Apra-IL presents True Life: A Day in Prospect Development. Inspired by the MTV show True Life, this series exposes the everyday experiences of Prospect Development professionals. In addition to learning from the unique perspectives of our participants, we hope that you join us by sharing pictures from your day. Use #DayinPD to contribute and follow as we dive into the lives of our colleagues over the next few weeks.
Katie Ingrao, Associate Director of Prospect Management for the National Audubon Society, presents our second entry. She is current President of Apra-IL.
Follow her @KatieIngrao
True Life: I'm Not Really a Birder
Who is better to tweet about the True Life day of a Prospect Management professional than me at the National Audubon Society?!
Jumping on the Train to Chicago: heading into the office on the early train. The EL is always an adventure.
Clocking in! Desk/office: fun Fact! The Audubon Great Lakes office frequently receives birds who have collided with buildings in downtown Chicago. Those birds that don’t make it are held in cold storage (our freezer! Eeek!) before they are picked up by The Field Museum for bird data collection.
Portfolio Reviews- Building a strong foundation!
Getting down to business! National Audubon Society is currently under a massive restructuring of our Development team and I’m helping lead the way! I’m the first Prospect Management position for Audubon and there is a lot to do to establish a cohesive moves management system. Currently I’m hard at work with fundraisers reviewing and breaking down current portfolios to the right size and composition. Not an easy task for a 100+ year old national organization!
Refine Refine Refine- crafting policies in real time!
After spending some time working with MGOs on their portfolios, its back to crafting essential prospect management documents. I’m currently working on a prospect assignment flowchart to explain the logic behind assignment decisions. Since we have donors who give to programs outside of their state/region, we must find a straight forward way to decide who gets who. Assign by where they live or where they give? Decisions, Decisions! Anybody else struggle with making assignments because of the live vs. give dilemma?
Shutting down: I’m an early bird ;) so after getting into the office early, I’m heading home before the normal rush. Its been a productive day at Audubon!
