Tag Archives: Data Mining

Millionaires use Social Media

Discussion, Focused Fundraising, , , , , ,

In a Wall Street Journal blog post, Robert Frank reports that “According to a survey of millionaires from Fidelity Investments, 85% of respondents use text-messaging, smartphone applications and social media.  One third use social media professionally, with 28% using LinkedIn.”

Are Millionaires Talking to You?
Over the past couple of years I have been hearing prospect researchers talk about mining Facebook and alumni forums for phone numbers and emails. More recently I’ve been hearing that gift officers are communicating with their major gift prospects on LinkedIn, Facebook and, yes, even Twitter.

Sometimes it is obvious that the donor prospect is oblivious to how public these forums are or can be. But mostly I am hearing that the donor prospect initiates the contact through social media.

For Donors, Philanthropy is Personal, not Professional
If 85% of respondents are using social media, but only 33% of them use it “professionally”, it makes me speculate that donor prospects view their giving as “personal” not “professional” activities. Kind of obvious, huh?

So why should we care if millionaires are using social media? Well, for fundraising it’s a no-brainer. Our organizations need to be engaging and involving donors in social media as another cultivation tool in the toolbox. But what about prospect identification and qualification?

Social Media for Identification and Qualification
The murky issues of privacy and trust begin to swirl when we talk about mining data from social media – especially with privacy conscious millionaires! But I also think that using social media in fundraising serves to highlight how prospect researchers and fundraisers work best when working together. Here’s how:

(1) If a gift officer is invited to friend a donor prospect over a private network, it is the same as visiting the prospect in her/his home. You get to view the photographs on the mantel – so to speak – such as pages liked, friends, photos, videos and of course, posts. But that information can only be known and used by a researcher if it is communicated (yes, I’m talking about notes in the database as well as verbal conversations)

(2) A prospect researcher shouldn’t ignore relevant public information, even when it is left open on a social media network. Conversations with the gift officer might be necessary and wise before saving personal information gleaned from Twitter, blogs, Facebook etc., but key insights into giving motivations can be found and should be communicated. We never, ever want to record embarrassing things on a donor prospect record, but ignoring social media is not acceptable either.

More on Privacy and Prospect Research
If you want to learn more about privacy and prospect research, check out the video below by Aspire Research Group that puts a little fun into the subject. For comprehensively researched prospect profiles, click here.

Dating Donors, Data Mining & Donor Profiles -oh my!

Data Mining, Focused Fundraising, , , , , , ,
Roxie Jerde, President & CEO, Community Foundation of Sarasota County

by Jen Filla.

I had the pleasure of hearing Roxie Jerde speak at the AFP SW FL luncheon on May 10, 2011. She is the new president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, having previously been with the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. She packed a lot of information into her 20-minute slot. Thank you Roxie!

First, as the new person on the block, she made an interesting comment. She told us that she will not accept offers to meet for coffee or lunch. Instead she invited herself into our organizations. That really resonated with me. Since moving to Florida I have spent a lot of time getting to know the organizations operating in my area and that has meant of lot of driving and a lot of tours. For someone who works on billable hours this is an expensive investment! But I have never left a visit with an organization and felt it was a waste of time. There is so much culture, pride, and action packed into the buildings and places where fundraisers realize their missions.

Roxie also reviewed the Giving USA statistics, which reflected giving in 2009 (2010 is due out in June). Here’s a breakdown of giving in the U.S.

  • Individuals -75%
  • Foundations -13%
  • Bequests – 8%
  • Corporations -4%

Ho, hum, yawn, we’ve all seen this before. BUT have you actually gotten the statistics out of your own donor database? This kind of data mining yields key information you *must* know to create an intelligent fundraising strategy. Does somewhere around 75% of your funding come from individuals? If not, why? Every organization is different, so it might not make sense for your percentages to match the country’s giving overall, but if you differ significantly you’ll want to investigate whether you do indeed have the best strategy for your organization.

Roxie Jerde

Peppered throughout her presentation Roxie referred to the donor gift cycle as dating. Yes, most of us have heard this before too, but Roxie took it to a new level. In a previous position she and her staff used the dating terminology instead of the usual fundraising terms. It was endearing and funny to hear her talk about how blind dates can work too (prospecting), what it’s like to be newly married and still in the honeymoon stage (a major gift) and then, down the road, planning for your golden years (planned giving). Words are powerful tools and using dating words can create a much needed shift in how we interact with our donors.

Near the end of her presentation Roxie talked a little bit about asking for a major gift. She mentioned the uncertainty around how much to ask for and the drawbacks of asking for too much or too little. Being as passionate as I am about using prospect research to inform cultivation and solicitation it was all I could do to sit quietly. Profiles! DONOR PROFILES! I wanted to shout.

Donor profiles provide an awe inspiring amount of information to aid in determining an ask amount. Time and again fundraisers have told me how much more confidence they have asking for the gift when they can base it on known assets *and* their gut feelings. Development shops using prospect research, including donor profiles, ask for and receive larger gifts.

Too many human services and other similar organizations are not receiving their share of million dollar gifts and it is not because they don’t attract million dollar donors. It is because they don’t ask for million dollar gifts from their very own donors who are capable of giving them.

If you want to find out how Aspire Research Group can help you find your million dollar donors, just ask us! Call 727-231-0516, email jen at aspireresearchgroup.com or visit our website for more information, www.aspireresearchgroup.com

Selling Anonymous Donor Info – for or against?

Data Mining, Discussion, , , , , ,

Today the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether or not to uphold Vermont’s law against selling prescription info to data mining companies. It’s a privacy issue with parallels to nonprofit fundraising – or is it? SCOTUSblog has a wonderfully readable account of the case.

In Vermont, when drug stores fill a doctor’s prescription they are required to record the doctor’s name and address, the name, dosage and quantity of the drug, the date and place where the prescription was filled, and the patient’s age and gender — but not patient name and address. Drug stores are required to keep this digital information and they make money selling it to data mining companies who sell it to the pharmaceutical industry who use it for marketing drugs. But the information is also available to insurance companies, medical research institutions, and law enforcement authorities. Vermont law keeps the information from the data mining companies, but not others.

So once again we have personal data, which many in the public perceive as being ill-used or over-used by huge corporations like big pharma, but which is also being used for important public benefits like disease tracking, clinical trials and law enforcement. Can we say no to one user and not another? Do we give up the benefits to keep the info completely private?

Although this case might seem far removed from the world of not-for-profit fundraising, it isn’t. Blackbaud is a huge corporation with the dominant market share of donor database software – Raiser’s Edge. And they are moving their customers online, which means Blackbaud holds the keys to your donor data. They conduct lots of useful fundraising industry research including their Index of Charitable Giving. Where do they get the info?

“Each month, we draw actual giving statistics from the databases of thousands of participating organizations using a variety of fundraising systems to determine how much revenue was raised in the prior month.”

I’m not sure if that means that they use their clients’ data with permission or whether they collect data from clients and non-clients. Does it matter? Nonprofits are providing their donor information to Blackbaud for research – but stripped of identifying information. Is it restricted to freely available research studies or do they also use it for commercial purposes? Does that matter?

In March of 2010 I wrote about Google’s use of “data dust”. I suggested we should be able to use our own “donor dust” to help create a better experience for our donors. But it makes me uncomfortable to think of the possibility of Blackbaud sweeping up our collective donor dust and then reselling it for profit or using it for their own marketing.

The question shares many similarities with  the prescription drug case in Vermont. There will be good and meaningful uses for following fundraising trends gleaned from a corporation’s clients’ donor data, but is it legal and is it ethical?

Yes! You Can Still Raise Major Gifts Without a Wealth Screening

Data Mining, Focused Fundraising, major gifts, , , , , , ,

I sat next to Heidi Shimberg, VP of Development and Marketing for the Glazer Children’s Museum, at the Suncoast Chapter meeting of the Association of Fundraising Professionals in March. She told me an amazing story. In September of last year the Glazer Children’s Museum held its grand opening. Only six months later, they have a whopping 6,000 members!

Her fundraising dilemma? To do a wealth screening on 6,000 people would put an unhealthy bulge in the budget. “So why not filter your list and send a smaller number of records to be screened?” I suggested to Heidi. She had thought of that, but when you are brand spanking new, what do you filter by? She felt that if she filtered by wealthy zip codes or addresses, she might miss some “hidden” prospects. It troubled her.

As I was driving my cat to the veterinarian the next morning, my conversation with Heidi was on my mind. Then the light bulb went off. Heidi might not need a prospect researcher on staff, but she sure needed a prospect research strategy. She was averaging 1,000 members a month!

When there are no big dollars in your budget how do you get smart – and still get big dollars in gifts?

Depending on the amount of pressure to raise funds, Heidi has some fun choices.  She could go for the wealth screening and decide on a fundraising strategy for cultivating people with known wealth – maybe joining a special society as a first step and/or one-on-one meetings. Armed with the wealth screening she knows exactly who can give and won’t waste any time approaching members who can’t give.

Or she could swing wider and filter her list by addresses, making a first contact without any real wealth information. Cultivating more people in small groups instead of one-on-one would allow her to find “hidden” donors in her community. Ask the Benevon people about that one. It works.

I can hear you calling me to account. “But Jen, you have not addressed Heidi’s concern about missing the hidden prospects in her member list!” Well here’s the answer. Without a giving history to the Glazer Children’s Museum or any other history (like event attendance etc), Heidi cannot know a crucial piece of information – affinity, or how close someone feels to the museum. It’s just too new. You can’t screen for that on a newborn list. What she can do is methodically approach prospects while developing her entire member list.

Going from “A” to “Z” contacting 6,000 members is foolish. Heidi knows this. Picking 1,000 and working them in small groups will have Heidi training another gift officer next year when her well-stewarded member list, which has also been solicited for unrestricted operating dollars, gets filtered again for the next 1,000. And since she started with her best prospects, she can now feel better about having a trainee cultivating the “B” list. By year five there isn’t likely to be a “hidden” prospect, especially because now there will be money in the budget for a wealth screening on a well-kept donor/member database!

If we could all start out with the very best prospect research tools, so much more could happen. But that’s not reality and it doesn’t have to stop a fundraiser like Heidi from exceeding her major gift fundraising goals.

Aspire Research Group wants to see you succeed. If that means a one or two-hour consult to brainstorm for a mean-and-lean strategy, we’re all about it. Call us today! (727) 231-0516 or email jen at aspireresearchgroup.com.

Spire2 Added as New Resource Partner

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It takes a community to support a nonprofit organization or academic institution and Aspire Research Group is pleased to announce that Spire2 has been added to our Resource Partners. As a fundraiser, you have many needs and want an expert that gets results. Spire2 is just such an expert:

  • Designs and develops direct mail campaigns that get opened
  • Creates email communication programs that convert strangers into friends
  • Develops websites that don’t just tell people about your mission, but become part of the way you are reaching your mission

Prospect research is most effective when you have a donor acquisition strategy as well as a strong annual campaign for unrestricted dollars. Data mining for major gift prospects works best when your database is full of well-cared donors and prospects. Spire2 can help you get you get there.

Call or email Jeff James at Spire2 today and ask him about my favorite story – how he helped Wheaton College reach out to its young alumni, who are now giving at the same percentage as the general alumni population. Call 630-462-2567 or email jjames at spire2.com. You won’t be disappointed!

A challenge to prioritize a LARGE list of donors

Data Mining, Focused Fundraising, , , , ,

I spoke on the phone with a prospective client. She described a type of fundraising I have never had contact with before and yet we came up with a guerilla prospect research strategy to help her meet her goal.

She is a gift officer for a regional affiliate of a national organization tasked with getting 10 new major gifts before the end of the fiscal year in June. Her research budget is under $2,000.

The donors at the gift levels below major gift in her geographic area number in the thousands. There was a wealth screening performed, but no ratings for likelihood to give. Other affinity indicators are just now being recorded, such as event attendance, but have not been recorded in the past. Choosing among thousands based on capacity alone has not yielded good donor prospects. She needed help!

At first I suggested looking at recency and frequency and the consultant who had brought me to the table recommended identifying high lifetime giving. It felt like a slap on the face to me to learn that none of those were good affinity indicators for her. Her organization was a direct mail machine operating as if it were selling widgets instead of asking for gifts. The only donors kept in the database and solicited were those who gave every single year. If you stop giving you are dropped from the list. New donors are acquired every year.

Recency is irrelevant because otherwise the donor is not solicited. Frequency is a given or the donor is dropped from the list. Lifetime giving is high because those that stop giving are dropped from the list.

Think about that for a minute. Imagine yourself, a gift officer, alone in the ocean treading water watching a huge wave of donors approaching you. There is no shallow water of engagement to allow donors to walk closer to the organization’s shore. No surf to get donors excited about being the ones who can change the landscape of the cause. Instead it feels enormous and insurmountable. She will be swallowed by all that water – all those donors that look the same.

And she needs 10 new donors giving cash at a certain level or higher. In eight months.

Lucky for her, there is one prospect researcher on staff. Not so lucky is that he supports the entire national organization. And a wealth screening did add capacity ratings to each donor record. But how can she identify affinity to get a good prospect list?

In order to narrow the list on a very small budget, I suggested pulling all donors at two levels below the target gift level who also have a high capacity rating AND high lifetime giving. The cream of the crop from that list can be checked, one at a time if necessary, to see if a gift at the desired level has been made to any charity using NOZA or DonorSearch.

She will start with a small number, around 50, and begin calling each one to get a visit. Starting small ensures narrowing the list this way actually yields good prospects and gives her a chance to tweak her approach. The consultant had some strategies for getting that first visit including a warm-up letter. I can support her with donor prospect profiles when she is close to a large gift.

When a prospect researcher works intimately with a gift officer the results can be magical. I enjoy being part of a team. Knowing that the pleasure I take in data can be translated by gift officers into a donor’s love affair with a worthy organization keeps me LOVING my job!

If you are looking for a prospect researcher to work with you to reach your fundraising goal, click here to contact me.

5 ways to use donor ratings

Focused Fundraising, , , , ,

No matter how we get donor ratings into our databases (vendors like DonorSearch or WealthEngine or even *gasp* Aspire Research Group :-)) sometimes we forget to use them. It’s sort of like carefully selecting coupons for the store and then forgetting to pull them out when you get to the cashier. We all do it. Okay, I can’t speak for you but I have certainly done that!

Let’s start with the most forgotten and work our way to the least forgotten:

(1)  Choosing people to solicit a gift from for a specific project or initiative

(2)  Choosing people to invite to a specific event

(3)  Pulling a list of planned gift prospects or high-end annual appeal prospects to schedule visits with

(4)  Pulling a list of best prospects for an annual appeal (fewer people, less cost, higher return)

(5)  Populating a major gift or campaign prospect pool

For some tasks, combining the best rating scores with other criteria in your database, such as event attendance or interest in a program, gets you the sweetest list. Whenever you pull a list out of your database, ask yourself if you should include donor ratings as part of your strategy. The results will delight you!

Fundraisers like you are busy, creative people.

Have you ever used donor ratings to raise more money and maybe even lessen expenses at the same time?

We’d love to hear about it – please share!

6-item checklist for screening data

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Jay Frost does it again with his blog post: “To Screen or Not to Screen” He provides a simple 6-item checklist for determining whether you want to do a prospect screening on your donor database. Sweet!

And I couldn’t agree with him more. Especially when he tells us that prospect screenings often fail to achieve results because of “poor planning and communications”. I recommend reading his blog post if you haven’t done a prospect screening and think you want to – and even if you have done one!

The Multi-Channel Fundraising Game

Data Mining, Discussion, , ,

WoodGameThe Philanthropy Journal wrote an article about the results of a new study released by Convio: The Next Generation of American Giving.  What I found most compelling is that people across the ages are responding and engaging with nonprofits through many different channels such as direct mail, website, social media, and events. My own preferences are that I enjoy getting Facebook updates, I like to attend events of interest, I receive a printed request to give and then make the gift through the website.

What does this mean for prospect research? Right now many nonprofits are struggling with how to track and evaluate direct mail and events, but movement is afoot to track and evaluate interaction across all those channels. By incorporating multi-channel interaction into the donor database, donor analytics could take on new dimensions saving time and money by allowing nonprofits to react and predict donor behaviors.

Is your organization tracking Facebook interactions in your database? How about Twitter or LinkedIn? Do you know if the commenter on your blog is a donor?

Privacy-New version being released

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QuestionGirlsmallThe New York Times ran an article today entitled “How Privacy Vanishes Online“. It is a nice summary of what has mostly been reported separately up until now. We all know that we are revealing a lot of personal information online and we should watch our privacy settings and be aware of scams. However, many of us do not realize that we are not anonymous online – or more than ever before – offline.

Simply put, data mining is the analysis of a large set of data to find patterns and then predict things. What the New York Times is telling us is that we are providing a lot of pieces of personal data that when analyzed in one set can predict not just our behaviors but reveal our identities. No-one is anonymous and this is not a television show!

So maybe we need to evaluate our definitions of privacy. As nonprofits, we need to ensure we have a privacy policy that defines how we maintain our own information but it is also very important that it covers how we work with outside vendors.

For example, if our donor database is hosted online, what does that mean in terms of privacy? Will the vendor be collecting and using any of the information? ANY INFORMATION is a new thought. As the smart folks at the University of Texas and Carnegie Mellon University have demonstrated, it is not enough anymore to strip data of typical identifiers and feel confident it is anonymous.