A non-profit for Prospect Development professionals. 

Spring Webinar: Financial Industry

Tue, April 29, 2014 8:01 AM | Anonymous member

Written by Elisa Shoenberger:

In early April, APRA Illinois held its Spring Educational Event:  “Financial Industry Overview and Happy Hour” at two locations: the University of Chicago and Lewis University. The event was composed of a lecture, webinar, and followed by a happy hour. The event was a big hit. Over 30 prospect development professionals and librarians from all over Illinois came out to the events.

I attended the event held at the University of Chicago and had a great time!

The first session was “Initial Public Offerings: The Big Payday” by Catherine Cefalu, Senior Research Analyst at the University of Chicago. This was a presentation that she gave at the 2013 APRA International conference in Baltimore, Maryland. In her talk, she did a wonderful job of explaining how and why a private company would go public and what it means for Prospect Research. I will note some highlights but I highly recommend checking out the actual talk in the future.

Ms. Cefalu stressed that Research needs to be conscious of  IPO events coming up for its donor base for several reasons. First, an IPO is a liquidity event for a donor, which would make the donor better positioned to make a gift. Second, it’s a company event which means that it will generate a lot of publicity for the company. Third, it’s a transparent event so there will required public disclosures. This is particularly great for Research since you will get a view into the finances of the company and may learn about the financial impact for your donor. Fourth, an IPO is a huge life event for the donor so it’s good to be aware that it is happening. Fifth, it may impact when a donor will give a gift. Ideally, a donor may give a gift after his or her company has gone public.

The second session was a webinar titled “Money Businesses: A Capitalist Primer” by Valerie Anastasio, Senior Advancement Officer of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. In her talk, she focused on the Financial Industry as a whole, and urged Prospect Research to take a closer look at it since it has such major gift potential for nonprofits. First, the financial industry’s share of the GDP was 8% in 2011. The combined assets of the top 5 US banks were $7.8 trillion as of December 2012. Finally, private equity firms raised $1.3 trillion in the past 5 years. She explained various revenue streams for individuals working in the Financial Industry, which included commissions on trades, fees (transactions, administration, overhead), interest on loans, incentive fees (percent of profit), and prosperity trading.

Compensation can be quite impressive for investment service companies. However, Ms. Anastasio made the point that researchers should also look at individuals working in related industries like the legal field and information technology, because these industries are crucial in the success of the financial industry. For the full presentation, you should definitely check it out at ShareTraining.

In Hyde Park, after these two wonderful presentations, participants headed out to Mellow Yellow, a local restaurant, for some networking. What a day of financial industry learning! I’m looking forward to our APRA-IL Basic Skills Workshop in June and our APRA- IL Fall Conference in October!

Author
* Comment
 


Apra-IL is a 501(c)6 non-profit organization. 

332 S Michigan Ave. Suite 1032 #A62, Chicago, IL 60604 | apraillinois@gmail.com

Copyright © 2021 Apra-IL. All rights reserved. 

Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software