Taylor Scott is a Philanthropy Associate at Northwestern Memorial Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm to the Northwestern Medicine hospital system. She is the Director of Programming on the Apra-IL Board and lives in Chicago.
8:15am
Arrive at Northwestern Memorial Foundation offices, which are located downtown Chicago in Streeterville on the hospital campus.
Begin to check email and get set up for the day in the office. We work a hybrid schedule, and are asked to come into the office two days a week.
9:00am
I keep an eye on which gift officers are in the office today, and decide to pop over to a fundraiser’s office to ask them about a prospect. I received a research request late in the day the previous day from one fundraiser, and she shared that another fundraiser “has a lot of insights”. I love a shortcut! We chat for a bit and I get valuable information – the prospect has shared that their family has a history with a specific health issue, and so the couple is interested in funding its research. Knowing that they have a history being involved with healthcare-specific organizations, I can focus my research on it.
9:30 – 10:30am
Prospect Research and Development Team Meeting. I am on a team of 6 individuals and we meet weekly to share what we’re working on and support each other. My manager shares a status update on our contract with Donor Search, among many other things. I share that I am completing research refreshes for senior leadership’s portfolios. While all of our team members are cross-trained on doing all tasks, Philanthropy Associates specialize in specific areas – I am the lead on prospect research.
10:45am
Begin the arduous task of considering the most important question of the day – what am I doing for lunch? My “usual” is Sweetgreen – I am a creature of habit.
10:50 – 12pm
Research my prospect that is a time sensitive request for a leadership meeting taking place later this week. I’m completing a Full Profile and Capacity Rating, which is an “everything but the kitchen sink” type of research request. Real estate, biographical information, stock holdings, philanthropic giving, family history, the works.
12pm
Pickup lunch and eat with a few colleagues in the kitchen at our office. The entire suite was renovated a few years ago so we are lucky to have a nice space to eat away from our desks!
12:45 – 3pm
Bouncing around between my current research profile and connecting with in-office colleagues. I appreciate our hybrid schedule because we can solve problems quickly in office together, but then also have dedicated time to focus when working from home. (But how did I used to come in 5 days a week?!)
3 - 3:45pm
Our PR&D team holds “Office Hours” available to the full foundation staff. It can definitely be hit-or-miss attendance wise, but today we had a bunch of visitors! Questions range from fundraisers who need help cleaning up opportunities on their donor’s records, to assistance with our new database, Microsoft Dynamics. We are certainly all still learning the new CRM.
4:00 – 5pm
Philanthropy Huddle – every other week, Foundation leadership holds a knowledge-sharing meeting where cross training, major gift celebrations, and administrative updates are shared. Since I don’t usually speak on this call, I listen to it on my commute home. It’s no Las Culturistas (my current podcast obsession) but great information to have and nice to hear about recently funded gifts from prospects that my team has spent time researching.
