A Few Considerations on the Kintera Acquisition by Blackbaud

services@supportingadvancement.com — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 05:00:00 GMT

A few other considerations on the Kintera Acquisition by Blackbaud:

1. Reflects the "commoditization" of prospect screening. Most of the data sources these services use are similar. The value added will continue to be in the analytics to do database segmentation, and with some of the vendors, the ability to do direct appends of wealth/asset information directly to your database. We'll probably see more screening consulting services offered as value added by other vendors.

2. Consolidation in the industry, economies of scale and scope in the online services area. It's a good competitive strategy

re: GetActive-Convio and other vendors in the space.

3. Allows Blackbaud make additional inroads into providing software as a service, as they did a number of months ago with the e-tapestry acquisition. Many organizations are choosing hosted services which require less internal resources and expertise to manage.

4. Adds more robust email delivery capability to Blackbaud's portfolio of product offerings.

As with any acquisition, it will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next year or two. Blackbaud and Kintera are built on very similar technology, eTapestry is not. Kintera has FundWare and Blackbaud has Financial Edge.

The overall customer base, management of it and product consolidation looks very complicated. It will probably take a while to see major changes.

In the competitive arena, it will be interesting to see how other vendors choose to compete and differentiate their products. Who will be the next candidate for acquisition?

Many of our traditional back end database vendors have not made great strides in their strategies for online engagement.

Data integration to our back end databases can be very challenging with our online community vendors.

Most of us don't have all the resources we need to support multiple systems.

Whoever solves all of this first and sells it to us at a competitive price ....

What have we all assumed?

services@supportingadvancement.com — Sun, 18 May 2008 05:00:00 GMT

We sometimes forget to reflect on how much our environment has changed in the last 5-10 years:

Much more scrutiny from external organizations such as Revenue Agencies. We have to be more accurate and adhere to more rules and regulations. The rules and regulations are increasingly complex to learn and to administer.
Donors have taken much more direct control of their philanthropy. We need to be much more careful in how we record gifts and then how we manage them once they have been received.
More complicated giving vehicles and more complex recognition and maintenance activities such as family foundations are becoming commonplace. This makes data entry, crediting and reporting more difficult.
We are all collecting and maintaining many more data elements. Just consider the management of email addresses alone. We’re also collecting cell phones, more information on interests, public information such as securities and have implemented new communication techniques such as email marketing.
We have all added new web enabled systems such as online communities, online giving, online event registration and others while still needing to maintain our back end database. Many of these projects have created incremental workloads without the addition of staff to manage the technology.
As we have all moved into larger and continuous campaigns, our data entry and maintenance volumes have increased. Incentive vehicles such as challenge gifts are harder to record and manage especially as these transactions flow through to the general ledger.
Privacy laws and individuals’ awareness of privacy and data exposure has made conventional tracing and finding of lost constituents more difficult. Once lost, they are harder to find. These laws have also added complications to our opt-in and opt-out management.
We are competing more directly with other non-profits who sometimes have more resources than we do and whose fundraising models can be simpler. Consider online giving where we often have many designations as opposed to a few or even just one on a political site’s profit’s online giving page.
Fundraising is a core business. We need to operate at the highest level of efficiency in the use of every resource we have.

Staffing is always the most difficult budget resource to acquire. Reorganization and streamlining of work and improvements in technology is also critical.

How much more can we assume? Only time will tell.

Finding Out About BI in Higher Education

services@supportingadvancement.com — Sun, 18 May 2008 05:00:00 GMT

One of the first steps is to do a Google search which will bring up most of the vendors:

higher education business intelligence

business intelligence

etc.

Considerations for most products should include:

1. Are the presentation layers for both the development environment and end user access 100% web based?

2. Can users self subscribe to a variety of outputs, that allow them to receive information when they want in the format they want?

3. Integration of the BI tool with the ETL tool is critical.

4. Dashboarding and critical performance indicators capabilities.

The selection of these for a campus wide solution is something that typically takes a few months, as these are usually large scale projects.

Most of the major database and software vendors have these tools or are acquiring companies that have developed the tools.

Most are similar in terms of their capabilities.

Cognos

Business Objects

Microsoft

Oracle

etc.

Some initial steps you need to think about in Advancement before even looking at a tool are:

1. What are the key performance metrics you want to develop and measure?

2. Who will these be delivered to?

3. Have a very good understanding of data cubes/pivot tables and drill down within these.

4. How a reporting and data deployment environment built on these technologies will be significantly different than your current reporting environment and how to leverage these new technologies.

5. How you will integrate data enhancements such as screening data, Prizm clusters etc. into your BI environment.

6. Integration of data mining and statistics into your BI environment.

Encouragement: Putting People Over the Top

services@supportingadvancement.com — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Indian summers are the dream of rock climbers. The days aren’t summer-hot, but just warm enough as the Autumn breeze cools off an active climber. Reaching the top of the climb, you can see a vast expanse of crimson, gold, and pumpkin-orange hues that shine with the brilliance that only a northern deciduous forest can hold—a seemingly infinite banner of treetops.

Imagine yourself at this place. You stand at the bottom of a rock face, tying your harness into the rope that will catch you if you happen to fall. Your belayer gives you the go-ahead signal: “Climb on.” As you scale the side of the cliff, you find all the right handholds and footholds, and before you know it, you’re halfway up the cliff, but then... you stop. Freeze.

A ledge looms above your head and you could get halfway up it but can’t find any holds to climb over it. There are no cracks in the rock, no edges to grip onto, nothing—just a smooth slab of rock above and the ground far below. You hesitate and hang there, trying to decide what to do. You glance back at the ground again. Maybe it’d be easier to just go back down. Your arms start to feel heavy with the effort of gripping the rock.

From below you hear small voices. Your ears prick to tune to the voices of your friends. You hear them saying, “You can get this!” and “Just put your toe in that crack to the left and push yourself up—there’s a hand hold at the top of the ledge! We’re not letting you come down until you’ve finished” and “You’re so close, you’ve almost got it!” With a burst of energy that explodes though your limbs like a spontaneous combustion you spring from your legs and grab the next handhold. With a quick succession over the ledge you reach he top of the climb and sit back in your harness, feeling triumphant as you gaze at surrounding hills.

Alright, you can stop the imagination train now. Think back to the story you just read. As a climber, you were about to give in and give up. What stopped you? Encouragement.

You could have very well been laughed at and your friends could have called you weak or could have said some other destructive sort of comment that would not have helped you overcome your difficulty, but surrender to it instead.

Encouragement is incredibly important in all sorts of settings—at home, at school, and in the workplace. If we’re not encouraging one another in our struggles, then what are we doing? We are either throwing out unwanted negativity or standing by in silence. That’s foolish. Building each other up is a sign of love and a key to healthy relationships. We are all more productive and happier when we’re encouraged.

Many people have written about encouragement. Author and speaker, Jim Stovall said the following: “You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins.”

Some Miscellaneous Data Mining Resource Page Links

services@supportingadvancement.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:25:26 GMT

http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/

http://donorcast.com/newswatch/

http://www.kdnuggets.com/data_mining_course/

http://www.albionresearch.com/data_mining/how.php

http://www.datadesk.com/products/data_analysis/sample_analysis.shtml

http://adage.com/americandemographics/

http://www.philbrierley.com/

http://www.dataminingconsultant.com/resources.htm

http://www.case.org/CURRENTS/ViewIssue.cfm?contentItemID=6756&

http://www.resample.com/xlminer/

http://www.surveymonkey.com/

http://www.spss.com/devcentral/

http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stchaid.html

http://academic.udayton.edu/gregelvers/psy216/spss/descript1.htm

http://www.csupomona.edu/~jlkorey/POWERMUTT/Topics/contingency_tables.ht

ml#sig

http://www2.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/pa765/statnote.htm

http://home.okstate.edu/homepages.nsf/toc/onlinetutorialsstatistics

http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stathome.html

http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/glosfra.html

http://www.purplemath.com/modules/meanmode.htm

http://www.nabble.com/SPSSX-Discussion-f15527.html

http://www.kdkeys.net/forums/70/ShowForum.aspx

http://cammlist1.spss.com/pipermail/clug-l/

http://abbottanalytics.blogspot.com/

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/

http://www.ats.ucla.edu/STAT/spss/

http://www.spsstools.net/LearningSyntax.htm#DateTutorial

What are you doing with Web 2.0?

services@supportingadvancement.com — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:29:48 GMT

What are you doing with Web 2.0 and other “new” technologies such as Facebook, MySpace and others. The survey should only take a few minutes of your time. Online version. Print version.
More surveys.

Leadership When You're Lost in the Woods

services@supportingadvancement.com — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:52:11 GMT

Everyone is a leader. Maybe you weren’t ever class president, captain of the football team, or editor-in-chief of your school newspaper. Maybe you’re not a CEO or a manager, but to be a leader is to have influence and we all have influence over someone. You have the ability to influence others for good or bad when leading people towards a decision or common goal, and there are four different ways to do it. A leadership course taught me about the four styles: Tells, Sells, Consults, and Joins.

Its funny how after completing any course, you begin to notice all of the practical applications that apply to what you’ve learned.

It was a crisp and clear autumn night, the changing leaves were dimply illuminated by the full moon as they rained to the forest floor whenever a fierce wind would spin through the trees. In a small town on a Friday night there’s not much to do, so a group of us students decided to drive out to an old memorial and walk along the paths that surrounded it. While it was well after sundown, our paths were flooded with moonlight and so, we set off into the forest in search of adventure. At a fork in the pathway majority rule decided that we would hang a right, even though it didn’t seem like the smartest decision. After all, the path that would bring us in a circle around the memorial would be to the left. However, being in a mood of merriment, we decided to throw good judgment into the increasingly bitter autumn wind and plow forward down an arbitrary path.

After walking along the right (wrong) path for an hour we came out of the forest at a logging road. A sign nailed to a tree read Deerhurst and pointed towards the right. Great. Deerhurst? Where the heck were we? “Let’s go to the left!” Someone purposed without giving any reason— someone who had the Tells leadership style. They were taking charge, going left was the only way to go, and not only was it the only way… it was the superior way. There was no debate to be had. A few small voices murmured, “Let’s go back the way we came, at least we know where it leads. We don’t know where this road will take us,” but the voice of the Sells leaders was not heard as the Tells walked briskly up the road in a leftward direction. In the eyes of the Tells, the rest of us were incompetent and lacked the maturity to make such a decision.

As we walked up the road, the Sells began to do what they did best: they used whatever it took to appeal to what they thought group wanted, “Guys, we could be walking on this road forever—we have no idea where it goes. If we turn back now, at least we can be back at the van within the hour.”

Alas, the Sells’ cool logic and persuasion tactics did not work on the tired group. No one would heard of the benefits of turning back and going on the path we knew—the cry for adventure and walking through the woods full of hungry male bears was greater than the cry of reason.

Soon we reached a path that would take us through the forest. We had no idea where it went, but no matter! The Tells lead the rest of us ahead into the dark, confident that their choice was the best one. One of the Consults people in the group walked alongside two others and began to discuss his ideas with them as we drew closer to the heart of the forest and further away from the little logging road. “We can’t go back now—we’re too far into the forest to find our way back to the logging road, but look at the moon. We’ve been on the left side of it. I think if we take a right, we will end up looping back around to the memorial. What do you think?” A Consults would never step up and make a decision before checking with others around him or her; to try and win the support and cooperation of the group was more important than imposing their decision on everyone else.

While the Consults were still talking things over, the group was plowing forward through the forest and getting more lost as the night went on. After several times of stopping in the middle of knee-high brush and arguing about where to go, we were getting sick of listening to the Tells—their style of leadership often leads to frustration, antagonism, or rebellion and rebellion is what broke out as frustrated people began to split from the group and go in opposite directions.

One girl pleaded with the rest of us, “Ok guys, come back! We need to use the Joins style of leadership.” Our dark moods lightened as we laughed about what we had learned in class and saw it appear in our real lives. People took different turns voicing their opinions on what we should have done, and then we voted. Majority ruled. We would continue in the right direction. While those in the minority still weren’t happy about the groups’ decision we were now unified and moving in the same direction.

Our chosen path caused us to blaze a trail through ditches and fallen trees and eventually onto a man’s property where his dog barked at us, waking him up from his sleep. After we explained how long we had been lost for and where we had come from he offered us a ride back to our van.

We learned more about leadership styles from a night of being lost in the woods than we had in two days of classroom time and realized that we can influence each other and have to be mindful of the impacts that our influence can have on those around us. With great power comes great responsibility, right?

And the Green Grass Grew, All Around, All Around

services@supportingadvancement.com — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:55:58 GMT

Summer is almost over. In-between working to pay for tuition, taking summer school courses for elective credits, and trying to keep up a social life, I have found my ever-spinning mind clamoring for a quiet retreat.

This is why I love camping. Try to tell me a better way to relax than having a nap on the beach, seeking solace beneath a shady tree, dipping your canoe paddle into a sapphire lake, participating in an impromptu Ultimate Frisbee game, or catching air during a cliff-jumping excursion. After I return from a camping trip, I am so incredibly relaxed and ready to get back to work. It's good for my mind. It's great for my soul.

As I sat next to the campfire in a sweatshirt to shut out the chilling breeze last weekend, thoughts of September drifted into my mind. With those thoughts, I realized that school loomed near. Yes, loomed. Why did the thought of going back to school in the fall make me twitch with stress?

Researchers at Cornell conducted a study on children in grades three through five to see if the amount of nature or green spaces they encountered in their daily life contributed to a reduction in stress.

They discovered that everyday life-stresses did not have as much of a negative impact on children who lived in higher nature-infused conditions, and that those children's attention spans were also lengthened when they were surrounded by greenery, whether it was fields, indoor plants, trees, or gardens. (http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/April03/nature.kid.stress.ssl.html)

If children are affected by the amount of green spaces in their lives, why should university students be any different? And because we spend the majority of our time on campus, wouldn't more green spaces alleviate the high levels of stress we have to deal with throughout the school year?

We need on-campus-retreats for students. Many people seek vacations in quieter places, and there are points in a student's day where he or she would appreciate reading a textbook in the shade of a tree instead of under a flickering fluorescent lamp. On my first day of University last year, I clearly remember avoiding the indoor eating area in favor of having my lunch at an outside courtyard under the shade of trees overhead.

For students who attend schools that experience all four seasons, it would be wonderful to be able to walk into a large greenhouse on campus with benches along a path and have a snack in-between classes during the winter months, instead of fighting for a table in the packed student centre or attempting to sneak illicit food items into a crowded library.

Imagine: students who are stressed with the advent of mid-terms could seek the comfort of a grassy space or the serenity of a picnic table under an oak tree instead of resorting to drugs or alcohol. Psychology Today's article, "The Campus Crisis" noted that, "The severity of mental health problems on college campuses has been rising dramatically since 1988-one year into the Prozac era." (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20040519-000002.html) Surely, the introduction of more green spaces that are useable for students would help to decrease these rising numbers.

And why stop at campuses? Offices could implement green spaces, such as courtyards at the centers of buildings with picnic tables and trees for employees to eat their lunches on. There could be indoor plants amongst the grey cubicles to brighten working spaces and life moods. Hospital windows could show a view of trees and grassy areas instead of cement parking lots and busy avenues. Paving these green paradises into parking lots might raise revenues, but it's making us all depressed.

Give green a chance. Your psyche will thank you.

Student Experience: Transportation Aggravations

services@supportingadvancement.com — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:08:03 GMT

There are many great universities that sit right on the outskirts of Urban areas. They are not located in the middle of a subway or streetcar system, but the campuses are fairly large and spread out. I have visited friends at Urban schools and have also had to go on many a long quest to classes, libraries, and more across my own campus. For students attending these schools, getting from residence to the grocery store or the last class of the day to the parking lot on the edge of campus is accomplished by pounding the pavement.

This is great on sunny autumn days in September or spring days that come in with warm winds, but what about in the winter? Never mind trudging through the snow; (wishing that you had the money to buy some good boots that you can't afford now because you had to buy the newly revised edition of your physics textbook) what about the evenings?

Student shouldn't have to worry about being mugged or assaulted when they walk across campus. Leaving a late class can be treacherous. Staying late for a necessary study session is a sketchy thing to do when you have to walk to your car in the dark.

There have been muggings and assaults on my campus in the past-it happened to students who were walking across campus after dusk- but now, my school has implemented a great program which is available to students who need to get across campus or to their cars after dark. There are certain pickup points where students wait for the "Go Safe" bus to come. It takes them to their parking lots on the edges of campus and the driver sees that students get into their cars safely.

For students who live on campus in these urban areas, going to class might mean walking a mile and crossing major streets. To walk all this way in the nighttime is not encouraged (but often necessary), and to walk all this way in winter when there is ice and snow on the sidewalks is very inconvenient.

I visited CASE Western Reserve in September. As my friend showed me where she had to walk from her residence to the Quad where her classes were, I was shocked. She was crossing busy intersections and going through areas where she turned to me and told me to put my camera out of sight. There was no transportation system in place that went from the area on Campus where the residences were over to the Quad-otherwise we would have taken it.

What do students want to see on their campuses?

There should be a reliable bus system that runs on a schedule and a regular basis so that students can get to class on time, won't have to walk through shady areas at night, and can avoid a wet and freezing winter walk. There could be shuttles that go to and from major areas on campus, such as residence buildings, classrooms, the gym/arena, parking lots, etc.

Transportation that meets the needs of students and makes the campuses safer to get around is imperative. Student safety should be one of the top priorities of an institution because nobody wants to go to school and have to stay indoors after dark because the only way to get around is the unsafe choice of walking.

I know that if I ever find myself having to walk to my car after dark alone, I have the choice of using my school's safe transportation system. It's an option I'm blessed to have, but I can't help but feel a pang of pity for students on other campuses who aren't as lucky.

Reasons for Prospect Research

services@supportingadvancement.com — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:33:18 GMT

From a posting on PRSPCT-L on top reasons we need Prospect Research compiled by Heather Willis.

My original question:

Does anyone know of a top ten list of reasons why we need prospect
research, why its helpful, why you can't live without it, something to that
effect?? I found one for sales and marketing professionals but can't seem to
find anything for fundraising professionals.
__________________________________________________________________

From a November 12, 1997 PRSPCT-L posting…….

What are the top 10 (5,2,1,etc.) reasons/benefits for conducting prospect
research? From an institutional stand-point, why should you commit valuable
resources for either in-house research staff or outside consultants to develop
information on your suspects, prospects and donors. Why spend thousands of
dollars each year for database access, directories, etc.?

Why do we research, let me count the ways ..

1 - To identify donors needs and motivations for cultivation

2 - To determine capacity and frame the ask

3 - To identify the right people to approach

4 - To increase organizational productivity in support of cultivation and
solicitation

5 - To avoid wasting time or money pursuing the wrong prospects

6 - To identify relationships and influences among donors and prospects

7 - To identify potential conflicts before they occur

8 - To develop and maintain institutional memory

9 - To interpret and manage information

10 - To solve problems and answer questions in support of the institutional
mission
__________________________________________________________________
*Prospect Identification. One of the first steps in prospect research is
the identification of prospects. This is often accomplished by an
electronic screening of the organizations' constituency database.

* Identify Capacity. The research process can identify stock holdings,
stock options, business ownership, real estate assets, yacht ownership,
aircraft ownership and the earnings of top corporate executives.

* Identify linkages. Research can uncover relationships linking donors
to your organization, such as two persons knowing each other through
service on a corporate board.

* Identify Philanthropy and their interests. Research can often turn up
a donor's gifts to other institutions and board memberships. This can
assist in identifying giving levels, what they are passionate about or
interested in, and commitment to philanthropy.

* Identify Donor Needs and Motivation. Research can provide insight into
that may assist you in understanding their motivation for giving. Are
they passionate about education? Do they serve on several boards
related to health care? Did they volunteer in the Peace Corps?

* Track Donors. Once you have identified and cultivated a donor,
research affords the ability to periodically keep track of major events
or changes in their lives. How the donor's company is doing. Significant
relationships, i.e., one major prospect marrying another or two
graduates from your institution who have remained friends for 50 years.
Continued research allows for carefully planning future cultivation for
gifts and the timing of strategic moves.

* Avoid Wasting Time (yours and theirs). Research can help avoid wasting
the donor's time, as well as your own in pursuing a donor who is not
motivated, not connected, and/or does not have the capacity to give at
the level you are seeking.

* Identify Potential Conflicts. Research will sometimes uncover
background information that may avert embarrassing situations or
problems.
__________________________________________________________________
Some other ideas might include (depending on how your shop is set up):

•         prospect management

•         tracking

•         assigning new prospects to MGOs

•         Campaign preparation

•         data modeling

•         push technology on top tier prospects

•         strategic planning

•         sphere of influence meetings - build a prospect tree based on current

•         donors

•         to find connections between various donors/prospects

•         Working more with alumni relations/annual fund/planned giving
__________________________________________________________________
OK, I'll take a stab. But I want to give credit where credit is due -
this is inspired by a great presentation by Abbey Silberman called
Information Fundamentals of Prospect Research (it's out there on the web
somewhere, and has a great chart that shows how frontline fundraisers
and fundraising volunteers can use the information generated by the
research department):

Top Ten Benefits of Prospect Research
•           Helps develop long-term cultivation and solicitation strategies
through assessment of capacity and interest
•           Ensures ask amounts are appropriate and that money is not being
left "on the table"
•           Helps set priorities, resulting in more efficient and effective use of
limited
fundraising resources, through rating and segmenting potential donor pools
•           Expands organization's access to potential donors through
identification of contacts and spheres of influence
•          Aids frontline development professionals in establishing a connection
with potential donors by identifying talking points, approach and potential
funding interests
•           Expands the prospect pool through identification of new prospects
•           Ensures that donor's privacy needs are respected and that standards
for confidentiality and accuracy of information are maintained
•           Maintains institutional memory through maintenance of donor and
prospective donor file, both paper and electronic
•           Keeps department up-to-date on fundraising trends and news that
has an impact on fundraising and philanthropy
•          Gives the database manager someone to commiserate with
__________________________________________________________________

10. So we can have jobs.
9. So development officers will think they know more than they do.
8. So DOs will have a scapegoat for when they don't get any money.
7. To have someone in the office who can find out how much your neighbor's
house is.
6. To have someone in the office who doesn't mind having no windows in
his/her office and can occupy what would have been a closet had you
not "come on board."
5. To have cool reports that impress the Board.
4. So that the DOs will have someone to exclude from their meetings to
feel "cool."
3. So that the subculture of librarians, computer geeks, and the socially
challenged does not become extinct.
2. To help campaign managers sleep at night believing that they will meet
their goals because Bill Gates is on their prospect list and qualified at $800
gizzilion

And, the number one reason that we NEED prospect research is

1. That we all need the support and encouragement to bring back BBSs - GO
SYSOPS
__________________________________________________________________
Top Ten Signs that your Development Staff are clueless about Prospect
Research

10. Your Development Director doesn’t understand the need for screening
because he hasn’t seen a mosquito in the office in months.
9. Your Development Director keeps calling you Marcia.
8. You have to explain that liquid assets aren’t wine collections.
7. When you ask about inclination, your DoD is surprised you know how to
find out what gender they prefer.
6. Your Major Gifts officer thinks APRA is new French bra.
5. Your Development Director wants you to find out the shoe size, favorite
color of your key board member. She also wants to know if they are Elvis
Costello fans. She wants it by 5pm today.
4. Your DoD and ED hire an expensive firm to do a 6 month feasibility study
that you could in a weekend with a pint of good ice cream and some
Starbuck’s latte’s.
3. Your Executive Directors thinks you have access to personal bank
records, criminal records and are afraid your going to find out about
5-10yr stint they did for armed robbery in the state pen. Of course you
lord it over them to maneuver for a raise.
2. You just met your Major Gifts Director after she has been there for…4
years.
1. When you say you purchased Lexis Nexis your development staff are
thrilled you replaced your old Toyota.
__________________________________________________________________

Fundraising Success has an article from 8/1/07 called "Prospect
Research: What You Don't Know and How It Can Hurt You" It is not a top
10 list but it is a good article.
__________________________________________________________________

From a May 13, 2003 PSPCT-L posting…..
I think you covered many of the aspects of why donor research is important.
Below are some excerpts from "Getting to Know Your Donors" which was
featured in the January 2002 issue of our Solutions Newsletter. In the first
quote from the article, we more-or-less define donor research. The second
quote addresses the efficiently aspect of doing research. The last two
quotes talk about the importance of prospect research in helping to find
ways in which the institution can involve prospective donors into the life
of the institution, whether it be shared values, likes & dislikes, or common
friends/associates.
"It is a multifaceted process of information retrieval, analysis, and
dissemination of biographical and financial information."
"Donor and prospect research can significantly reduce the time it takes to
get to know your constituents while increasing the quality of information."
"It often uncovers shared values and prospective donor's friends and
associates who may help form a basis for institutional involvement."
"Donor profiles can provide relevant and up-to-date background information,
financial capacity, charitable nature, and likes and dislikes of
individuals, corporations, and foundations for the purpose of donor
cultivation, solicitation of funds, and welcoming them into the life of an
institution."
__________________________________________________________________

From a February 17, 2007 PRSPCT-L posting “The Role of Research”
One of the key areas in which research goes beyond prospect profiles is in
peer institution benchmarking. We created a list of 12 institutions that are
comparable to ours and have put together significant statistical data on their
advancement operations. We selected three individuals from these
institutions who will be visiting for several days to review our operations and
generate a report with their own recommendations. This includes everything
from management structure to prospect pool size and types to salaries to gift
processing procedures and on and on.

The "proactive leads" program mentioned on the report entails sending each
fundraiser (and one dean who is very active in her own fundraising) prospects
appropriate for their position each month. They receive a one-page, three-
paragraph bio for each prospect. Major gift officers receive three per month,
and development officers receive five per month. Anyone who does not
demonstrate any activity with these prospects for six months is suspended
from the program and have a special meeting with their supervisor and me to
determine what the issue is. (To date, this has occurred with three
development officers; all three were having various issues with cold calling.
Two are back in the program, the third is undergoing additional training.) Each
month has its own "theme", such as widows/widowers or lapsed donors or past
alumni award winners.

__________________________________________________________________

We haven't done full research profiles for a couple of years now, except for
the President's Office during BOT nomination time. We're probably doing
90%/10% proactive/reactive research. We're very lucky to have a VP
who "gets" research, is very analytical, and even asks us for total wealth
calculations and ask amounts before making the big asks. To keep up our end
of the bargain, we are very well versed on the latest information pertaining to
wealth calculations and gift amounts from IRS and market research data, so
that we can tell him where our estimates are coming from. The major gift
officers are assigned to prospects by the director of major gifts as we
determine they are capable of making a major gift ($100,000/5yrs), so there's
no dickering about whether or not they'll take someone -- they are asked to
go out and see everyone we send their way. We have continuous dialogue
with our gift officers as they report back on their impressions of capability,
and as they
measure readiness & willingness. Our suspicions are not always right, so they
also help us adjust capacity ratings with facts they note.

I've attached a strategy document we put together when it was clear we had
to double our major gift prospect pool before announcing our campaign (March
2007). That gives you an idea of the kind of proactive research we have
done to increase our major gift pool. It all starts with finding and sending to
your MGOs good, new prospects. To that end, we are lucky to be able to
have the latest resources, and run all our people first through an in-house
regression program (data mining) and Echelon screening for hidden liquid
assets, before doing our wealth indicator research. We only complete the
data field of those assets that back up our rating; we don't do a complete
profile. Our MGOs know that the people we're sending them are worthy of
their taking a look. I know attachments don't work on PRSPCT-L, but that's
probably a good thing, since I'm not sure I'd want this all over.

Besides the proactive research, we also monitor numbers of prospects major
gift officers have and may adjust strategies to focus on different geographic
areas, if we see an MGO is "light" in prospects. We follow prospects, visits,
and call reports each month. We have tracking reports for prospects for
specific projects, tracking ask amounts and dates and completion, and are
working on a report that will track one individual throughout all projects for
which he or she may be a candidate.

We create compensation guides for various sectors, for example investment
bankers, based on articles and research and MGO feedback. Something new,
and really working well, is we now run those compensation guides by small
groups of influential alumni in the various fields so they can confirm our
compensation levels and titles. That is a terrific cultivation tool, besides
giving us and our MGOs great info.

It's pretty clear to us that all this "success" in infusing research into our major
gifts operation is enhanced by face-to-face contact with the MGOs. We
benefit by being in the same building with Major Gifts, Parents and the Annual
Fund, so contact happens around the water cooler, besides in weekly
meetings. When they see us, they think of us -- and that leads to joint
projects or our being able to suggest a strategy or gently remind them about
a particular prospect. Warning: you could generate more requests for your
ideas and help than you can handle: job security!

Bottom line, though, is the "buy in" of your supervisors, all the way up the
line. If they bring you to the table whenever they're talking about prospects
(even if it's so boring you can't stand it), you'll be noticed -- and asked to
help -- more and more.

This isn't particularly "best practices" but hopefully there's something in this
tome to help you in synthesizing your ideas of how you can advance your
operation.
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"Prospect research identifies, analyzes, and recommends avenues of financial
support so that the fund-raising goals of a nonprofit organization can be
realized."

"Prospect research's mission is to use the first philanthropic dollar raised
to efficiently identify the next. The essence of the mission is
simple--efficient dedication to uncovering the possibility of the largest
gifts an institution can realize."

"One fund-raising adage is that most nonprofits raise about 90 percent of
their major gifts from less than 10 percent of their constituency. For
fund-raising goals to be met, donors in the top income groups must be
cultivated." (I would add that they must first be identified.)
"Fund raisers will count on research to serve as institutional memory -
to identify, research, analyze, rate and mange prospects. We serve as
the catalyst for fund raising through reporting, strategizing, tracking
and providing detailed information. This includes all the things that
allow prospects to be uncovered, discovered and followed up on. We are
here to perform at the same professional level as the development
officers."

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