out on your discovery visits.

You don’t need a prospect researcher to do much.  Until you do.

The path to prospect research used to be a bit wider and longer. In the new, shortened time-frame your prospect researcher isn’t always ready to do more when you are.

So, you, the development director are tasked with managing prospect research in a way you never anticipated. How can you bridge the gap between your researcher’s current skill set and where she needs to be?  Grab your manager’s hat and explore some capacity building opportunities!

MOTIVATE by connecting your researcher with outcomes

Slow down the profile mill ever so slightly – just enough to establish a system to track completed research in your database. Maybe it’s a contact or action item. Whatever field you use, make sure you can pull reports that will demonstrate things like which researched prospects made a gift and were visited.

If you really want to have a little fun, track the researcher’s capacity rating in its own field so you can compare that against the screening rating and against the ask and gift amounts.

We all want to feel like our work creates something. Knowing that her work led to a really big gift is going to be motivating!

But tracking your research efforts is just a first step. Make sure there is opportunity for regular communication between the gift officer and the researcher. You want your researcher to hear how the gift officer sees wealth on those visits. You know what I’m talking about. The “he belongs to this club” or “she had to drop at least a thousand dollars on that handbag”.

Get the gift officer and researcher in a conversation about wealth and a lot of great education will happen both ways. Including more motivation. More teamwork.

INVOLVE the researcher in creating solutions

Work with your researcher to identify ways to solve problems like too many profiles and not enough new prospect identification and qualification.

  • Are gift officers getting too much information too soon? Maybe there should be guidelines about what actions need to happen before a comprehensive profile can be requested.
  • Is your researcher spending too much time digging deeper than needed? Have him track how long it takes to do profiles over a few weeks and reflect on the results. By watching the clock can he get more focused?

You may need to take a lot of the lead in the beginning, but loosen the leash as much as you possibly can. Prospect researchers are notoriously good at learning new things and problem-solving. Give them some room and many can become really good managers.

CREATE some structure around research

As your researcher is getting re-energized and challenged to solve problems, you need to recognize where to create structure to keep everyone and everything moving in sync. You are no doubt under a lot of pressure to make miracles happen in wickedly short time-frames. Keep your eye out for imbalance and act quickly.

  • Is the researcher spending an hour talking shop with a gift officer? Direct her to create a more formal research request process and channel those wonderful conversations into an established prospect review meeting.
  • Is your researcher creating a fully functional but too complex prospect management system? Continue to let her create it, but challenge her to make it simpler. (Playing a little dumb is a perfectly acceptable way to get someone to stretch a little. You have my permission!)

BIG fundraising doesn’t happen without prospect research

It’s a fact of fundraising that you need to harness the power of prospect research to raise the kind of money your mission needs and deserves. And yet, new tools like wealth screenings can allow a skill gap to creep up on you just when you need it the LEAST.

You don’t have to become a prospect research guru to make good decisions about it. And you don’t always have to fire and hire. Strengthen your managerial skills and use them to stretch and grow the prospect researcher and other staff that have an aptitude for prospect research.

Motivate. Involve. Create. And you and your organization will find yourself doing some really BIG fundraising!

And if you need a little outside help to train your staff, evaluate your procedures or create some, Aspire Research Group and the Prospect Research Institute are only a phone call away at 727 202 3405. And we have email too!

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Curious About Canada? A Primer for Prospect Researchers Who Don’t Own Hockey Sticks

Prospect Research, Resource Links, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Guest post by Preeti Gill

On this April morning, it’s -5 Celsius and the snow is blowing lightly.

I saunter in to my local Timmies, order a double double and a honey crueller, drop a few loonies on the counter and sit down for a while. It is tax time and I need to netfile before the CRA deadline. I look up from my keyboard and there’s Tony, the local hockey sensation, carrying his pet beaver on his shoulder…

Eh?

Oh, Canada, where donughts (not donuts), yoga pants and timed tweets were perfected. The land where conservative fiscal policy helped our big five banks cushion Canadians (somewhat) from the economic downtown of 2007/08.

I find that where we’re from makes us exotic, especially for other Prospect Research professionals who are always on the lookout for new resources.  When Jen and I brainstormed around blog ideas, she seemed intrigued by my Canadianness.

“How far is Ottawa from Toronto?” she asked this Vancouverite who is ill-equipped to comment on any Ontario-related matters.

What I can offer is a quick primer on today’s Canada for Prospect Researchers outside my homeland, strong and free.  Here you’ll find some interesting “Timbits” about what’s new and where to access information about your friendly Canuck prospects and donors.

We are accomplished

Our Government hands out accolades to everyday and high-profile brave and successful Canadians.

Our peers also honour each other.

We are diverse

Immigration is primarily driving population growth. Environics intelligence notes that in our major urban centres, Toronto and Vancouver, nearly half of the population identify as members of a visible minority group. So the minorities are fast becoming the majority.

Canadian Immigrant magazine profiles successful new Canadians in business and other areas.

We are rich

  • Well, they are (not me) –> Canadian Business Rich 100 2014 [List]
  • The left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives studied the wealth gap in Canada and discovered that the wealthiest 86 Canadians could purchase an entire province today. [News release]
  • How much did Canada’s top 100 CEOs get paid last year? The Globe & Mail is due to update this list with 2013 figures soon. [List]

We give back in a big way

  • The late Doc Seaman left $117 million from his estate to the Calgary Foundation last year. It’s the largest ever gift to a Canadian community foundation.  (Did I mention we’re getting older, as well?)
  • The Slaight family gave $50 million to a consortium of five hospitals in Toronto.
  • An impressive 13.3 million Canadians volunteer 2.1 billion hours, according to Volunteer Canada.
  • KCI provides an addictive scroll of recent Canadian giving by individuals, corporations and foundations.
  • Blackbaud’s new Giving Index provides a monthly snapshot of our generosity. (Things are looking up.)

We are social

…but slightly more conservative in our approach to shameless self-promotion!

  • There are 8 million+ LinkedIn users, as of 2013. [Infographic]
  • Twitter opened a Canadian branch in Toronto primarily to drive advertising and sales.
  • Planning timed tweets? You may be using HootSuite which was born in Vancouver and is rapidly expanding, thanks to securing $165 million in financing.
  • Can’t get enough of Canada? Consider attending the upcoming APRA-Canada conference in Toronto this fall. This is a highly-anticipated and well-organized biennial conference with a focus on Canadian-based research resources, issues and trends.

About Preeti Gill

Preeti-2Preeti Gill is passionate about all things prospect research, pipeline management and charity capacity-building. She works at Canada’s largest community foundation in Vancouver and blogs at Sole Searcher [preetigillyvr.blogspot.ca]. With true patriot love, she welcomes social contact here and there:

3 Good Reasons for a Research Request Process

4Researchers, , , , , ,

Whether you work in a large office or are a solo researcher, a process for managing research requests quickly becomes important if you expect to use your time efficiently.

I’m talking about a process, not a form, for managing requests, because many offices have quite happily and successfully abandoned the notion of a form to ensure human interaction for better communication.

Besides, discussing the process allows you to piece together a system that works best for you, your team, and your organization. Discussing the process does not give you the exact steps you should take in your office, but that’s research, right?

There is rarely a predetermined path to answer a question, but there’s a method. Research is not a model airplane kit; it’s a bucket full of building blocks with some suggested projects.

I recommend creating a list of the types of research requests you receive. It might look something like this:

  • Qualification and Solicitation Profiles
  • New prospect identification
  • Suggested prospect assignments and prospect management reporting
FlowChart
Click to see larger

Now build a flow chart for each request type. It could be a more graphical visual or like the list pictured, but it disciplines you to think through the process. Get as detailed as is helpful. By documenting the process you can identify where you might alter it to solve a problem.

Why not create a flow chart that starts with the fundraising goal the task supports? This will help everyone on the team recognize that you are not in charge of managing the printer, but of managing critical information that will help reach the goal.

Following are three really good reasons to create a process for managing your research requests:

1. Consistent communication produces consistent behaviors.

Let’s face it. Many frontline fundraisers have never worked with a professional researcher before. Myths abound. If you want consistent behaviors from fundraisers, like providing you with complete information on a prospect, you need to consistently communicate.

Following are some ideas:

  • Create standard profile types that include items the fundraiser has identified as most important for common scenarios. Then create the request form with those standard options, but also a place for the fundraiser’s specific needs and anything that helps you better prioritize your time on the request, such as “Yes or No. I anticipate asking this prospect for a major gift this year”. It doesn’t matter if the fundraiser ever knows the form exists. It helps you remember what to ask.
  • Create the expectation that you will call before doing the work to ask additional questions. Be sure you call and ask additional questions, which could be on your request form. Before long the fundraiser might begin providing the answers before you ask!
  • Make a habit of under-promising and over-delivering. If you want the fundraiser to trust that you will get the work done on time, set your standard turnaround time so that you can deliver at least a day early. Call immediately if you expect to be delayed.

2. Measuring outcomes requires good tracking.

Your process needs to include more than receiving a request and delivering the work. What are your key performance goals? How are you providing value to the fundraising effort?

Following are some scenarios:

  • Does your CEO insist on in-depth profiles for every name that crosses her desk? Go ahead and do them, but mark the record with an action of “Profile completed” so you can pull a report that tells you total giving for each person you researched. Now at the end of the year you can present your CEO with how much money it cost (your time, subscription resources, etc.) and how much was raised as a result. Effective? Or time for a change?
  • You may be tasked with identifying and qualifying prospects for a campaign. Tag the records that were identified and your capacity rating so you can pull reports throughout the campaign to see how many of those prospects turned into donors. Make sure leadership knows without you those dollars would not have been received!
  • You know you are identifying high-capacity prospects with affinity, but the fundraisers won’t visit them. Sit down with the most ambitious, successful fundraiser. Review the capacity ratings of her prospects. Demonstrate how she could raise so much more with the new high-capacity prospects you identified. Then track her progress so she can share her secret to success (you, of course!) with the rest of the team.

3. Documentation gives you the ability to work faster and smarter.

It takes time to document your work and to track information as described above. Researchers do it (and often love it) because documentation allows us and our organizations to achieve more.

I may spend a week keeping a detailed time log to discover just how long it really does take me to perform a specific research task and how much time I spend on administrative trivia. And now when I get a flood of requests, based on my documentation I know how much I need to outsource.

Following are some typical types of documentation:

  • Cheat Sheets on how to do advanced functions in research subscriptions – because you might not use those functions every day, but they are powerful when you need them.
  • Reasoning and steps behind your most-used database reports – because when your reports require changes, you don’t want to have to start from scratch.
  • Reasoning and steps behind the way you record your researched information in the database – because you need to be consistent if you expect to do any automatic reporting.

Communicating consistently, thinking about the outcomes first and documenting tasks underpin a smooth and successful research request process.

Do you have a specific question or some great advice for researchers looking to implement or improve their request process? Please share!

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Three Reasons Why Research Request Forms Are a Terrible Idea

List of Prospect Research Blogs

Assert Yourself, post by Preeti Gill

Top Secret! How to Bulk up your Prospect Pool

Prospect Identification, Prospect Research, Resource Links, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

HappyKeySMIn this article I’m going to share the secrets of finding great prospects. Maybe you’re one of those fundraisers who is always reading the Business Journal scouting for a lead, but they don’t pan out. Do you wonder how those other organizations pull in the big gifts? Or maybe you’re new and all the best prospects are assigned to senior fundraisers. You can get great prospects too!

If you read a lot of blogs (like I do) now is where you get skeptical. Is she just going to give me theory I already know (and hasn’t yet helped me find good prospects) or will I get at least a couple of nuggets I can actually use? I’m aiming for the latter. The “trick” is that you still have to work hard!

Fundraising research theory tells us that you need to know who you are looking for so you can spot them. We use jargon like linkage, ability and affinity. And there are tools that give you a competitive edge with that. But you can do it even without bright, shiny tools.

The First Thing…

The first thing any good fundraiser (and prospect researcher) needs to do is learn what it looks like to be wealthy. Watching soap operas may seem like a good education here, but much better is reading through some of the wealth reports like the Knight Frank Wealth Report 2014. You’ll find links for other reports in the sidebar on your right.

And the second first-thing-any-good-fundraiser-needs -to-do is get in front of people, especially donors. You should read and get in front of donors at the same time. Start with known donors because they are the most likely to give (again) and it’s always better to get a gift, right?

Call, visit, and read.

When you are reading about the wealthy at the same time as you visit prospects you’ll start making the connections. When the prospect talks about how he and his wife are taking classes in gemology and he has a watch collection, you’ll remember what you read about this being an investment hobby for the very wealthy. And when a different prospect brags about taking regular trips to Europe on mileage points you’ll recognize that what you thought were luxury vacations probably aren’t.

You can do that without any tools except your eyes and ears. Well, I guess you need to use your mouth to place the phone call…and, okay, guide the conversation. But you get it, right? Recognizing the wealthy – the truly wealthy – takes an education.

Get Your Toolbox Dirty

Getting an education on spotting the wealthy still isn’t likely to fill your prospect pool with GREAT donors – those with linkage, ability and affinity. If you have tools that assign ratings to the prospects in your database, use them! Don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work out perfectly the first few times.

For example, you might pull a report of people who rate high for ability and likelihood to make a gift, but find most won’t take your phone call. You may need to add additional criteria depending on your organization. Maybe it’s “donor within the past two years” or “attended an event in the past two years” or some other criteria that makes it more likely they will let you visit with them.

Keep track of your efforts so you can repeat what works best. And, yes, this does mean you will have to make a lot of phone calls that end in “no thank you I don’t want a visit”.

It’s the same even if you don’t have tools that provide ratings. Without tools you have to get more of an education. You might use a free tool like the Washington Post’s interactive map** of the nation’s super zips to identify wealthy zip codes to search for in your donor database and combine that with “donor within the past two years” or other criteria that suggest a “warmness” toward your organization.

The Secret Weapon

If you are really lucky, you have a trained prospect researcher on staff. Use all your fundraising powers of relationship building to get this prospect research wizard on your side!

HOT TIP: your researcher is likely to get the most excited about searching out top prospects if you reward her with feedback from your calls and face-to-face visits.

With a prospect researcher on your team you are more likely to out-produce even seasoned professionals in the race for fundraised dollars. Really, really!

…and if you can’t support a trained prospect researcher full-time, you can always outsource. Just sayin’!

**Julie, Prospect Research Analyst in Pennsylvania and Groundbreaking Student at the Prospect Research Institute, shared this fantastic resource with the class!

Did you get a nugget or two?

I hope you found a useful tip you can apply in your office. Maybe you have great suggestions you’d like to share with others. Please comment and share!

Jenz Favorite Wealth Reports

Common Prospect Research Myths

4Fundraisers, 4Researchers, Discussion, , , , , , , , , ,
magicLampSM
For best results, rub vigorously!

I sent a request out to prospect researchers on the APRA PRSPCT-L list-serv asking them to share common prospect research myths. Following is a summary of my favorite responses!

Myth: Everyone over age 60 is a planned gift prospect.

Fact: While age is a factor, affinity is also an important predictor of planned giving and statistical data modeling is even better at predicting who is a likely planned giver.

Myth: Lots of real estate holdings makes someone a major/planned gift prospect.

Fact: We have a lot of real estate investors, large and small, in the Pacific NW.  People buy a few apartment or commercial buildings as a retirement investment and they accrue in value, so development officers think the prospects can give big.  I have to educate them that, unless they are giving us the building, capacity is based on income from the building and that I calculate capacity differently for personal real estate and income-generating real estate.

Myth: We need to know the prospect’s net worth.

Fact: Net worth is all of someone’s assets minus all of their liabilities. We can’t know all of either, because that includes a lot of private information.

Myth: Prospect researchers can find anything about anyone, including: how much is in their bank accounts; personal tax records; credit history; social security numbers; or wills.

Fact: Much information is private, like the examples above, and is not available to us legally or ethically.

Myth: Google. You can find everything on Google. Researching is really just Googling a prospect. “I don’t need you—I use Google.” “If you just look harder, you can find out everything about him.”

Fact: Internet search engines can only find about 20% of what is available on the internet. Just ask Mike Bergman who coined the phrase.

Myth: You can just get a report from the “database” with everything, right?

Fact: While software companies that pull information together for us have gotten very sophisticated, there is no “one” database.

Myth: A prospect can be fully researched in less than half an hour, especially with one of those fancy research services we subscribe to—just push a button and a complete profile comes out, right?. Or better yet, do a “quick 10 minute profile” on a prospect. (Sorry, but is this ever possible — ten minutes?)

Fact: Searched, verified, and synthesized information barely starts with an hour. Anything less risks being haphazard, which might help in a pinch, but is far from ideal.

Myth: Very little data about a prospect is needed in order for the researcher to produce a comprehensive profile (such as: name spelled correctly, address, occupation, how someone is related to our organization).

Fact: Names are far more common than most people suspect and a good match requires as much starting information as possible.

Myth: When asked for “a little more information about so-and-so,” true prospect researchers intuitively know exactly how much more information is enough.

Fact: Good communication is a two-way street between the requestor and the researcher. Some process or structure usually helps too.

…And the last MYTH? Well, it isn’t one really. It’s a FACT: In ancient times, before the discoveries of electricity, personal computers, and the internet, prospect researchers lived in lamps and responded to vigorous rubbing.

Other Post You Might Like:

Can you really trust prospect research? 10 things you should know

Do Your Own Research? You Bet!

To Certify or Not To Certify – That is the Question

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAEvery now again the question surfaces, like a blur in the photograph that may or may not be the Loch Ness Monster – should the prospect research field have its own certification? Many professions have certifications to demonstrate proficiency and professionalism in the field. Why not us?

Who is Doing It?

It is often helpful to look at other similar or related fields to discover how they have solved the same problem. For this article I considered the following certifications:

There are many certificate programs offered at nonprofit centers and universities around the country in these professions, but there is something special about having the premier association for your industry offer certification. It implies that a broad swathe of practitioners labored in love to create a comprehensive evaluation of what makes someone in the field good, if not great.

And many times it has the added benefit of being supported by lower costs and financial support in the form of scholarships.

What Do They Have That We Don’t?

Fundraising and library sciences are well-established fields so it’s not so surprising that they would have certifications. And since most in the library sciences receive a Master’s degree in library sciences, it’s not surprising that their certifications represent specialized areas of the field.

But if a relatively new profession like competitive intelligence has a certification, what might be holding prospect research back?

Maybe they have something that we don’t – a name for their professions … Fund Raising .. Competitive Intelligence .. Library Science

A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet

Prospect research is widely recognized within the field of fundraising. Do we need a better, more appropriate, more all-encompassing name?

As many of you know, I am launching a new company, Prospect Research Institute, and am doing phone surveys (so far 44 calls and 19 states plus Canada and Australia) as well as an online survey.

I was taken by surprise to discover that most of the people I have spoken to felt “prospect research” was limited to searching for information on identified prospects and did NOT include data analytics or prospect management.

But then during the ensuing conversation many lapsed unconsciously into using “prospect research” to reference the entire field.

APRA has come out clearly on the subject naming the field “prospect development”.  If we had a recognized name, would certification would follow?

Consider the association examples given. AFP’s CFRE is essentially a test you can take after meeting certain criteria, such as years in the field and dollars raised and requires continuing education credits. SCIP and SLA require completion of a series of courses as well as testing.

Even starting without a readily identified name, if there is a measure of the tasks required to perform our jobs, then training and tests can be developed and shaped into certifications. Perhaps then the names of those certifications could reshape the language of the professionals performing those jobs.

I don’t about you, but I am eagerly anticipating the release of APRA’s newest endeavor – The Body of Knowledge – which will outline what it takes to be good at what we do. And by that I mean prospect search, analytics and management.

graduationcapSMBut Do We Want to be Certified?

The remaining question to be deliberated is not can we have a certification, but do we need or want one?

Common sense suggests that a certification is useful for those entering the field or looking for promotion to a new skill level or skill set. Certifications demonstrate proficiency to employers, especially when they include testing and have a strong reputation.

But many questions remain.

  • In our relatively young profession, will a certification become outdated each time information technology creates new terms and expands the scope of the tasks we perform?
  • Would certification give birth to future generations of researchers with a higher quality, more uniform set of skills?
  • Would different levels of certification encourage more people to join the field or crossover to ever-growing specialties?
  • With a certified “definition” of our field would fundraising employers better recognize our value and create more specific jobs?

Speculation is all part of processing information and defining our future deliberately. I’d love to hear your speculations and opinions on certification in the prospect research field!