Tag Archives: prospect research

Cultivation and Research: Salting the Prospect Soup

4Fundraisers, ,

saltshakersmI’d like you to imagine that prospect research is like salt. Too little salt and your food tastes bland, but too much and you end up bloated with water. No matter what the size of your budget or development shop you should always be using prospect research. The trick is using just the right amount. So how much research do you need when a prospect is in the cultivation phase?

Some of the best information comes from face-to-face contact with prospects. Before going on a visit or making a phone call decide what you want to find out next. Do they have children and grandchildren? This affects estate planning. Do they give to others? Where is your organization on their top ten list? Where is their wealth coming from?

As you are gathering critical information in-person, back at the office a prospect researcher can help you connect the pieces. You might ask your researcher to:

  • Get initial wealth/asset verification before continuing visits
  • Investigate likely compensation or confirm company ownership
  • Look for a family foundation or confirm a directorship

Sometimes development staff make the mistake of wanting “everything you get” on a prospect before even picking up the phone. In many cases over-researching in the beginning of a relationship is really procrastination, which can lead to lots of information and not enough gifts!

During cultivation you need just enough information to keep the relationship progressing toward a major gift. In July we will discuss how to keep track of all this information during cultivation.

Supporting Advancement

Discussion, , ,

ToolFingersHave you heard of SupportingAdvancement.com? Well, if you’re in the nonprofit world I hope so! It has been a resource I’ve had on my Favorite Link List from its inception! Here’s what the website says about itself:

“We provide resources of interest to those supporting advancement and development targeted primarily to the higher education space. However, many of the lessons, tips, tricks and techniques can be applied throughout the nonprofit sector.”

But I would put it a bit differently. I would say that Supporting advancement provides nonprofit professionals with the practical tools and real-life examples that lead to success!

And I have been honored with the privilege of being included! Check out my two contributions here:

Comprehensive Profile

Three Simple Steps to a Prospect Management System

A big, hearty thanks to Brian Dowling, Principal and Founder of Supporting Advancement!

Effective Relationship Management Systems

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SandboxA relationship management system goes beyond moves management or prospect tracking. At the Association of Fundraising Professionals international conference in Baltimore last week Lisa Howley from Johns Hopkins University presented on Effective Relationship Management Systems.

She created a system for Wheaton College in Massachusetts with a development shop of ten and is creating one at Johns Hopkins where there is significantly more staff. The relationship management system goes beyond moving major gift prospects through the giving cycle by incorporating policies, such as privacy and gift policies, actual practices, the database and overall procedures. This addresses all sorts of issues around the kind of contact any donor might receive from the organization.

At Hopkins there are complications such as multiple schools and numerous development staff touching the same donor who may have multiple interests and affiliations with the school. However, even in a small shop it can be useful to create a smaller relationship management system addressing issues such as who, if anyone, must approve a solicitation before the donor is approached, what and how much data is recorded and tracked in the database, and what role volunteers such as board members have in touching donors. Creating a policy communicates expectations to everyone affected.

I view creating a relationship management system as a way of organizing development efforts so that everyone plays nicely in the nonprofit sandbox!

The Multi-Channel Fundraising Game

Discussion, Fundraising Analytics, , ,

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?

Forbes Asks: Why use a researcher when there's Google?

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Young Learners Need Librarians, not just Google is an article published in Forbes on Monday, March 22, 2010. A parallel article could have been titled – Small Development Shops Need Prospect Researchers, not just Google. Author, Mike Moran, repeatedly mentions children’s inability to discern credible sources and their inability to find the most relevant material amidst the overwhelming heap of irrelevant material. Yet many nonprofits continue to believe that they can type a donor prospect’s name in Google and find everything they need.

The reality is that prospect research was always more complex, even before the internet. When searching was done in the library it was still important to know which sources to use and how to summarize prospect information for use by a gift officer. Finding prospect information is as complex as ever.

There are many sites purporting to “mine” the web for you, and sometimes they do a decent job of digging through the massive content on the internet. Dangerously, people often assume that because the website located the information, the information is both correct and belongs to the prospect. In fact mismatches and errors abound and are endlessly repeated.

A prospect researcher verifies information from primary sources wherever possible, alerts nonprofits when information is at risk for error, and includes self-disclosed or hearsay information (think Twitter, Facebook etc) only as appropriate, identifying the sources clearly. The two most important things a prospect researcher does for you is (1) ensure that standard biographical, occupational, wealth and giving history information is not overlooked, and (2) sift through and summarize the information ethically. A really good researcher can also alert you to possible gift strategies.

Researching your prospect requires specialized technique that goes way beyond Google. That’s why Aspire Research Group is so proud to offer small and mid-size organizations professional prospect research, without breaking the budget.

Privacy-New version being released

Fundraising Analytics, , , ,

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.

Data dust is gold dust for Google

Discussion, Fundraising Analytics, , , ,

The February 27, 2010 edition of the Economist has a special report on managing information. Wow! I love the way the Economist pulls together their reports. I know that Amazon tracks what I’m browsing and offers me suggestions. I know that Facebook tracks posts and comments on fan pages. I know Google offers me alternatives when I misspell words. But I DID NOT know just how lucrative all this data dust is and how deep it goes.

As it turns out, Google didn’t just develop a spell-check, it spent several million dollars over 20 years using all the misspellings users type into a search window and then “correct” by clicking on the right result. All that dust I create when I type badly is being used by Google to create a competitive edge! And now Google is developing translation and voice recognition services using the same approach.

Even more curious about Google is that it does not have to own the data to benefit. The report mentions Google’s foray into electronic medical records suggesting that it might be able to use the data to accurately predict things like flu outbreaks. BUT users retain ownership and could take their records out of the system any time they want to.

It makes me wonder how fundraisers can use giving data “dust” to create better experiences for our donors and financially stronger organizations. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we don’t need to own sensitive data about our donors, just use its dust to give us predictors!

You've got a million-dollar prospect! Now what?

4Fundraisers, Major Gift Teams, , , , ,

$binocularI was having lunch with a client and when we had finished eating she pulled out a copy of the short profile I had completed for her. She wanted to know what the capacity rating “really” meant. Briefly here is how we dissected the information:

  • Her business is in a profitable industry and appears to be successful
  • Might have income around $1 million or more
  • Has numerous other small business ventures that could be bringing in money or losing money
  • Paid $8 million+ cash for a Manhattan, New York condo two years ago, intending to do renovations
  • Seems unaffected by the recession given her real estate purchases
  • Owns a large yacht, but has it for sale at $500,000+
  • May be tired of owning a boat or maybe she is beginning to feel pinched after splashing cash on real estate and renovations
  • Maintenance costs for her yacht could be $20,000 or more a year
  • No giving to other organizations was found, but she gave $40,000 to the first phase of the campaign and is very engaged

Once you have a million-dollar prospect – qualify her! My friend did a great job of cultivating and qualifying for inclination to give. If you suspect your prospect can give $10,000 or more and is willing to give, get a profile to qualify for wealth. After reviewing the profile and what she knows about the prospect, my friend can now ask for the right size gift for the prospect and for the campaign.

Qualifying prospects narrows our list to those that have wealth AND the desire to make a gift to our organization.