Our first blog post of 2015 comes from Patrick O’Toole, Principal Consultant of Prospira Consulting, LLC.

Early in my career as a prospect researcher, I read Cecilia Hogan’s book Prospect Research: A Primer for Growing Nonprofits. I learned a great deal from this book, and I still have a dog-eared copy in my bookshelf. It is filled with book marks and Post-It notes pointing the way to information I still find useful a decade later.

I have always had a keen financial sense, and I learned quickly how to accurately assess a prospect’s wealth. And this area is where I always had difficulty with Hogan’s suggestions. In writing about philanthropic capacity based on annual income, she wrote:

Frankly, we cannot discover the annual income for most of our potential prospects. The only compensation figures available to us are the ones we find in proxy statements. … Although salary surveys have value for placing an individual within your vision for further research, they are speculative, not real. With that in mind, my philosophy includes quickly leaving the capacity formulas based on income behind.

I could understand Hogan’s reluctance to use estimates of annual income. By using a salary estimation, you were engaging in a bit of speculation. But by doing so in a logical and carefully researched manner, I thought, wouldn’t you bring something of value to your assessment of a prospect’s gift capacity?

I then read the white paper “Prospect Research for the Non-Researcher” by David Lamb in 2010. In this brief but helpful document, Lamb wrote:

Unless your prospect is an insider officer in a public company, you will almost certainly not find a definitive report of his or her salary. In some case, however, it is possible to estimate constituents’ income based on what else you know about them. Salary surveys abound and are easy to access over the Internet.

This buoyed my spirits greatly. I read extensively on the topic of annual compensation. I experimented with several salary survey websites and learned their idiosyncrasies. Before long, I felt confident enough in estimating annual income that I began including such an estimate in most of my asset assessments.

In speaking with other prospect researchers, I believe I am in the minority with this decision. By not providing even an estimate of a prospect’s annual income, however, I believe we do a disservice to our clients. To be clear, I would never consult a salary survey website and attempt to mislead a gift officer. I would never obtain an estimate of a prospect’s annual income and state anything like:

Mr. John Smith earns an annual income of $117,650.

Rather, I am fully open and honest by stating, “I am providing an estimate.” When providing an estimate of a prospect’s income, I always write something like:

According to Salary.com, a mechanical engineer living in High Point, North Carolina, with an education and job experience similar to Mr. John Smith, can expect to receive base annual income of approximately $117,650.

I then footnote my estimation and provide a link to my search.

I have found the inclusion of an estimated annual income to be incredibly helpful to gift officers. The gift officers I have supported speak with individuals from all walks of life. They speak with cosmetologists. They speak with veterinarians. They speak with financial advisors. They speak with plumbers. By providing an estimated annual income, I am helping them to better understand the individual with whom they are building a relationship. Income often determines life outcomes, and the estimate I provide gives gift officers a tiny bit more insight into their prospects’ lives.

Whenever possible, I determine an estimated annual income based on a prospect’s occupation, education, and location. I have found Salary.com http://www.salary.com/ to be a very helpful tool in this process. There are other salary surveys, and I use them regularly; however, Salary.com is my most-used tool. By using the U.S. Salary Wizard, and following on-screen prompts, you can determine the salary distribution for an occupation, skill level, and location. The wizard prominently displays the median annual base salary, but you can adjust your estimate using the 10^th, 25^th, 75^th, and 90^th percentiles. In other words, you can further customize an estimate to better fit the prospect you are researching.

When I do not know a prospect’s occupation, I sometimes provide a broad ZIP Code-based estimate of income. Trust me, I use this estimate with great caution. Summarizing economic information by ZIP Code can produce decidedly bad results. Used with caution and care, however, a ZIP Code-based estimate can provide a generalized sense of the prospect’s environment.

The United States Census Bureau offers a wonderful tool for this process with the American FactFinder http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml. The FactFinder can use five-digit ZIP Codes to gather data. You can also use cities, counties, and states. For this purpose, ZIP Code is the smallest tract possible. When reviewing the results for a ZIP Code, the FactFinder provides numerous tabs, such as Education, Housing, and Income. Under the Income tab, the median household income is prominently displayed. Should you wish to research further, there is a wealth of more detailed information contained in linked Census Bureau reports.

And so I return to my original affirmation: Estimated annual income is an underutilized wealth indicator. Cecilia Hogan and David Lamb are both correct: We cannot know the annual income for the majority of prospects we research. I strongly believe, however, that we can provide an accurate estimate of annual income. To do so, skilled prospect researchers must remain mindful of the prospect and fully understand the tools they employ. And they must make it perfectly clear that they are providing an estimate of someone with education, experience, and location similar to the prospect. This extra bit of information, albeit just an estimate, can provide gift officers with a keener insight to the potential donor they are going to meet. And this insight can lead to larger gifts that close more quickly.

Our final blog post for 2014 comes from Nancy Hillsman, Assistant Director of Research and Stewardship for Duke University Foundation Relations. Happy Holidays from APRA-Carolinas!

Realizing you’re the odd man out is difficult to swallow. But sometimes it’s the only remedy. Having worked in Corporate and Foundation Relations research at Duke University for 13 years, I’ve often had to swallow that fact that corps and founds are definitely the “odd man out.” And trying to explain the differences to individual fundraisers reminds me of trying to explain to my husband that Girl Scouts are not female Boy Scouts! It’s an entirely different group with entirely different goals and concerns. Likewise, corporations and foundations are not just very large individuals!

Knowing that most of my colleagues in APRA Carolinas do individual research, I wonder, “Who might want to read about corporate and foundation research?” Yet I remain hopeful that some of you will, so I’m going to repost an excellent blog that Jen Filla shared with the CFRNET community. Here’s what she had to say on Prioritizing Corp & Fdn Prospects:

“Corporate and foundation research is different from individual research. Could it be so simple? About as simple as stating that boys are different from girls! They are different, but also the same in many ways. It’s complicated! Let’s take a quick peek at how corporate and foundation prospects differ when we need to identify new prospects or prioritize a long list.

Identifying Corporate and Foundation Prospects

There are some great tools out there for creating a good list of corporate and foundation prospects. Foundation Center Online and Foundation Search immediately come to mind. Pretty quickly you can create a long list of good prospects that fit some general criteria. Unlike individuals, many corporations and foundations don’t require a deep, personal connection to make a substantial gift.

And yet many times when you start digging deeper to craft your proposal, you realize that the prospects on your list aren’t as good a fit as you originally thought. For example, maybe they are listed as giving nationally but have only ever made gifts in Pennsylvania and Delaware. Or maybe they give to education, but only scholarships and not program.

Early on in my Aspire Research Group LLC career I was not interested in generating corporate and foundation prospects lists. There were plenty of grant writers around who could do that very well – and write the grants too!

But later on I started getting calls from people who had received a long and very broad list from a consultant or sourced the list themselves using products like Foundation Center Online. Now they were facing 100 or more prospects with no idea where to start and the pressure of meeting a fundraising goal.

When it comes to individuals, there are some great tools for narrowing a list like this. We have wealth screenings, predictive modeling scores and often, some giving history to our own organizations. As the Giving USA research has made quite clear, individuals provide the clear majority of overall fundraised dollars and it’s not surprising that the industry has invested in developing great tools for individual prospects.

Nevertheless, corporate and foundation partners are important players for many reasons, not the least of which because they help us engage with the individuals they employ and sell services to. And starting with the letter “A” and working through to “Z” is rarely ever the best use of time and resources.

I wanted to help people prioritize their corporate and foundation prospect lists, but in a way that would give them a good return on investment. In other words, I needed a way to prioritize that wouldn’t take much time so I could charge less. So I got creative. Maybe you have done this too?

Simple Scoring Scores!

Whenever I take on a prospect ID or prioritization project now, I create a simple worksheet based on my first interview with the client. Then we walk through the worksheet together answering the questions about what a really good prospect should look like. A fundraiser might want a prospect who will give to a certain project, but I make sure we get specific.

“Gives to after-school education” becomes “Has made a gift to a similar initiative of $5,000 or more”. I will probably try to define “after-school education” more specifically too. Are we talking science, computer literacy, reading or all of them?

While we are going through the questions on the worksheet I might add or delete some of my questions as I learn more about the projects and needs. I also keep my ears open on which criteria are the most important. When we are finished with the questions I summarize and confirm which criteria are simply preferable and which ones will disqualify the prospect entirely.

An easy example is geography. If the foundation only makes gifts in New York City and the client organization is in New Jersey, the foundation is not a prospect.

The next step is to translate the worksheet answers into a rating legend. And by playing a little bit and giving some criteria extra weight – a higher rating value – I can get the prospects to sort out in a very obvious way based on the client’s funding needs.

By taking time up-front to determine what disqualifies the prospect and what is most important, I can zip right through the project. Doesn’t give where my client is located? Done with that one. Next!”

Filla, Jennifer. "Prioritizing Corp & Fdn Prospects." Jennifer Filla. December 9, 2014. Accessed December 19, 2014. http://www.jenniferfilla.com/blog.

All’s Well that Ends Well

Some of my prospect ID projects have gone stunningly well and others not so much. The difference has usually been the quality of communication with the client and how early I discover that what the client wants just doesn’t exist. I’m careful now to do an initial search and communicate quickly if I am struggling to identify prospects that meet the agreed criteria.

Your organization might have a straightforward relationship with corporate and foundation funders such as asking for a grant and getting a grant, or you might have many layers to your corporate and foundation relationships such as providing the funder with volunteering, cause-marketing, or fulfilling other needs.

If you are tasked with corporate and foundation research you know you have just as much opportunity to help create wonderful and rewarding relationships as with individual prospects. Maybe you have helped the frontline fundraiser connect with your organization’s vendors, sourced donor relationships with corporate foundation executives or leveraged your organization’s constituency in other ways to identify prospects.

However you do it, identifying corporate and foundation prospects is different from individuals. And as is usual when working with together with other humans, success often requires good communication matched with the creative application of skills!

Our early December blog post comes from Margaret T. Johnson, Director of Client Services at Capital Development Services.

Coming from a consulting world, I have a different perspective than many of you, but I hope you find this blog helpful.

In one of my recent Prospect Research training sessions with a client, someone asked the question, “Can you really trust what you find?” followed by, “How do you know it is accurate?” Both are very good questions and ones that I am sure have come up in your conversations about prospect research. As prospect researchers, do you hear this from leadership and staff? Are they wary of your resources?

After the training session was over, I began looking for information that addressed her concerns in greater detail than I could offer. Jen Filla, president and founder of Aspire Research Group and founder of the new Prospect Research Institute, LLC, has a great perspective. She sums it up pretty well in this article (downloaded from http://www.nonprofitconsultantsconnection.com/knowledge-hub-nonprofits/can-you-really-trust-prospect-research-10-things-you-should-know):

(1)  In-person research is a must

As a front-line fundraiser talking directly with donors, you are responsible for some of the most important prospect research your organization can do! You are the one who gets to ask donor prospects questions about why they give, what they love about your organization, what is going on in their family and so many other crucial questions.

Example: A donor prospect can look great on paper, until you visit and discover that the child has special needs, aging parents have run out of money for care and the wife has just cut her career back to care for family.

(2) Google really is good

Google and other search engines are an incredible source of information. Learning how to use search engines effectively has become a life skill. As a front-line fundraiser, you should be able to quickly find some basic information on your donor prospect. However, you will short change yourself and your organization if you do not get professional prospect research before asking for a major gift of $10,000 or more.

Example: A fundraiser had been engaging a donor for years and he was now on the board of trustees. When they were planning a campaign, she asked for an in-depth profile to help decide the size and type of leadership gift he might be capable of. Research discovered significant commercial real estate investments unrelated to the prospect’s primary business. The fundraiser was able to ask another board member who had made complex real estate gifts, to help cultivate and solicit.

(3)  Peer Review has pros…and cons

Peer review – asking a select group of volunteers to review and rate prospects – can help you uncover personal information about prospects that formal research does not find, including great insights into a prospect’s personality. But we’ve all known prospects who impress people as wealthy when really they carry a lot of debt or still rely on money from their wealthy families. Peer review is one piece in the prospect puzzle, not the whole picture.

(4)  Information is always as good as the source

One of the first rules of research is to scrutinize the source of information. Some sources are more reliable than others. It is important to ask your vendor and keep yourself educated on the sources being used in prospect research.

Example: A Google search on your prospect’s name might reveal a bio saying she serves on a local hospital’s board, but does she? Checking the hospital’s website and/or IRS tax form 990 is a better source. Or you could just ask her…(see #1)

(5) Prioritizing is not an exact science

Your organization has done a stellar job of managing its annual appeals and building its database. Now you have to figure out who among the 5,000+ records should receive event invites, specific appeals, or be asked for a major gift. You don’t want to start with the letter “A” and go from there. But recognize that prospect screenings and data mining efforts are not perfect.

Example: Sweet Charity was methodically working through its best-rated prospects from a recent wealth screening when a donor not on their list expressed an interest in a naming opportunity. It turned out that the donor held a middle-class job, but had a large trust fund as an inheritance. He had been well-stewarded by Sweet Charity for five years and when he read about the campaign in the newsletter he wanted to honor his parents.

(6)  Donor Giving is Confidential

Every fundraiser is aware that a donor’s gift to your organization is confidential. We know to ask permission before sharing donor names and stories. Keep this in mind as you review results from database screenings and prospect profiles. Prospect research can only find gifts that have been disclosed to the public by the nonprofit or the donor.

(7)  Private Companies are Private

Entrepreneurs are a very philanthropic group and usually own and operate one or more private companies. Private means that the shares or ownership of the company are not available to the public for purchase. It also means that the company does not have to share information, such as sales or profits. Really. Sometimes they do share, but most often we have to guess. It also means we don’t know how much of the company they own or what they sold their company for – unless they tell someone. And sometimes they do tell.

(8)  Maybe you can find out stockholdings

Unlike private companies, public companies trade their shares with the public. So you might think that if someone owns shares of a public company we could find out, right? Wrong! Maybe we can find out. Stock ownership is reported only if the person is an insider: top executive, director, or owns 10% or more of the company stock. There are exceptions, but not too many.

(9)  You get what you pay for

Many organizations want cheap research. Why should you pay a lot of money for research if you are not sure you will even get the gift? Because, when done well, you raise more money. If you know how to use a prospect screening effectively, every area of your fundraising could have improved results. Really, really. And if you hire a professional prospect researcher (i.e., researcher-fundraiser), you will get donor profiles that provide the kind of wealth and giving insights you need to maximize major gifts. Freelancers often don’t have the experience or the paid resources to give you what you need. How committed are you to using the information? Pay accordingly.

(10)  Partnering with Prospect Research raises money!

So you invest in serious prospect research, but it still feels generic and not so helpful. Make sure that partnering is part of the purchase. Prospect research is most effective when research can answer a clearly defined question. That means discussing the project before work begins, during and after. Prospect researchers are fundraisers too and we want to raise money – get a “Yes!” – just as much as you do!

This month’s post comes to us from APRA-C members Tania Drummond, Director of Prospect Research at North Carolina State University, and Taryn Oesch, Prospect Research Analyst at North Carolina State University.

Last year at NC State, we embarked on an ambitious project: finding ways to emphasize and track efforts aimed at discovering potential new major gift prospects in order to build a longer-term prospect pipeline (a process often simply referred to as “discovery”). Prior to beginning work on our “discovery tracking system,” we didn’t have much of a strategic or systematic emphasis on discovery work. Some of our discovery efforts that were taking place were not being adequately recorded in our database, and we had no reporting in place to keep track of our findings and help inform future decision making.

Previous to last fall, discovery prospects were included in major gift officers’ (MGOs) prospect portfolios, identified with a status code of “discovery.” Rarely was there time to review discovery prospects as part of regular portfolio strategy meetings, and we weren’t specifically addressing discovery work otherwise. We felt the first thing we needed to do to create a greater emphasis on discovery work was to remove discovery prospects from major gift portfolios – where they seemed to get “lost” - and create separate discovery “pools” for each major gift officer on campus. Major gift portfolios would continue to be managed by Prospect Management, while the new discovery pools would be managed by Prospect Research.

In a collaborative process that included leadership in central development, Prospect Research, Prospect Management, and Information Services, we worked towards a date on which all prospects labeled “discovery” in our major gift officers’ portfolios would be rolled over into new discovery pools. At the time the pools were created, we also established a new contact report purpose code for discovery, and database programming was put in place that requires an outcome code on all discovery contact reports before they can be saved; outcome codes will allow us to track interactions with potential prospects and use that data to help us make determinations about what next steps should be taken with the individuals. Our tracking system also allows us to enter start and stop dates for when individuals are assigned to discovery pools, so we can eventually track how long individuals are in discovery and we can track when good prospects aren’t getting attention and perhaps needs to be moved to other development personnel. The system also allows us to note how the prospect was identified, so we can track which prospecting methods are providing us with the best results.

At the time the new discovery pools were created, the directors of Prospect Research and Information Services conducted training sessions for all major gift officers and involved administrative personnel; in the sessions, we detailed the creation of the discovery pools and the tracking system, explained related new processes and codes, and answered questions about who was now responsible for what. We explained potential benefits of the system, shared what we saw as next steps in the system’s development, and acknowledged where we knew we had challenges and unanswered questions that would need to be resolved as we moved forward. Finally, we discussed how the initial discovery pools, having been rolled over from prospect portfolios where they were not actively managed, were, in general, too large and likely contained some prospects that were not the best possible candidates for future major gift donors. We asked all gift officers to review their new discovery pools and notify Prospect Research of the names of individuals they would like removed from their pools. When that process was complete, we would know where we needed to start work filling pools with new discovery prospects.

Fast forward to almost a year later, and we’ve found that not many of our major gift officers have found the time to review their discovery pools, and we’ve not made as much forward progress in using this new system as we would like. The Prospect Research team came together and asked ourselves, what could we do to assist our MGOs in cleaning up their discovery pools gaining some traction on moving forward with tracking our discovery efforts? We decided to conduct a few manual reviews of discovery pools (exactly what we’d expected of our MGOs), and found it was a laborious, time-consuming task – no wonder many of them had not found the time to conduct the reviews themselves! We decided we had to come up with a way to speed the process; our solution was to divide and conquer and have our IS team produce a report with about 65 data points that allowed us to more quickly review indicators to help us determine if we thought an individual was a good major gift prospect.

We took the portfolio of one of our regional MGOs, whose discovery pool numbered over 300, and we divided it among the analysts on the team.  Using our data point review, we made determinations about which individuals we felt should stay in or be removed from the pool and which might need the MGOs input to make that determination. The entire team then met with the MGO, and together we reviewed each individual one by one and made final determinations about who should stay and who should go. The end result was a pool that was “MGO-Approved” and with which she was comfortable working.

Our willing MGO who partnered with us to be the test case for our review was so happy with the outcome that she sent an email to her colleagues and supervisors recommending they all take the time to meet with us for the same review. She reiterated her comments in a monthly meeting of development officers, and we’ve since met with three more MGOs to conduct the discovery pool cleanup session and had requests from six more to schedule the sessions. While we still have a way to go to have this process done for all the MGOs on campus, we’ve reignited interest in the discovery tracking system and feel we’ve got some momentum in moving efforts forward.

So, what have we discovered on this path to creating a discovery tracking system?

·         Change is hard for most people; expect change to take longer than anticipated or hoped.

·         If the change needed is important to you, you may have to be a change agent; ask yourself what you can do impact the process in a positive way (and you may have to do this several times along the way until you get to where you want to go!)

·         Collaborate and ask for help. We made forward progress again when the Research team worked together to come up with a possible solution to our problem and when we partnered with our colleagues in IS and development.

·         If you can, find an advocate. The MGO who agreed to be our test case became a public, vocal and enthusiastic supporter. Her initial email to her supervisors and colleagues also went to our Vice Chancellor of Advancement; his immediate response was, “How can Research make this happen for everyone?” His support was encouraging to us in our efforts and served as encouragement to development officers to consider working with us (we work in a de-centralized organizational structure, so MGOs aren’t required to work with us or do this work themselves – we have to find ways to entice them to want to do this project with us!).

We’re far from finished with this project. But the development of the system, alone, has helped to increase discovery visits by MGOs, and, with team effort, we’ve managed to jumpstart stalled efforts so we can keep moving forward toward having a well-running, fully-functioning development tracking system.

This month’s post comes to us from APRA-C member Kristin Richardson, Director of Prospect Research Analysis at the University of South Carolina.

While trying to come up with an idea for this blog post, my mind raced over all the agenda items I review on a daily basis.  From reactive requests to data analytics needs to improving our information and reporting, I was looking for that ONE thing that most of us probably encounter in our world that also can cause the most headache/heartache.  What glared back at me is Proactive Prospect Leads (echo, echo, echo).

In my little corner of the higher education fundraising world, proactive lead profiles were sporadically distributed prior to my arrival.  I was fortunate to come on board during a time of some pretty significant change in prospect development in my institution.  My immediate supervisor was a newly hired Sr. Director of Prospect Development and was implementing policies and procedures for moves management; this position had not previously existed; rather, its responsibilities were being managed as time allowed by another Advancement Services team member.  When I came on board, both my manager and I were determined to make proactive profiling and lead dissemination a priority.  We thought, “How could fundraisers NOT want to have prospects handed to them, fully vetted?”  We quickly came to the realization that we were way more excited than the frontline staff!

Of course, they didn’t tell us this at the start.  I met with frontline fundraisers when I first came on board and talked about the goals of our division and how we were ready to support them.  All seemed pretty excited about the possibilities of having new prospects to whom they could reach out.  So we dipped our toes into the water and got ready to test proactive leads.  I set monthly proactive goals for the two researchers on staff, plus myself.  I created a spreadsheet to track the leads that we sent out.  We “made the case” for each lead, reinforced it as needed, and had each lead signed off by leadership before we sent it out.  With bated breath, I sent the first batch of leads out, quietly rejoicing that we were going to be instrumental in the forward momentum of this campaign.

Then reality hit.  Seems that frontline staff were perfectly happy to keep their existing portfolios, thank you very much. They knew their existing prospects and felt like they could probably identify new prospects on their own.  After all, we had reports and a dashboard to help them drill down by capacity, education, and giving to locate those prospects that would be a good fit for their unit.  Of the handful of leads we sent out, only a couple fundraisers made attempts to contact the prospect.  None of the proactive leads was added to a portfolio.

At this juncture, you may think we just threw our hands up and gave in.  But no, we are way too invested to do that!  We analyzed where some of the breakdown may have occurred and discovered the following: It was taking way too long to distribute the leads, it was manually taxing (we had to use in-house reports combined with good old fashioned researching on every single potential prospect to create a profile), and we didn’t really give each profile the appropriate level of fanfare when we sent it.  We went back to the drawing board, so to speak. We lobbied and identified a better way to identify proactive leads.  We purchased a proactive model from a vendor, formed a multi-unit committee to review how the model was derived, and developed policies on how this process was going to work.  Then we reviewed – IN DETAIL – the lead identification and disbursement process to ALL the frontline staff.  Ultimately though, it also became a priority for our new leadership.  And with their backing, it has continued to be an issue that is front and center in our development shop. 

Now that is not to say that each frontline officer jumps for joy when they get my email saying “We’ve identified a great lead for your division!”…but the response is drastically better than our first go-round.  We are continuing to work on ways to improve communication with the frontline fundraisers and build more excitement around these leads.  Some of our percolating ideas are monthly newsletters from Prospect Development, playing BINGO with the blocks corresponding to the steps in the process, and internally creating a more robust reporting system to give to leadership.

So though we may still have a long way to go, the path behind us is equally as long.  We have made dramatic changes in the output of our shop.  We have become innovative in how we use both our database and external systems to measure and track our proactive leads.  We continue to try to build and maintain enthusiasm around proactive lead generation.  I can honestly say I think we are in the midpoint of this journey towards proactive prospect nirvana.   And it feels pretty good!

This month’s post comes to us from APRA-C member Lisa Ukuku, Director of Prospect Research, The Citadel Foundation.

I recently saw a post in Prospect L (the online forum for conversation and collaboration about fundraising research) asking researchers to explain their process for disqualifying a prospect. One reply was that the prospect was discussed at a prospect management meeting, and if it was the consensus of the group, the prospect is coded “disqualified.” This process appears to be the best practice for many academic institutions: Allow the gift officers to cite any known information about the prospect, and make a group decision on whether or not the prospect should be cultivated at all. If the prospect is deemed to be someone who is not inclined to make a major gift, he or she is coded as such in the donor database. The prospect may also be coded “no contact” or “no solicitation” based on what information is known about the person.

… But a funny thing happened in our Research office. My co-worker and I were working on profiles that we call “bio briefs” for an upcoming event where top prospects and donors are invited to play golf with our college president. In this process, we only take a brief look at the prospect, their estimated wealth, and how much they have contributed to the college. My colleague noticed that one attendee had a note on his record requesting no solicitation. By protocol, the record should have been coded “no solicitation” and excluded from the invitation mailer. But the wonder of it all was that he accepted – even though he stated that he did not want to receive any mail from the college!

So, if his name had come up in a prospect management meeting, because of the note on his record, he would be someone who we would disqualify and code “NMGP” (“not a major gift prospect”).

Therefore, we have to consider what placing a prospect in this category means. When considering the guidelines for our database, the coding of “NMGP” would result in the following:

            The prospect would not be contacted by a gift officer.

            The prospect would be excluded from future wealth screenings.

            The prospect would be excluded from annual and major gift solicitations.

Is this what we want…forever? I think as researchers, we should examine the amount of time a prospect is placed in a “disqualified,” “no solicitation,” or “NMGP” category. The life situations of prospects could change, and they may be inclined to have a relationship with an organization now while they were not before.

So the process of disqualifying a prospect should never be a permanent status. Just because at one time a prospect did not want to be contacted doesn’t mean that he may not later want to attend an event hosted by the college. It may just be a question of finding the right tool to engage the prospect: We have to find the right program of interest for the prospect. Where does he or she want to make an impact at the institution? Or, in the case of what happened at my organization, send an invitation to someone after he requested not to receive anything. And who knows: A prospect may be more inclined to make a gift to an organization after attending an event where he is made to feel “qualified.”

This month's post comes to us from APRA-C member Patrick O'Toole, Associate Director of Advancement Services for Prospect Management at UNC-Asheville.

Data analytics has become an accepted portion of the prospect research profession. Many prospect development operations have conducted a variety of analyses trying to discern answers to the mysteries within our databases. When I speak with colleagues becoming involved with data analytics, I often hear the question, “Where do I begin?” Invariably, my answer is the same: Keep it simple.

When we first undertake data analytics, our heads are filled with great ideas. We want to create an omniscient predictive model that will point the way – exactly – to those individuals who will make a seven-figure major gift in two months’ time. And then we face the reality of making sense of our [often] messy data.

None of us would run a marathon for our first competitive race. It should be the same with data analytics. To help us learn the boundaries and abilities of our data – and to gain confidence in our analytic abilities – I encourage beginning data analysts to design and build a “data digest.”

What on earth is a data digest? you might ask. I gave it that name, because that’s what a former employer called a similar publication. You can call it a data book or a data compendiumundefinedwhatever makes you feel comfortable and confident. Essentially, this book is a collection of descriptive statistics that puts boundaries around your organization’s performance. 

Few (if any) of these statistical snapshots should be complex. Instead, you gather in one place, and in a consistent manner, statistics around the number of donors you have each year, the median revenue you receive from each donor, how many new donors you had each year....You get the idea. Your data digest can morph quickly from a mere collection of numbers to a valuable planning tool.

A thoughtfully constructed data digest is great for discerning year-to-year trends. When we close the books at the end of each fiscal year, how much thought is given to comparisons with last year? With the year before? To longer-term trends? By doing nothing more than tracking year-to-year performance, you can enable your organization to better understand broader, troubling trends. For example: Your median revenue per donor has been decreasing, and your total number of donors is decreasing slowly as well, but you’re bringing in more money. This trend may point out that an increasing share of your fundraising is coming from an ever-smaller circle of major donors, demonstrating to your organization’s leadership that you must reach out to new potential major donors.

A data digest can also be used for benchmarking. If you build your data digest to mirror commercially available products, you can gain broader insight to peer performance. Perhaps the best known benchmarking resource is Blackbaud’s “donorCentrics” product. You can find simplified versions of this package online. With a bit of query creativity, you can mimic these products. By doing so, you can start to see how your organization’s fundraising performance stacks up against similar institutions.

Perhaps the greatest value I have found with data digests is providing a reality check during annual planning season. It is very easy for an enthusiastic – and misinformed – manager to say, “We’re going to receive gifts from 10,000 alumni this year!” If you can prove through the data digest that the previous all-time high was 5,000 alumni, and the ten-year average is 3,500 alumni, you can help keep annual goals within the realm of reality and possibility. I am NOT saying these will be easy conversations. I am saying that part of our function is to provide a rational voice in the room. If you have a solid data digest showing years-long performance and trends, it should help you to better influence outcomes.

I update my organization’s data digest annually after the fiscal year closes. Every year, I make improvements and add nuances and expansions. But every year, I maintain the tradition of building the data digest. I cannot tell you the number of times I have referred back to this set of simple, descriptive statistics. My data digest has proven to be invaluable, and I encourage all beginning data analysts to hone their skills by developing and maintaining one.

• Research is key to your success. But even when you've done the research, you must be able to read between the lines.
• Always compare a foundation’s stated purposes, mission and guidelines to the actual grants distributed and grant-making patterns.
• Even guidelines that seem explicit need to be read as if you are an investigator with the attitude of "this is what they say they are interested in funding, but is this really what they do?" Ask yourself:
• • What is the foundation’s overall mission and purpose?
  • What does the foundation say it does? What are its guidelines for developing an application?
  • Does the mission match the guidelines?
  • How are the grants actually made?
  • How do what it says it does and funds compare to what it actually does and what it actually funds?
  • Can the discrepancies between what the foundation says it does and what it actually does and/or its mission be explained? Review other available information, such as backgrounds on its board members to develop your best guesses about the reasons behind these exceptions or discrepancies.
  • How can I use this information to develop specific strategies for approaching each foundation?
• Review foundation publications and materials with an eye to where the decision-making authority is within the foundation. A few foundations clearly spell out their review procedures, but most do not. Building lasting relationships with the “right” people is key to being funded.
• If it’s not spelled out, ask how the decision-making process works when you speak with a foundation program officer or director. Use that information so you’ll know with whom you need to formulate a lasting relationship.
• Always think of alternative ways to approach a foundation if you are turned down, but also realize that some foundations may not let you reapply for a period of time after you’ve been turned down. Nevertheless, keep them on your mailing list and find other strategies to remain visible to them.
• Too many grant seekers send applications to foundations that have no interest in supporting their causes. Research is critical to avoid this mistake.
• The more time you spend analyzing prospective funders and understanding each one you have initially targeted, the better will be your chances of developing strategies for successfully approaching them for grants. Each piece of information you collect about a given prospect helps you form a picture of that particular prospect.
• After you’ve found the basic information, you then need to put the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that makes them meaningful for you and for the (foundation) so that they can become the basis for specific fund-raising tactics for that source, and for the other sources being explored. Again, strategy and relationship-building are key ingredients to successful fund raising through grants.

How to Research Foundations (2014). Retrieved May 19, 2014, from http://www.arthritis.org/toolkit/supporting-programs/tip-sheets-2-11/research-foundations/

Score!

By Kevin MacDonell and Peter Wylie

Why did I read Score! cover to cover?  First, because it was invariably readable. The writing is clear, clever, and conversational.  Truly, I found myself reading it on my day off even.  Score! defines its goal upfront in the subtitle - Data-driven Success for Your Advancement Team. Success – that one word should make constantly striving development team members take notice. The book makes its point well: non-profits are missing reams of opportunity if their alum or donor statistics are not captured, mined, analyzed, modeled and confidently presented with the specific intent of informing the work of raising money more effectively.  Finally, I kept reading it because I believe this book arrived when our institutions it most. Institutional data is a core asset, not to be neglected or squandered, but used to great advantage.  Some know that already, but need this nudge to ask others to take notice.

Data analytics to this pair of authors, and now even more so to myself, is ripe ground for reaping the healthy rods of information grain.  MacDonell and Wylie ask - and make the case – for the non-profit prospect researcher to farm this rich field and advocate for data’s thoughtful place at the strategy-making table.  They repeatedly speak of its worth to both sides of the room, the decision-makers and the data research analysts.  Strong logic to use data’s logic.

These two authors bring multiple decades of experience in statistics (Wylie has a PhD in the subject) and in the field of non-profit development.  They’ve successfully navigated the years of growth in our data swamped age and have taken the helm here to show us in all the small to large shops of concerned non-profit workers how to smartly rudder through. They provide essential instruction in both hard and soft skills needed to let the data speak. Their years of interactions with clients as they consulted on this subject allow them to write about best and worst instances of data care. Chapters of case studies for work in annual fund, major giving, and planned giving provide practicums in the application of data modeling for those fields.  After these, one feels like having steered the channel oneself and adequately ready for a beer with Captains MacDonell and Wylie.

The writers swap authorship of sections and sometimes within a section.  This technique allows for multiple stories for personal insight and the depth of a second angle, and thankfully, this never seems padding for equality’s sake but for the richness. It’s another indication of the smart presentation of what could be a mind-numbing subject if inexpertly crafted.  I was continuously grateful that the writing spoke with the easy tone of a fine professor to a colleague.  I entirely appreciate the stories data tell and try to tell them myself, but MacDonell and Wylie relate their advocacy with a knowing grin that pulled me in to their enjoyment.  I only hope to do as well.

Score! is an instruction manual for us in the data rich research departments and for those in strategic planning positions.  The soundest message I took is that we researchers can’t be retiring statistic geeks, though the inclinations may be there, but confident, walking instruction manuals ourselves.  The use of data analytics is crucial and skills to view and model can be self-taught. Score! will remain a smart read for non-profit development staffers for a long while.  It’s not one for the reference shelf, but one that must be shared.

Book review by

Susan Bridgers, Director of CFR Prospect Research, University Development, UNC-Chapel Hill