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Apr. 4th, 2012 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cblj_backupSo, it occurred to me I never really talked much about what it is we do at my work. There are articles out there about it, but they're mostly about making us sound like creeps and telling you how to avoid us, so let me give you the inside scoop.
I work for a "Prospect Research" shop. Nearly every charity, museum, hospital, and university, around the world, has a Prospect Research shop or at least one Prospect Researcher. Sometimes the name changes, but it's pretty standard. Large organisations may have different shops for different divisions -- most large universities will have multiple shops for various divisions of the school, and hospitals may have different shops for different areas of medicine. Art museums may focus on art collectors; universities often focus on alumni. Some places have one shop for individual gifts and another for corporate grants.
(As a disclaimer, I know I'm a bit vague about my shop's focus and my company's position in the charitable sector. It's to preserve my anonymity overall, not necessarily in this specifically; I protect my personal info quite vigorously.)
Dedicated Prospect Research shops don't fundraise, though we are integral to the process. We support fundraisers -- generally referred to at least in our shop and other local shops as "Frontliners" -- by providing research on prospective donors. Frontliners aren't the people who call or send mailings asking for a donation, though Prospect Research may be involved with creating those lists and keeping up the private databases that the lists are pulled from.
Make no mistake: every cent helps, when you give. People who give ten dollars are noted in the database just like people who give ten thousand (you'll see one reason why when I talk about estate gifts). But many not for profits survive because of what we call "Major Gifts" -- large endowments, gifts, legacies, grants, and donations of art, valuable stocks, and other non-cash commodities. The frontliners we support are the people who get us those major gifts.
Frontliners deal with very wealthy people, the kind of person who can give thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars to our foundation (or school, or charity, or what-have-you). Prospect Research supports them in many ways. Shops may do some or all of these depending on size.
Clipping and Database Maintenance - An Ongoing Task
We have a large shop, so we spend a significant amount of our time on clipping news about our current donors and prospective donors. Most of our researchers spend their mornings reading a number of newspapers (usually digital, though we subscribe to about eight newspapers and twenty or so magazines and periodicals), Google alerts, and updates from various public-information-gathering databases like Lexis Nexis. They distill this information and enter it into our database, sometimes sending the information to frontliners as well.
For example, if you're a registered member of the Art Institute in Chicago and you suddenly become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the Art Institute's shop will notice your change in status and make sure it's entered into their database under your name. If you win a Nobel Prize, your alma mater will notice. If you publicly give thousands of dollars to a cause, anyone who has your name in their database will find out.
One of our researchers is in charge of local Chicago news. She reads the Tribune, Sun-Times, Crain's Chicago, local Chicago newsblogs, and Google Alerts on "Chicago Philanthropy" and other keywords daily. (This may hit their Google Alert. Hi there, coworker!)
This sounds creepy, I know, but this is publicly available information and the purpose of clipping and keeping a database is to make sure we understand the interests and needs of donors and potential donors. There's a fundraiser named Armando Zumaya -- an incredibly charismatic man who does a lot to support the idea of Prospect Research as a vital tool -- who reframes it this way: this information allows us to approach only the appropriate people, and to bring our solicitations to them rather than making them seek us out.
Profiles and Capacity Ratings - By Request
These are generally provided at the request of frontliners; they're not something the research shop does unless asked. A frontliner will say to us, "I'm going to Toronto. I'm going to meet with Mr. X, who I hear is all up in our biz. Can you tell me what his specific interests are?"
Then one of our researchers creates a profile (the name for this document changes, as does the length, depending on shop and requirements) that tells the frontliner what they need to know. This generally includes a photograph, the prospect's full name, their spouse or partner, any children and their ages and occupations, a work history of the prospect and the prospect's partner, and a history of their philanthropic activity. It can also include a full biography of the prospect, and in some cases can run to several pages, though that's not standard.
Again, this sounds a little iffy, but you know what our number one and number two research sources are? Google and LinkedIn. If it's on your unlocked Facebook, Google profile, Twitter, YouTube channel, a messageboard pertaining to your interests, or your LinkedIn, then anyone can see it. All we're doing is assembling that information in one place and making sure it's accurate so that our frontliners don't waste your time.
We also use databases like LexisNexis for Development Professionals, iWave, and the best-named site ever, 10K Wizard. These databases gather information for us and charge us money for access -- LexisNexis DevPro alone is $40k a year -- but they can give us a lot of information. I looked myself up on LexisNexis and it had addresses listed for me that I forgot I'd lived at. It managed to link me to my grandma Mama Tickey through my mother's marriage licence to my stepfather. Mama Tickey is loaded and she gives a lot of money to her alma mater; I've probably been listed in a profile of her, if one has ever been done.
Sometimes? Okay yes, I get a little icked out by what I find. Photographs I'm sure the prospect doesn't like to think we saw, arrest records, evidence of family infighting that isn't visible but is still obvious from various public records when pieced together. Home addresses. Birthdates. You do not ever want a stalker to get access to DevPro. Though I've also searched friends (at their request and with their consent) and some people have a very small footprint, or disappear entirely. Our shop carefully fosters an atmosphere both of confidentiality and respect: I might privately side-eye a prospect for whatever reason, but that's not up for discussion in my shop, and I would never name names. The only time we discuss profiles in my shop is when someone has done something especially cool and admirable.
And again: this isn't sifting someone's garbage. These are all based on either public records or what people have put on the internet themselves. This is the same information people use to run background checks.
But it is just one more reason I'm glad I have a separate LinkedIn for my real name, and that almost all my social interaction is carried out under a screen name.
We also use some of these databases to do Capacity Ratings, which are a little more tricky and require special training and specific formulas designed by analysts, which allow us to determine both the general monetary worth of a donor and the amount they might be willing to donate. Capacity Ratings generally swing on estimated salaries, estimated worth of any companies or large assets the prospect owns, and the size, location, and value of their home. We have to be careful with this, so only trained researchers handle cap ratings.
One prospect I did a profile on lives fairly frugally, but in the past four years has given three million dollars to various causes. His cap rating is not going to rest on his real estate holdings or his visible assets. A large not for profit did a study a few years ago which told them that most of the people who left a million dollars or more to them in their will, unasked-for, gave an average of $17 a year to them during their life. Cross-referencing low-giving donors and rating their giving capacity allowed their frontliners to approach likely "estate gift" donors and help them plan their gifts.
Prospecting -- An Independent Project
Prospecting is the act of seeking out, identifying, profiling, and presenting potential donors that the organisation might not previously have been aware of. It's part of a prospect researcher's job, though in shops like ours it's generally considered a back-burner to frontliner requests and clipping. Prospecting involves finding someone with a high wealth index and an interest in what we do, and passing along information to the frontliner so they can "cultivate" the prospect -- contact them, speak with them, start discussing gifts and interests. The process is long and involves a lot of people before anyone ever talks to the prospect, but it often begins with a Prospect Researcher saying, "Hey...we forgot about this guy."
Imagine you have a million dollars and you love public libraries. Would you know how to contact your local library and offer them a significant chunk of cash? (BTW, if you do have a million dollars, it 100% doesn't matter how you do it, please do it; they might scramble a little at first but you will be treated with respect.) Would you know how to arrange it so that both you and the library you want to support get the best possible deal out of it? Would you even be aware that was something you could do?
Enter Prospect Research, who heard about your million dollars and saw a quote in a magazine where you said you love libraries. They'll tell a frontliner, who will evaluate your potential, make sure you'll actually be interested, contact you, and create a working relationship with you in order to both protect your donation and make it easy for you to give. They'll advocate for you to receive the amount of recognition you prefer, and keep in touch with you to let you know how your money is being put to use. Yes, they want your money, but in this business we all understand that it doesn't stop at a donation; it's important for donors to form an interactive relationship with their beneficiaries, and both the prospect research shops and the frontliners are working towards that goal.
How Do I Become A Prospect Researcher?
Lord above, I wish I knew.
It's not a job you can get a degree in, not really, though degrees in research fields and not-for-profit management help, as well as experience working for not-for-profits in any capacity. A lot of people seem to have stumbled into it, if our recent interviewees are anything to judge by. Our shop has hired everyone from secretaries who used to do it for their bosses to research librarians to people with law degrees to database administrators. The unifying element is a strong background in and love of research, an ability to grasp and process information quickly, and a willingness to learn.
One of the major turnoffs in our interviews has been an arrogance about knowledge -- the assumption that you know best and have nothing you need to learn or improve on. A truly attractive quality, at least in our very functional, very happy shop, is a willingness to show your love of learning in an interview. We ask questions like what book you're reading, what your favorite research tool is, what subjects fascinate you, and what you're dorky about.
For reference, in our shop, we are dorky about cult science fiction, jazz music, murder mysteries, memes involving cats, our actual cats, obscure theatrical traditions, and reality television. And those are just the ones I've found out about so far.
Prospect Researchers do a lot. We know a lot of things that maybe we shouldn't, but we take care to keep them within the fundraising system and maintain respect for our donors. Our job is to guide our fundraisers to the people who want to give to us, and give them the tools to put those prospective donors at ease and help them give.
And if you love research and enjoy working with dorky introverts, we may be the job for you!
I work for a "Prospect Research" shop. Nearly every charity, museum, hospital, and university, around the world, has a Prospect Research shop or at least one Prospect Researcher. Sometimes the name changes, but it's pretty standard. Large organisations may have different shops for different divisions -- most large universities will have multiple shops for various divisions of the school, and hospitals may have different shops for different areas of medicine. Art museums may focus on art collectors; universities often focus on alumni. Some places have one shop for individual gifts and another for corporate grants.
(As a disclaimer, I know I'm a bit vague about my shop's focus and my company's position in the charitable sector. It's to preserve my anonymity overall, not necessarily in this specifically; I protect my personal info quite vigorously.)
Dedicated Prospect Research shops don't fundraise, though we are integral to the process. We support fundraisers -- generally referred to at least in our shop and other local shops as "Frontliners" -- by providing research on prospective donors. Frontliners aren't the people who call or send mailings asking for a donation, though Prospect Research may be involved with creating those lists and keeping up the private databases that the lists are pulled from.
Make no mistake: every cent helps, when you give. People who give ten dollars are noted in the database just like people who give ten thousand (you'll see one reason why when I talk about estate gifts). But many not for profits survive because of what we call "Major Gifts" -- large endowments, gifts, legacies, grants, and donations of art, valuable stocks, and other non-cash commodities. The frontliners we support are the people who get us those major gifts.
Frontliners deal with very wealthy people, the kind of person who can give thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars to our foundation (or school, or charity, or what-have-you). Prospect Research supports them in many ways. Shops may do some or all of these depending on size.
Clipping and Database Maintenance - An Ongoing Task
We have a large shop, so we spend a significant amount of our time on clipping news about our current donors and prospective donors. Most of our researchers spend their mornings reading a number of newspapers (usually digital, though we subscribe to about eight newspapers and twenty or so magazines and periodicals), Google alerts, and updates from various public-information-gathering databases like Lexis Nexis. They distill this information and enter it into our database, sometimes sending the information to frontliners as well.
For example, if you're a registered member of the Art Institute in Chicago and you suddenly become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the Art Institute's shop will notice your change in status and make sure it's entered into their database under your name. If you win a Nobel Prize, your alma mater will notice. If you publicly give thousands of dollars to a cause, anyone who has your name in their database will find out.
One of our researchers is in charge of local Chicago news. She reads the Tribune, Sun-Times, Crain's Chicago, local Chicago newsblogs, and Google Alerts on "Chicago Philanthropy" and other keywords daily. (This may hit their Google Alert. Hi there, coworker!)
This sounds creepy, I know, but this is publicly available information and the purpose of clipping and keeping a database is to make sure we understand the interests and needs of donors and potential donors. There's a fundraiser named Armando Zumaya -- an incredibly charismatic man who does a lot to support the idea of Prospect Research as a vital tool -- who reframes it this way: this information allows us to approach only the appropriate people, and to bring our solicitations to them rather than making them seek us out.
Profiles and Capacity Ratings - By Request
These are generally provided at the request of frontliners; they're not something the research shop does unless asked. A frontliner will say to us, "I'm going to Toronto. I'm going to meet with Mr. X, who I hear is all up in our biz. Can you tell me what his specific interests are?"
Then one of our researchers creates a profile (the name for this document changes, as does the length, depending on shop and requirements) that tells the frontliner what they need to know. This generally includes a photograph, the prospect's full name, their spouse or partner, any children and their ages and occupations, a work history of the prospect and the prospect's partner, and a history of their philanthropic activity. It can also include a full biography of the prospect, and in some cases can run to several pages, though that's not standard.
Again, this sounds a little iffy, but you know what our number one and number two research sources are? Google and LinkedIn. If it's on your unlocked Facebook, Google profile, Twitter, YouTube channel, a messageboard pertaining to your interests, or your LinkedIn, then anyone can see it. All we're doing is assembling that information in one place and making sure it's accurate so that our frontliners don't waste your time.
We also use databases like LexisNexis for Development Professionals, iWave, and the best-named site ever, 10K Wizard. These databases gather information for us and charge us money for access -- LexisNexis DevPro alone is $40k a year -- but they can give us a lot of information. I looked myself up on LexisNexis and it had addresses listed for me that I forgot I'd lived at. It managed to link me to my grandma Mama Tickey through my mother's marriage licence to my stepfather. Mama Tickey is loaded and she gives a lot of money to her alma mater; I've probably been listed in a profile of her, if one has ever been done.
Sometimes? Okay yes, I get a little icked out by what I find. Photographs I'm sure the prospect doesn't like to think we saw, arrest records, evidence of family infighting that isn't visible but is still obvious from various public records when pieced together. Home addresses. Birthdates. You do not ever want a stalker to get access to DevPro. Though I've also searched friends (at their request and with their consent) and some people have a very small footprint, or disappear entirely. Our shop carefully fosters an atmosphere both of confidentiality and respect: I might privately side-eye a prospect for whatever reason, but that's not up for discussion in my shop, and I would never name names. The only time we discuss profiles in my shop is when someone has done something especially cool and admirable.
And again: this isn't sifting someone's garbage. These are all based on either public records or what people have put on the internet themselves. This is the same information people use to run background checks.
But it is just one more reason I'm glad I have a separate LinkedIn for my real name, and that almost all my social interaction is carried out under a screen name.
We also use some of these databases to do Capacity Ratings, which are a little more tricky and require special training and specific formulas designed by analysts, which allow us to determine both the general monetary worth of a donor and the amount they might be willing to donate. Capacity Ratings generally swing on estimated salaries, estimated worth of any companies or large assets the prospect owns, and the size, location, and value of their home. We have to be careful with this, so only trained researchers handle cap ratings.
One prospect I did a profile on lives fairly frugally, but in the past four years has given three million dollars to various causes. His cap rating is not going to rest on his real estate holdings or his visible assets. A large not for profit did a study a few years ago which told them that most of the people who left a million dollars or more to them in their will, unasked-for, gave an average of $17 a year to them during their life. Cross-referencing low-giving donors and rating their giving capacity allowed their frontliners to approach likely "estate gift" donors and help them plan their gifts.
Prospecting -- An Independent Project
Prospecting is the act of seeking out, identifying, profiling, and presenting potential donors that the organisation might not previously have been aware of. It's part of a prospect researcher's job, though in shops like ours it's generally considered a back-burner to frontliner requests and clipping. Prospecting involves finding someone with a high wealth index and an interest in what we do, and passing along information to the frontliner so they can "cultivate" the prospect -- contact them, speak with them, start discussing gifts and interests. The process is long and involves a lot of people before anyone ever talks to the prospect, but it often begins with a Prospect Researcher saying, "Hey...we forgot about this guy."
Imagine you have a million dollars and you love public libraries. Would you know how to contact your local library and offer them a significant chunk of cash? (BTW, if you do have a million dollars, it 100% doesn't matter how you do it, please do it; they might scramble a little at first but you will be treated with respect.) Would you know how to arrange it so that both you and the library you want to support get the best possible deal out of it? Would you even be aware that was something you could do?
Enter Prospect Research, who heard about your million dollars and saw a quote in a magazine where you said you love libraries. They'll tell a frontliner, who will evaluate your potential, make sure you'll actually be interested, contact you, and create a working relationship with you in order to both protect your donation and make it easy for you to give. They'll advocate for you to receive the amount of recognition you prefer, and keep in touch with you to let you know how your money is being put to use. Yes, they want your money, but in this business we all understand that it doesn't stop at a donation; it's important for donors to form an interactive relationship with their beneficiaries, and both the prospect research shops and the frontliners are working towards that goal.
How Do I Become A Prospect Researcher?
Lord above, I wish I knew.
It's not a job you can get a degree in, not really, though degrees in research fields and not-for-profit management help, as well as experience working for not-for-profits in any capacity. A lot of people seem to have stumbled into it, if our recent interviewees are anything to judge by. Our shop has hired everyone from secretaries who used to do it for their bosses to research librarians to people with law degrees to database administrators. The unifying element is a strong background in and love of research, an ability to grasp and process information quickly, and a willingness to learn.
One of the major turnoffs in our interviews has been an arrogance about knowledge -- the assumption that you know best and have nothing you need to learn or improve on. A truly attractive quality, at least in our very functional, very happy shop, is a willingness to show your love of learning in an interview. We ask questions like what book you're reading, what your favorite research tool is, what subjects fascinate you, and what you're dorky about.
For reference, in our shop, we are dorky about cult science fiction, jazz music, murder mysteries, memes involving cats, our actual cats, obscure theatrical traditions, and reality television. And those are just the ones I've found out about so far.
Prospect Researchers do a lot. We know a lot of things that maybe we shouldn't, but we take care to keep them within the fundraising system and maintain respect for our donors. Our job is to guide our fundraisers to the people who want to give to us, and give them the tools to put those prospective donors at ease and help them give.
And if you love research and enjoy working with dorky introverts, we may be the job for you!
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-07 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 11:16 am (UTC)It's a tough job that's full of rejection, but it is also significantly more social and much more glamorous than what we do :D
no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 06:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 11:18 am (UTC)But if you feel your research shop isn't big enough or isn't doing the right things, you should talk to them about their strategy and see what they think!
no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 11:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-06 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 07:41 am (UTC)the how do I become section - looks similar to how do I become (business) Business Analyst, everyone just stumbles upon it!! (and more than half of the world is mistaking it for IT Analyst (which I do perfectly know are two different things)
no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 07:42 am (UTC)That $17 figure is particularly surprising. Is that really representative - it's not just an average of "nothing" and "lots", but a reflection that a lot of those people gave small donations only during their lives?
no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 11:22 am (UTC)It's not that surprising if you know the dynamics of wealth in people who weren't born into it -- there have been studies that show that most people who die wealthy do so because they lived frugally. They gave in small amounts while alive because they wanted to preserve their wealth to the end of their life, and make generous gifts in their wills because they don't need that money anymore.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-07 12:08 am (UTC)Given the numbers involved here, wouldn't it be a lot more useful to give a median rather than an average? A median would answer the question about whether there are a lot of zeros or one-time small donations.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-07 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 08:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 11:24 am (UTC)I should probably post some kind of "I'm being vague about some things on purpose because I like anonymity" disclaimer :D I'd give details about my shop's focus and position in the charitable sector, but that's a bit of a narrow trail back to me.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 11:03 am (UTC)And I kinda want this job a lot. I love interviews where people ask you what you're reading! (I did an interview for a library job where they asked you to bring along a favourite book. So, so sad when I didn't get it.)
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Date: 2012-04-05 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-04-06 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-05-01 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 02:27 pm (UTC)K.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 02:35 pm (UTC)I don't know if increased research efficiency has had an impact on frontline numbers; I suspect it would be difficult to separate out the impact of research from the just plain impact of mass communication -- it's so much easier to keep a donor hooked into the organisation when you have a phone app or a mailing list or a website where they can learn about what you're doing.
I know that the internet HAS had an impact on the research departments themselves; they can turn over a lot more prospective donor profiles in a shorter amount of time, and research departments have shrunk way down. A lot of shops now consist of only a few people still doing the work of a dozen, but the work's just become a lot easier.
If I can recommend a company that may help, Artez Interactive specializes in online fundraising solutions and they have an extensive free webinar program that helps people understand the relationship between fundraising and mass communication:
http://www.artez.com/webinars
I have a good friend who works there and helped found the webinar program, so I recommend Artez wholeheartedly, they're good people.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-08 05:32 am (UTC)thanks admin
no subject
Date: 2014-04-04 06:37 am (UTC)again.