Tag Archives: donor research

Yikes! Donor Personality Traits Can be Predicted?

Discussion, Focused Fundraising, , , , , , ,
Who’s watching your brain?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could discover the personalities, values and needs of our donors and prospects? Now we have access to demographic information – things like age, sex, marital status, residence, average income. But what if we could really *know* what makes our prospects tick?

Of course, businesses would love this deeper layer of extremely personal information too. And a group of researchers at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California are getting much closer to making this information accessible. How? Well, just for fun, let’s use the current buzzword – Big Data!

But it’s a little more nuanced than that. Really it’s social media. That’s the place where we bare ourselves the most. We talk with our friends candidly and share our feelings along with facts. Led by Eben Haber, the IBMers are capitalizing on research done by Tal Yarkoni at the University of Colorado on how certain words correlate with certain personality traits. Dr. Yarkoni looked at blogs. Dr. Haber and crew are looking at Twitter.

What do you say in your Twitter feed? A new product created by Dr. Haber and his team is being tested by a financial services company. The claim is that in just 50 tweets it can describe your personality reasonably well. In 200 tweets it gets uncomfortably accurate.

The big question is: Could we use information about personality traits to raise more money?

Up until now, the big data sets have been pretty exclusive to higher education and sometimes other large institutions. This is not because they have so many individual records (although they often do), but because universities have so many pieces of data on each of their alums. They keep track of things like what clubs they belonged to, how many degrees received, events attended, participation in directories and more recently, online alum communities. The local food bank is not likely to ever have that much information about each of its donors. But could organizations have more information in the future?

Multi-channel fundraising – print, email, website, Facebook, Twitter, etc. – means that organizations have access to multi-channels of data. This data is attached to specific individuals. Before you can blink your eyes, the software to ride the big social media data beast will drop in price and become more accessible to the masses of nonprofit organizations. Okay, maybe it will take a few eye blinks, but if the past is a good predictor of the future, it is definitely coming.

Right now the most common piece of data we use to determine whether someone has an affinity (likes our org) is giving. We want to see things like frequency, recency and longevity. We can do a wealth screening to identify people capable of giving a lot, but that does not help us turn them into donors – into people who have an affinity for our organization and its work.

Now close your eyes and imagine … wait! read this first before closing your eyes … that you can run your database through a screening that assigns rated personality traits to each constituent record. Ahhhh! Now you can group people by personality traits and create messaging that resonates with who they are – resonates with the core of their personality. WOW! People would convert to donors at amazing rates! Right?

Until that magical day, let’s see if we can’t work on our current messaging. Little things like communicating with donors in the medium in which they like to give. No more of this sending paper to people who have demonstrated online giving. Many organizations are still struggling with what feels like “traditional” message segments, but are quite new to many. Messaging. It’s like exercise and good nutrition. There’s no magic pill (or database screening) that will ever replace it.

Which brings us back to the heart of fundraising – relationship building. Some organizations are better at it than others – regardless of budget size or the depth of data.

So although it is always fun to play with new technology and to imagine a day when science will turn “magic” into a software product, the feet on the ground (you and I) need to stay focused on what builds the best and most relationships with our organizations and missions. The right messages. The phone calls and face-to-face visits. Being real with real people.

P.S. Are you on Twitter? Let’s connect! You can find me @jenfilla I promise I won’t try to predict your personality!!

Other Resources You Might Like

Getting Real with Residential Real Estate

4Researchers, , , , , , ,

This post debuts the InfoSeeking4Researchers series! I decided residential real estate would provide a great conversation starter. It appears simple, but is laced with multiple perspectives depending upon organization size, skill levels, prospect capacities and more. As in, a deceptively simple topic!

I have started the conversation here, but I’m expecting you to finish it. Each conversation starter I write will be emailed to InfoSeeking 4Researchers subscribers and posted here on the InfoSeeking blog under the 4Researchers category. You can subscribe to the e-newsletter to get extra tips and resources, or follow the blog category. Wherever you read it, I encourage you to post your experiences, tips, and questions as blog comments so everyone can benefit.

Residential real estate is one of the first things we researchers look for and yet sometimes we overlook the nuanced information it can provide. I was reminded of just how much it can shape prospect strategy as I was reviewing a prospect profile with a new client… but I’m getting ahead of myself. First, let’s discuss presenting the information. Second, I’ll give an example analysis. And third, I’ll start a list of examples that I hope you will add to!

Presenting Residential Real Estate

As the years roll forward, I have moved to presenting more of my researched information in tables. It ensures that no matter who does the work, everything looks the same, and it also helps me remember the pieces we need to check for. My real estate table looks like something like this:

Property Year Valuation
[depending on the level, I might include a picture here]

1234 Best Vista Drive, Indian Shores FL 33785

  • Pinellas County Gulf-front residence; 5-bed, 4776 sq ft interior
  • Purchased in 2002 for $8 million
  • Owned by Pillsbury and Jane Dough
  • Revolving line of credit recorded in 2007 for $1 million
 2013 $11 million

I choose to present an estimated market value, which I round so the end user doesn’t interpret it as an exact value.

  • Are you presenting your research in a document or does everything go directly into the database?
  • Are there places in your database to include the bullet points above that will print in a database generated profile?

A Quick Analysis

So what do I now know about Mr. and Mrs. Dough?

  • They own a big house on the beach.
  • They purchased before the real estate market tanked and paid cash (no mortgage).
  • They took out a loan during the recession, which happened to coincide with when Mrs. Dough launched her new and very successful business.

And that means…

  • They already had wealth when they bought the house and leveraged that wealth during the recession to launch a business when the business market was quiet. I’d say they likely have significant capacity.

Other examples of things I have learned through real estate

  • When the property is owned in a trust named after the prospects and listing them as trustees, I want see if the trust name on the deed record states exactly what kind of trust it is. Holding the family home in trust suggests to me that they have done some estate planning, which the gift officer will want to take into consideration.
  • One prospect held a property in trust in his name and yet he was living in a retirement home. When this was pointed out to the gift officer, he told me that he had heard the prospect’s daughter was having troubles and that this house was likely bought for her use. So it’s not likely the property is going to factor into a gift, is it? Good to know.
  • When a prospect has owned the property 10+ years and still resides in the home, even if only part-time, it suggests a different approach to life and wealth than someone who buys and sells the primary residence as often as you might sign a car lease.
  • When there is a mortgage, and especially if it is a large one, it suggests that there must be a certain amount of income to support those mortgage payments. A mortgage calculator is a handy tool to get an estimate.
  • There’s a big difference between a successful real estate investor who sits on vacant land through the downturn (because she paid cash) and one who is stuck holding vacant land (because she has debt)!

Now it’s Your Turn!

Our profession is rife with experienced, intelligent and very creative people who also share. Won’t you share too?

  • Do you have examples to share like the ones above?
  • What nuggets of info routinely gets ignored, but shouldn’t?
  • Or should we spend less time on real estate and more on something else?

Click on “Leave a Comment” below or any of the social media buttons.

5 Tips for Finding Your Prospect’s Children

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

Knowing whether a donor prospect has children is a critical piece of information, but even more important for planned giving prospects. According to a study by Russell N. James III, J.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia*, the absence of grandchildren as an indicator of likelihood to make a planned gift trumped even giving history – by a wide margin. Yes, go ahead and read that sentence again!

After those findings were presented at AFP’s International Conference I received multiple inquiries asking if there was a way to append child relationships to the donor database. Thank goodness the answer is “no”! I’m not confident that a centralized database of familial relationships is in our best interest generally. But it sure would be a powerful piece of information in our ability to predict inclination to give.

Whether you are a frontline fundraiser or a dedicated prospect researcher, there are a few ways to tease out information about children when it might not otherwise be obvious.

1.  Biographical Sources

The first places to look are biographies, obituaries and wedding notices – any place where family information is described. Sometimes it is tucked at the end of the executive’s company biography and may or may not include names. Sometimes the Who’s Who listing is detailed. Other times a search engine might find a genealogy page for your prospect’s family.

2.  In the News

Many of you have access to newspaper and other news databases online with the use of your public library card. Other news articles show up in search engine results. This is often a good place to find references to children and grandchildren.

3.  Search on Address

I like to use Lexis Nexis for Development Professionals (LNDP) and perform a “People” search using only the home address – especially when the prospect has lived there for a long time. But you can also use a site like www.switchboard.com and do a reverse search by address. Any search that will give you a list of the names of the people who have been associated with that specific address is useful. The bonus from the LNDP search is that those addresses are referenced against voter’s registration and other sources and a birth year is often included in the search results. This gets me closer to uncovering how likely those associated names are to being children, instead of other family members.

4.  Giving and Private Schools

When a prospect gives regularly to a private school, especially one from which s/he did *not* receive a diploma, I like to perform a search in Google of the school’s website. You can use the Google Advanced Search form, or type in your own. It looks like this:  LastName site:schoolname.edu   Many times I have found likely children’s names, and sometimes even grandchildren who are attending or have attended that school.

5.  Social Media

If your prospect is active on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media websites, you might be able to tease out family relationships. Many times the prospect has tight privacy controls, but it is surprising how much can still be discovered in the public domain. I have even encountered prospects who keep detailed, and very public, blogs online.

Once I have found a likely child’s name, I have often been rewarded by doing a couple of searches on only the child’s name. The younger generation is more comfortable sharing online and the child, especially if post high school, might share parent names and pictures more publicly. This helps us with making an accurate match, but we need to be careful when approaching the donor prospect.

Children are special and protected relationships, and the last thing we want to do is make the donor prospect feel like we are stalking her with our prospect research techniques! Without trust there will be no gift. Because of this, we as fundraisers need to be skilled at opening the conversational door to allow the prospect to tell us what we already know.

There is always room for error when we search for information anonymously. If you are a prospect researcher working with a new frontline fundraiser, it is worth having a conversation with him about how important it is to allow the prospect to confirm the information we find.

Other Posts You Might Like

Why Use a Researcher When There’s Google?

3 Actions That Demonstrate Your High Prospect Research IQ

* “Causes and correlates of charitable giving in estate planning: A cross-sectional and longitudinal examination of older adults”, a study conducted by Russell N. James III, J.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia and published in 2008 (data from 1996-2007 collected by the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study)

Are Your Numbers Lying To You?

4Fundraisers, Focused Fundraising, , , , ,

Whether you are a frontline fundraiser or a prospect researcher, at some point you are faced with decisions about how much time and effort to put into measuring your fundraising success. But watch out! It’s all too easy to be deceived by the numbers you measure. You might be measuring the wrong items, get the wrong numbers altogether or get slowed down with numbers that don’t move you forward.

Are you measuring the right things?

No matter what size our organization, time and resources are limited. So where do you start in your fundraising office? With your donors, of course!

We know that we need to acquire and keep donors in order to provide sustaining income to support our organization’s mission. A recent client of mine was excited to tell me that his direct mail acquisition had a high rate of return. Nice!

But where were those donors now? It turned out that he had retained 14% of them. Ouch. Measuring acquisition without measuring retention is a mistake. Be careful that your measurements tell you the whole story about your donors.

Do you have the right numbers?

As you decide what to measure, keep asking yourself if the resulting number means better fundraising. For example, it might be exciting to count the number of people attending your event as it grows, but wouldn’t dollar-raised-per-person reveal whether your goal of raising more money was met? You may have a lot of attendees, but more people do not always translate into more dollars raised.

Are your numbers slowing you down?

Take the time to think about your goals and choose measurements that will reveal whether you are reaching your goals. Most of us have goals more or less like these:

  • Acquire X number of new donors = more dollars raised
  • Retain/renew X percent of all donors = more dollars raised
  • X number new major gift prospects identified/assigned = more dollars raised
  • Raise X dollars = more dollars raised

This is a very basic description, and your office may need a more complex set of measurements. For example, you may want to track different kind of dollars raised – direct appeals, major gifts, events. But don’t get caught in the trap of measuring too many things! You want to choose the most critical elements that will move everything else forward.

For example, my client decided to measure the retention rate of all donors instead of breaking it down to the retention of new donors acquired through direct mail. With a staff of three they only have time to focus on the most important measurements.

Ask yourself, “What are the key items that will move all of our efforts forward”? Set goals and measure those items religiously.

If you try to measure too many things or perform more complex analysis all of the time, you run the risk of bogging down your fundraising energy and effort.

No matter what your fundraising role you play, your actions should result in more money raised. As fundraising leadership, you need to determine the key goals that will move everything forward. As a prospect researcher you often play the role of “data translator”, helping frontline fundraising to translate goals into measurements. No matter what your role is, always ask if the items being measured and the numbers being reviewed translate into more money raised.

When Should You Look for Cold Prospects?

Focused Fundraising, Major Gift Teams, , , , , , , ,
It's COLD out there!

It’s easy to tell fundraisers to look at their donors first, but are there times when it makes sense to look outside the donor pool? If so, when and how should you do it?

This may sound obvious, but usually the best time to go after cold prospects is after you have looked in your donor pool and need more. Apart from general donor acquisition, this might happen for a few reasons including:

(1) You need more major gifts than your current donor pool can support

(2) You need qualified prospects to fill board member positions

(3) You are strategically reaching out to a new constituency

Branching Out

When you are looking for more major gifts or new board members, a great technique is Branching. This technique is described in Prospect Research for Fundraisers: The Essential Handbook (p.26) and you might also hear it described as Relationship Mapping (p.175). The idea is that you take your high-powered, well-connected donors and trustees and put them at the center, branching their connections outward.

A simple, but great example, of this technique is demonstrated by Dan Blakemore in his blog post, “How One Web Search Led to a $20,000 Gift”. When the board chairman passed away and he needed to find donors for a named fund in his memory, Dan branched out from the board chairman’s connections to identify a donor who made a first gift of $20,000. Dan started with his existing donors, but he took an extra step outward and was successful. You don’t have to start with a huge project to get results.

Strategic New Direction

Branching exercises sometimes result in more of the same prospects because you are working within a network of connections. There are organizations that do not want more of the same. They make a deliberate decision to reach out to new and different constituencies. This might take the form of populating the board of directors with people who are more similar to the people they serve. It might also be a concerted effort to engage an entirely new group with the organization in a meaningful way.

In the book, Prospect Research for Fundraisers, we tell the story of Jeff Lee at Wycliffe Bible Translators (p.164). He was hired to build stronger fundraising efforts in Asian countries where Wycliffe operates, but also to build engagement with the U.S. Asian-American community, hopefully at some point in the future linking that engagement back to the home countries. Some institutes of higher education and other organizations are strategically building engagement with countries where new wealth is emerging, such as China and India. When you are starting out new there are usually few existing donors and relationships, so how do you go about it?

Building Up and In

In the U.S. there are many sources of information specific to industries, ethnic communities and more. For example, local Business Journals usually publish a “Book of Lists” each year. You can build a list of the top philanthropists in your community, the top business leaders and more. You can ask a researcher to build you a specific list, or as a frontline fundraiser you might start by, for example, joining a local association of Chinese business owners and using a researcher to help you get more information after you have identified specific individuals.

First you build up your list of cold prospects (some people call them targets, but that often sounds harsh to a fundraiser’s friendly ears) and then you make the inside, face to face connections, getting prospect profiles on individuals once you have made a connection.

Cold Prospecting Takes Effort

No matter how you go about it, cold prospecting consumes a lot of time and resources. Make sure you set yourself up for success. Following are some tips:

Plan & Track:
Make sure you have a plan in place. You wouldn’t just show up on a plot of land and build a house willy-nilly. Draw up a plan and track your progress periodically.

Polish Skills:
You may find it takes a different set of skills to engage a new group of people. Be sure to get any training you need. Network with colleagues who have done similar work successfully.

Educate Yourself:
You may need to broaden your knowledge of the culture and history, inside or outside of the U.S. Researchers can help you gather this information as well.

There are good reasons to do cold prospecting, but it needs to be treated with careful respect because of its expense. Just as you nurture donors acquired through direct mail to ensure you raise much more money in the long-term than the initial cost of acquisition, likewise you need to plan your major gift prospecting projects to ensure that they lead to large gifts and deep relationships.

About the Author

Jen Filla is president of Aspire Research Group LLC where she works with organizations worried about finding their next big donor, concerned about what size gift to ask for, or frustrated that they aren’t meeting their major gift goals. She is also co-author of Prospect Research for Fundraisers: The Essential Handbook.

Warning! Did You Recognize Your Million-Dollar Donor?

4Fundraisers, Major Gift Teams, , , , , , , , ,

You are launching a campaign or pushing forward with a major gift initiative and finally have the budget to order some profiles. Yay! You pick the first name – a prospect you’ve met who comes across as wealthy – only to discover the capacity of the prospect falls under $100,000. So disappointing. What went wrong?

Even when an organization has performed a wealth screening, sometimes gift officers still gravitate toward lower-capacity prospects. Many times this is because they are not aware of the lifestyle and asset differences between affluent and high net worth. High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) do not look like the typical fundraiser – you or me. They are different. And sometimes that can make us feel uncomfortable.

HNWI According to Knight Frank

The recently released Knight Frank annual Wealth Report helps to illuminate some of those differences. Many groups define a HNWI as someone with $1 million in net assets, but Knight Frank cranks it up to an individual with $30 million or more in net assets. Let’s give those numbers some context. Suppose your prospect is passionate about your mission and wants to donate 5% of her net assets.

  • At $30 million, she gives you $1.5 million.
  • At $1 million, she gives you $50,000.

Among these elite, Knight Frank finds the following:

  • London and New York are the top destinations in the world.
  • HNWI’s in North America own an average of 3.6 homes.
  • The top 3 most popular investments of passion in North America: Fine art, wine and classic cars

Affluent vs. HNW – Some Examples

One prospect I researched was so interested in wine that he founded a vineyard and winery – as a hobby! His capacity was very different from his partner’s, who also invested in the winery and ran the operations. The partner invested his savings and was earning his living. The prospect was a HNWI and his partner was affluent.

Another finding by Knight Frank was that 25% of HNWI’s net worth is accounted for by their main residence and second homes that are not owned purely as an investment. I researched a prospect who owned four condos on the beach in Florida. One of them was his home and the others, some in the same building, he held as investments and rented them to vacationers.

That is a very different picture from a prospect who owns a few condos on the beach, all but one purchased during an economic downturn, as well as home and a New York City condo. The prospect living in the beach condo appeared to manage his properties personally and likely earned income of around $100,000 – that’s affluent. The prospect with the New York City condo is a top executive who saw an opportunity to own valuable beach-front real estate near his favorite vacation spot and used cash to purchase when the prices were low – that’s a HNWI.

In Your Own Backyard

You don’t have to be an expert on how wealth and assets are accumulated and managed, but you do need to be a student of wealth to begin recognizing the difference between a prospect capable of a $1 million gift and a prospect capable of a $50,000 gift. If you are in a mid-west rural community your HNWI is going to look different from someone in New York. It’s up to you to know your community – although a skilled prospect researcher can always help you out.

As a frontline fundraiser, recognizing and embracing HNWIs is a valuable skill that could make a tremendous difference for the cause you serve. You might be out of your comfort zone at first, but you can get through that with education, practice and a little help from your peers.

Other Wealth Reports You Might Like

2012 Bank of America Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy

2011 Capgemini-Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report

About the Author

Jen Filla is president of Aspire Research Group LLC where she works with organizations worried about finding their next big donor, concerned about what size gift to ask for, or frustrated that they aren’t meeting their major gift goals.

Got retention? You'll need it for major gifts!

Focused Fundraising, , , , ,

When the conversation turns to identifying major gift prospects out of a base of donors, we usually hear how a wealth screening will highlight those annual fund donors who have capacity. Presto! Like magic. And there is quite a bit of truth in that wealth screening picture. But what if your organization is small, your development staff number fewer than five, your ability to cultivate major gift prospects is limited by staff availability and you know most of your best donors? Paying for a wealth screening may or may not be a good investment right now.

And let’s be honest. Is your major gift program actually based on annual cumulative giving at your highest giving level? Is mastery of your database still in on the to-do list? If this is your world, then a focus on annual fund donor retention could go a long way toward improving your higher-end giving and prepare you for a future campaign or multiple-year, major gifts.

What you Want to Know

Most organizations have a system in place to provide extra attention to donors who give at or above a certain dollar amount. And most of us have heard about reporting on the following:

  • Lybunts – last year but unfortunately not this year
  • Sybunts – some year but unfortunately not this year

These are donors you will want to pick up the phone and call – most especially if your numbers are small, such as under 100. Make sure your calls are at least loosely scripted and sincere.

You might also want to consider keeping track of the following:

  • New Donors – What about knowing who all of your brand new donors were last year and what they are doing this year? New donors are expensive and we need to spend extra care to make them feel welcomed to the family. Don’t be afraid of calling on the phone.
  • Upgraded and Downgraded – What about knowing who gave a higher or lower gift? Either action begs for a response.

How this Helps you Raise More Money

Really good stewardship, the kind that is timely and genuine, depends upon an efficient use of your time. You need to know which people on the list should get additional attention. If you can learn how to use your database to track information like this about your appeals, then the following are likely to happen:

  • Your donors will tell you what they want to know and how they want to hear it.
  • You will find out why people drop out and why some become even more excited about your organization.
  • You will get much better at using and maintaining your database.
  • You will learn about common wealth indicators (luxury vacations, multiple homes, etc.) from actually talking with your donors.
  • You will have conversations that deepen donors’ engagement with your organization and open up opportunities to discuss planned and major gifts.

When these things happen on a regular basis, you will be able to respond to your organization’s donor trends, which may not be the same as other organizations, and you will raise more money. Practice this kind of donor tracking and touching and your donors will be ready to support you when the next big fundraising adventure – like a capital campaign – comes knocking on your door.

Originally Posted on the Blog of the Nonprofit Leadership Center of Tampa Bay

Jen Filla was guest blogger for the Nonprofit Leadership Center in support of her upcoming workshop: Using Prospect Research to Boost Giving. Join Jen for this interactive program as she demystifies prospect research and teaches you to use prospect research tools and resources efficiently and effectively to boost giving. Click here to register for this program on 2/20/2013 from 9am-noon.

Jen is is president of Aspire Research Group LLC where she works with organizations worried about finding their next big donor, concerned about what size gift to ask for, or frustrated that they aren’t meeting their major gift goals.

Looking for Annual Appeal Examples?

  • ClickLinks posted a contest for the best annual appeal. View their results by clicking here.
  • SOFII.org is an all-around useful resource for everything annual appeal.

Making Analytics Accessible to All

Focused Fundraising, , , , , ,

In “Geek Philanthropy: Data Huggers”, the Economist (10/20/2012) tells the story of DataKind, an organization dedicated to using data analytics to help nonprofits. As the Economist points out, businesses are actively using advanced analytics to improve their efficiency. Nonprofit organizations have lots of data too, but usually not so much money. Could the benefits of data analysis – improved program and fundraising outcomes – be within your organization’s reach?

According to their website, DataKind organizes three distinct efforts to share analytics with nonprofits:

  • DataDive™ – a weekend event that teams three selected social organizations that have well-defined data problems with volunteer data scientists to tackle their data challenges. These events are completely free and voluntary and serve to energize the base, provide direct services to organizations, and to enlighten social sector groups to the power of using data in their programs.
  • DataCorps™ – a select group of data scientists who work on volunteer or contract data projects part-time. These members work for one to six months on targeted data projects that they flesh out with the organizations that apply. Our volunteers are paid by the organization or are housed within private companies who take on the projects (e.g. Google gives 20% time to three scientists for a month to execute a project).
  • In-House Data Staff – We maintain a full-time staff of data scientists that take on the most pressing and high-impact problems for a variable length of time. These full-time employees are paid directly for their services by the organizations involved.

The Economist described a DataDive, affectionately called a “hackathon”, in San Francisco. DataKind volunteers analyzed the data from Mobilising Health, a non-profit group that connects rural patients in India with doctors in far-away cities via cell phone. Among other things, DataKind helped Mobilising Health to take more account of urgency and to direct requests to the most responsive doctors.

Improving efficiencies and outcomes of an organization’s programs using a dataset like the cell phone records and text messages was great for all involved. The organization received the results, plus the ability to better track and respond to information going forward. The data scientists worked on a project that challenged their skills and taught them new skills.

We might call Mobilising Health a very “ripe” subject for data analysis. They had an organized, well recorded set of data. Thank you cell phone companies! But what about organizations that are offering after school programs or programs at domestic abuse shelters? And what about fundraising operations?

Notice that the only free service DataKind offers is the hackathon weekend for “well-defined data problems” such as Mobilising Health. What do we know about the majority of nonprofit organizations? If the information is even recorded, the data is often “dirty” and leadership unaware of what types of problems data analysis can help them solve. The potential for improved mission performance through data analysis is exciting and very, very real! But so is the underwhelming enthusiasm for data collection and maintenance.

Not all of us are born as philanthropy geeks and for many people, the care and maintenance of data is about as thrilling as watching grass grow. But understanding the value and potential of data collection – significantly improved mission outcomes – is pretty glamorous.

When it comes to fundraising, Joshua Birkholz wrote a very friendly read – Fundraising Analytics – for the Wiley/AFP Fund Development Series. The most important part of the book is the beginning where he talks about translating your fundraising goals into questions that can be answered with data. Once you understand what it is you want to know, recording, maintaining and analyzing the data can be done by others. Maybe even a DataKind hackathon crew!

Prospect research professionals are your neighborhood philanthropy geeks. We help you translate your goals into questions and translate your questions in data recording and reporting. The ability to monitor your fundraising performance and react to external and internal donor trends can lead to impressive dollars raised – and transform your ability to perform your mission.

Have you worked with a friendly neighborhood philanthropy geek today?

About the Author

Jen Filla is president of Aspire Research Group LLC where she works with organizations worried about finding their next big donor, concerned about what size gift to ask for, or frustrated that they aren’t meeting their major gift goals.

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CoolData Blog by Kevin MacDonell

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Seriously? Would a consultant work with You?

4Fundraisers, Discussion, , ,

It’s a tough job to hire a consultant, but have you ever considered how hard it is for consultants to find the right clients? Have you ever stopped to consider if you would make a good client? Maybe it’s a question worth pondering before you spend your hard-fundraised money!

Obviously a consultant is searching for clients who have budget dollars and a need that fits her skillset, and clients are searching for consultants who have great skills and fees within reach. But assuming those two conditions are met, following are five questions I ask when evaluating a potential client and the reverse questions you might ask as you evaluate a consultant.

(1)  Is the client prospect likely to be successful with my help?

I frequently work with major gift programs. The client needs to have fundraisers capable of cultivating and soliciting donors successfully. And those fundraisers need to operate under leadership that provides the setting and the tools for creating a compelling case for support. All the research in the world can’t overcome those two critical elements.

Reverse:  Is the consultant trying to sell me more than I can handle or less than I need? When the project is completed, will I be raising more money than before?

(2)  Does the client prospect have a plan, or are they constantly in crisis mode?

Prospect research provides information, insight and process. When someone is unable to decide on a course of action, changes direction frequently, or has “urgent” requests that are then cancelled, it is often because there is no real overall fundraising plan or strategy for achieving goals. I’m happy to make a sprint when needed, but only when it moves everyone forward, not in a circle.

Reverse:  Does the consultant clearly paint a beginning, middle and end to the project? Does she identify meaningful milestones along the journey?

(3)  How easy is it to communicate with the client prospect?

Every organization is different and I lost my mind-reading talent years ago. If someone is unwilling to take the time have a conversation, I know that there is a good chance I will not meet (unknown) expectations and I probably won’t be able to develop the kind of deeper relationship I enjoy with my best clients. We don’t have to be dearest friends, but I want the opportunity to make my clients very successful. That requires a return phone call.

Reverse:  Does the consultant do a good job of rephrasing my needs accurately and explaining the process without being too detailed? Does the consultant return my phone calls and emails promptly?

(4)  Is the client prospect ready and willing to commit to the project?

Most of my projects require the client to put time, effort and resources into it. From something as simple as setting up a remote login to the database, to planning, evaluating and testing new systems and procedures – all require the client’s time and energy.

Reverse: Has the consultant explained what will be required of me to make the project successful? How will my efforts affect the timing and outcomes of the project?

(5)  Does the client prospect trust me enough to tell me what’s really wrong?

I have been approached by potential clients who want to talk about prospect research, but when we have the conversation, will only describe a perfectly working scenario or will focus on a small problem and refuse to discuss the problem that is impacting dollars raised. Being able to have candid conversations is critical to success. Sometimes trust takes time, and sometimes it never happens.

Reverse: How well does the consultant discuss a solution with me even when it makes me uncomfortable or requires a difficult transition?


When you step back and look at the whole picture, the consultant-client dance is not all that different from most relationships. There needs to be some chemistry – you have to like each other. And you want to agree on fundamental values and philosophies and avoid unproductive drama. Make a list of your basic criteria (such as, must return phone calls promptly) and then have some conversations.

Other Articles You Might Like

5 Ways You Know You Need a Research Consultant

3 Consultant Relationship Types That Succeed. Which One for You?

The Shocking Truth about Prospect Research Consultants!

About the Author

Jen Filla is president of Aspire Research Group LLC where she works with organizations worried about finding their next big donor, concerned about what size gift to ask for, or frustrated that they aren’t meeting their major gift goals.

Got Software. Got Research?

Focused Fundraising, Major Gift Teams, , , , ,

Many fundraisers know they need research on donors and prospects, but what is the best way to get it? Should you buy a software subscription? Are there any other options? Let’s answer those questions with a story.

A Software Tale
November has most of us thinking about Thanksgiving and other holidays around the corner. But many accountants are thinking about closing out the books and the approaching tax season. Imagine for a minute that you overhear two guests talking at one of the numerous holiday parties you find yourself attending. Bob Business Owner tells Ann Accountant all about how complicated his finances are for the past year now that his small business is growing and expresses some concern about how it will impact his taxes.

“What are you going to do to make sure your tax filings best reflect those changes?” Ann Accountant asks.

“Oh, I splurged and purchased the latest version of TurboTax this year,” says Bob.

Ann looks genuinely confused. “How does that help you make decisions?”

Important Outcomes
TurboTax is great software, but when your finances are complex a software package is not going to help you make key decisions about your tax filings. When the outcomes are truly important, software doesn’t usually make the grade. Software can’t think, strategize or get creative about its approach.

There are many wonderful software options that meet prospect research needs. I have my own favorite subscriptions and purchases. Software speeds up the time it takes me to research individuals by grouping important resources together. Software makes data analysis possible, and fast.

But software does not recognize that what seems like a random company incorporated by your prospect is likely to be a family limited partnership with at least $10 million in invested assets. Software does not recognize that you were not able to mail your usual spring appeal two years ago and that is why giving frequency went down.

What About You – The Fundraiser?
So how do you know when to buy software? Or when you need a person who has expertise? Or some combination? Whenever you have a fundraising goal or objective, ask any potential vendor or consultant whether their solution will get you where you want to go. The answers may surprise you. But let’s illustrate it with another story.

An organization wants to launch its first campaign. They have campaign counsel to coach them through, but they need to prioritize their database and get detailed information on their best prospects. This campaign is very important to the future of their organization and they have a tight budget. The CEO is a visionary and she knows that spending a little more in the right places can have transformative results. She hires a prospect research consultant who makes sure they get as much out of their database screening as possible.

The consultant works closely with the fundraising team, including campaign counsel, to segment their best prospects and code them in the database to work in tandem with their relationship management system. Through this process the team recognizes that they need to restructure their approach based on the giving potential found. Instead of struggling near the end of the campaign, the team knows exactly when to change gears and re-focus their energy on a different prospect segment. It works!

At this point you might be saying to yourself:

“That’s all well and good, Jen, but how do I pick a good prospect research consultant? I’ve heard of organizations who have suffered with bad advice and bad information. I don’t want to be one of them!”

Choosing a prospect research consultant – any consultant really – can be confusing and risky. Take the time to communicate clearly what you want to accomplish. Is the consultant listening? Or doing all of the talking? Did you check references? Look for posts in the future on how to choose and manage a consultant.

Other Articles You Might Like

5 Ways You know You Need a Research Consultant

Mistakes That Nonprofit Organizations Make Hiring Consultants – Karen Eber Davis

3 Consultant Relationship Types that Succeed. Which One for You?

The Shocking Truth About Prospect Research Consultants

About Aspire Research Group LLC

Headquartered in Tampa Bay, Florida, Aspire Research Group was founded so that every development office could have the benefits of professional prospect research. Known for our creativity and clear communications, we work with organizations who are worried about finding their next big donor, concerned about what size gift to ask for, and frustrated that they aren’t meeting their major gift goals. Do you need to close more major gifts?

www.AspireResearchGroup.com 727 231 0516