I took a course on public administration ethics last semester as part of my MPA (Master of Public Administration) program at NC State. One of our assignments was to critique the code of ethics for an organization, and I chose to critique APRA’s code.

Since starting in the prospect research/fundraising field three years ago, I’ve been fascinated by the ethics associated with fundraising in general and prospect research specifically. Obviously we are bound by practicality; there is some information we just can’t reach. But we also have more “wishy-washy” ethical dilemmas: Just because we have access to a piece of information, should we report it? The explosion of social media further complicates this question; for example if someone has his or her Facebook page public, can we use information from that page in our reports?

For those who haven’t looked at it recently, APRA’s Statement of Ethics can be found at http://www.aprahome.org/p/cm/ld/fid=110. It is pretty simple when compared to some of the other codes I looked at in my class; the code of ethics for the International City/County Management Association, for example, has 12 tenets and a five-page document expanding on them with guidelines. I personally like the APRA Code’s simplicity; you can, after all, micro-manage someone’s behavior, and I’ve always felt that being too specific when setting ethical standards can increase the likelihood of leaving something out. Better, I think, to provide broader guidelines and help professionals understand that ethical behavior often includes making judgment calls that can’t be predicted.

This notion is especially relevant in fundraising and prospect research. Even the most specific statement in APRA’s code (“Members…shall only record data that is appropriate to the fundraising process”) is arguably too broad; after all, what data is appropriate, and what data isn’t?

In my paper, I argued that this lack of specificity is necessary in prospect research. Part of the “art and science” of what we do is that our research process does not look the same for each prospect. The data we record in our reports just prior to an ask may not be appropriate to include in our reports at the identification stage of the fundraising cycle. These types of decisions are what make us data analysts rather than data reporters. APRA cannot dictate what type of data is appropriate at each stage of the fundraising cycle and for each prospect because each prospect is different.

Interestingly, since I turned in my paper, APRA has posted a Social Media Ethics Statement on its website. This statement is more specific than its broader ethics statement, perhaps because social media is still relatively new, and everyone – not just prospect researchers – are still trying to figure out its implications. The statement provides some specific behaviors to avoid. For example, APRA members “should not ‘friend’ or be ‘friended’ or enter into personal relations with prospects or donors in the conduct of their work.” It is ethical, therefore, to use LinkedIn to find information about prospects, but it would be unethical to “connect” to a prospect for the sole purpose of seeing information that is private.

These new frontiers are not only exciting in their implications for what information we find and how we use it to raise funds for our institutions; they are also interesting from an ethical perspective. What types of information are appropriate to use for fundraising purposes, and what standards have we adopted in our use of that information? As social media becomes more and more of a presence in our personal and professional lives, what impact does that presence have on us, personally and professionally? One helpful guideline I like to use is: In a grand alternate universe where I am a wealthy philanthropist, if a prospect research analyst at my alma mater were doing X, would I find it intrusive? Or would I find it to be a normal part of fundraising?

It’s a cliché for a reason: Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes can be very helpful. And in a profession that is all about raising funds to promote the public good, having that kind of empathy is a good idea anyway.

This post was written by Taryn Oesch, Prospect Research Analyst at North Carolina State University.

Ok, I know I am telling my age, but when I was young, I remember my elementary school teacher reading (what I thought was the dumbest book ever) Are You My Mother, to the class. It was about a baby bird that hatched while his mother was away. He had fallen from his nest, so he sets out to look for his mother and asks everyone he meetsundefinedincluding a dog, a cow, and a planeundefined"Are you my mother?"  The contrasting pictures in the book of the most unlikely animals standing beside the tiny yellow bird were the most bizarre thing ever to me. I couldn’t understand why the little bird would think that the other animal could be his mother when it looked so different than he did.

Now years later, working in fundraising, I find that I am the little bird asking almost the same question when presented with an unknown nameundefined“Are you my donor?” Some names seem to be of the most unlikely individuals. I stare at the piece of paper, or email and wonder why I am being given this name; they did not graduate from this school, they did not grow up in this community, they do not work in this community, they do not have relatives who graduated from this school, they do not give to us, they do not look like our donors.

However, I follow due diligence and find a formal name and residential address, find out their last employer and position title, run a wealth screening, confirm any philanthropic giving to other organizations, create a profile, search for news articles, and, of course, search for the ever illusive photo. Seconds, minutes, hours, and sometimes days later, I have my finished product. A nice, neat, detailed profile on the prospect. I email the finished product to my colleague with my professional opinion noted about this individual and even suggest what level of giving this person may be able to produce.

In the process of this endeavor, my passion for research comes out. I find that I am obsessed with finding evidence that this person is indeed a prospect. I want the answer to the question to be “YES, I am your donor!” I just can’t have wasted time and energy on someone who is not a prospect, right?

I wait seconds, minutes, hours, days to hear back from my colleague. I stop him in the hallway, “Have you contacted the prospect yet?”  Nothing…I get nothing except that I’ll let you know.  He does not seem to see the urgency in this situation or even remember who I am talking about. Soon I am involved in other research requests, more traditional prospect research, and I forget about my suspect.

Then one day out of the blue, the gift officer bounces into my office and says, “Hey I got in touch with that prospect. I’ve scheduled a visit for next week!” Well, I am as happy as when I delivered my first child! My plight is over and I can rest easy. My life is good!

But wait a minute? Does this mean I have gotten the answer I wanted to my question?  No, but what I’ve finally come to realize is that every recommendation of a prospect should be considered a potential donor. I had to stop thinking as I did when I was younger. Just because the two pictures look different doesn’t mean that they are. The prospect may not look like my other donors; their characteristics may not “mirror” our top donors, but so what?! Isn’t that part of prospect research… to find out?

I challenge you to take a deeper look at some of the people whom we sometimes leave at the bottom of the drawer. Tier 3 prospects, non-donors, non-graduates, one-time donors, students who attended the evening or graduate programs, individuals not currently in the database, oh and yes, parents. You may find that someone you considered a “tiny little bird” may actually return to the nest as one of your top donors.

This post was written by Lisa Ukuku, Director of Prospect Research at The Citadel Foundation. 

I am a sole prospect researcher. My colleagues are continually amazed that I am able to discern the value of a prospect after studying a selection of data points. Having practiced our profession for nearly a decade, I have learned that there are equal measures of art and science in making these appraisals. I have also come to learn that there is … in the eyes of my colleagues … a bit of magic. By embracing the “magical-ness” of our work, we can bring a bit of fun to what we do.

Georges Seurat was a French painter who is best known for using a technique known as pointillism. If you study one of his paintings, such as A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, you will see the picture is composed of thousands of shaded dots. When viewed up close, the picture makes little sense. From a distance, however, this neo-impressionist masterpiece delights. It is the same with prospect research. In our work, we discover small subtly shaded dots about a prospect. Our work becomes artful by seeing these points as a whole. We draw conclusions from each point and are able to paint a coherent picture for our gift officers.

A good example of this is a line I often hear is, “His house is worth half a million dollars!” Taken in exclusion, that data point is intriguing: The prospect was able to purchase a $500,000 home. As prospect researchers, we need to look more closely. Check the mortgage records: What was the debt-to-value ratio? What is the prospect’s estimated annual income? Did the prospect recently sell a home elsewhere and use the proceeds to purchase this one? In short, we need to connect the dot of a home’s assessed value with several other dots to determine a prospect’s liquidity. We have all heard the phrase “house rich and cash poor.” As prospect researchers, we must prove or disprove this notion with every prospect. Are they living within their means? Do they have the capacity to make a gift to our organization?

When evaluating prospects, our gift officers must also share their intended goal. Determining annual giving capacity is different than determining major gift capacity. Annual giving is sometimes referred to as “checkbook giving.” It is the type of philanthropy that is governed by how much is comfortably available in a prospect’s checking account. This usually is driven by a prospect’s income and discretionary spending. Drawing on resources like The Chronicle of Philanthropy and documentation from the Internal Revenue Service, prospect researchers are able to determine estimates of these values. I have cautioned gift officers that an intriguing prospect might own a fine home and two nice cars, but their income is only middle class, they have three children in their teens, and their discretionary income is minuscule. We create magic when we draw all of these data elements together and suggest that the gift officer pursue an annual gift that is respectfully within the prospect’s ability to contribute. Better it is to build relationships for the future than to alienate a prospect with a too-big, too-fast ask amount.

Prospect researchers can create even bigger magic when few … if any … data points are to be found. For several years I was the prospect researcher for a major medical school. I learned that physicians are masters of disguise when it comes to personal data. I learned later that attorneys share this trait. Often, their personal assets are held in trust. These professionals do this to ensure their assets are not in jeopardy if they ever face a lawsuit. As prospect researchers, we often cannot find or confirm anything with physicians and attorneys, but we are able to offer learned interpretations of what we do not see. Granted, we cannot deliver an estimate of wealth that is accurate to two decimal places, but we can offer hints, clues, and ideas. We are trained professionals, and we are used to seeing clarity inside these murky situations.

It often comes down to trusting your intuitions. I cannot count the number of times I have worked through all of the usual resources on a prospect and thought, “Something more is there.” It is feeling beneath the surfaceundefineda sensation that we are somehow not seeing as full a picture as we could. Once again, that is where the artful magic of our profession comes into play. There is no one right way of doing what we do. Each of us draws on personal ability and experience to create our answers. Yes, we have standardized resources for reference, but the way in which each of use approaches and uses these resources is unique and … dare I say … magical. Each of us in prospect research is more than the sum of the information in our databases. We are the ether that draws all of this information together and makes sense of it.

As prospect researchers, we have unusual abilities. We are inquisitive. We are diligent. We are resourceful. We are able to size up prospects we have never met from a variety of data sources that mean little to our colleagues. I would like to say that more often than not we are closer to right than wrong in our assessments. To our co-workers, this all appears to be magical. Embrace that perception. We are magical. We have a unique set of skills, and we bring great value to our organizations. Prospect researchers are the forward-looking guides that help to steer their organizations toward goals.

Dear APRA-Carolinas Members:

On behalf of our organization’s Board of Directors and the members of our Communications Committee, I welcome you to the new APRA-Carolinas blog. For those of you who are, like me, long-time members of this community, you may remember a time when we communicated primarily by newsletter….and I’ve been around so long, that I can remember when the newsletter was a hard copy, printed and mailed! Today, our communications are in step with the times, and this blog on the APRA-C website is one way in which we’re updating how we can readily share information with each other.

In general, we hope you’re regularly visiting the APRA-Carolina' website; there you will find information on who’s leading our organization, a schedule of events and meetings, information about job openings and resources used in our work, and, perhaps most important, contact information for your fellow APRA-Carolinas members, so that we can more easily interact with each other, support one another and share information that can help each of us to work more effectively and efficiently.

As we move forward with our new blog, we anticipate you may eventually see lots of different types of information shared in this space, from opinion pieces and writings that share thoughts and ideas about our profession to case studies that detail others’ experience from which we can inform decision making in our own research offices. We've gathered a team of volunteer writers who come from research operations large and small and in different types of organizations; our plan right now is that they’ll be sharing, at least once a month, information with you that they think you’ll find interesting, entertaining and helpful. And though we have a group of volunteer writers, we welcome submissions from anyone in the APRA-Carolinas community who has information she/he wants to share; simply contact me or one of the members of the Communications Committee to participate (our contact information is on the website). We plan on soon sending a short survey to the membership to also ask for your input into what topics we should address, so you’ll also have an opportunity there to tell us what you’d like to see in this space.

Among the things I've enjoyed about being a part of the Prospect Research community is observing how giving a community it is; read the responses to questions and requests for help on PRSPCT-L, watch how many hands go up at an APRA International Conference workshop when a colleague asks for assistance or guidance, or reach out and directly contact an individual colleague at another institution or organization and see if you don’t get, as I always have, a warm welcome and a helpful exchange of information. As APRA-Carolinas continues to change and grow, I hope we continue to also grow in our local chapter that sharing and supportive community, and I believe our communications with each other play a big role in making sure that happens. So I invite you to visit this space regularly and join us in the conversations here!

Tania