Apra-IL APRA-IL Blog

Beyond Wealth Screening: How Modern Development Teams Find Data & Donors Others Miss

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:38:49 GMT

By Will Schrepferman - CEO, DonorAtlas

What would your development team do differently if every donor profile came with the full story, not just a score?

Not just an estimated net worth or a capacity rating, but the actual narrative of who someone is: how they built their wealth, what causes they've supported and in what amounts, which boards they serve on, what connects them to people in your existing network, and whether any of it suggests they'd care about your mission. Most teams already know that this is the information that matters. The problem is that assembling it has always taken so long that only your highest-priority prospects ever get the full treatment. Everyone else gets a score and a best guess.

That dynamic is starting to change, though, in the age of AI. AI models can now do (a lot of) the research. They can go out to the open web, find and read information across dozens of public sources, synthesize information into a coherent profile, and cite every data point back to where it came from. The result is a different category of output altogether, one where profiles are intelligent, contextual, and verifiable rather than opaque, static, and built on data you can't trace.

To be clear: AI does not replace the essential role of the prospect researcher. It replaces the tedium that keeps prospect researchers from doing their actual job. The judgment, the analysis, the ability to look at a profile and know whether someone is worth pursuing and how to approach them, that's human work. No AI is going to do it well. But what AI can do is make sure that when a researcher sits down to evaluate a prospect, the information is already assembled, already cited, and already current, so the time goes toward thinking instead of gathering.

This is the move from scores to stories. And development teams that have made it are finding donors that others miss.

When Research Gets Faster, Everything Downstream Changes

Speed sounds like an incremental benefit, the kind of thing you'd see in a product demo and think "nice, saves a few minutes." But in practice, faster research changes what kinds of projects a team can take on and what they're able to see.

OutVote, a civic engagement organization, saw research time per donor drop by 87% after adopting AI-powered research tools (they tracked it; before, it took their team thirty minutes per prospect to generate a profile, and after it took under a minute). That alone would be useful. But what mattered more was what the faster research uncovered. The platform revealed that a supporter who had been giving $2,500 actually had the capacity for a five-figure contribution. With verified, cited data on their giving history and wealth indicators, OutVote could approach that next conversation with confidence instead of guesswork. The donor's capacity was always there. It just wasn't visible at the speed the team was working.

Aspire Research Group, a prospect research firm, experienced the speed shift at a different scale. Jennifer Filla's team needed to build a curated prospect list for a client focused on economic justice, but the organization had no mailing list, no board connections, and no existing donor network. A completely blank slate. Using AI-powered research, Aspire generated a targeted prospect pool and then used cited bios and contextual summaries to evaluate whether each prospect's philanthropic priorities and policy positions aligned with the client's mission. The disqualification turned out to be just as valuable as the discovery: when a prospect's giving history or public positions didn't match, the team could rule them out in minutes rather than spending days on manual review only to reach the same conclusion. They researched over 550 donors and delivered more than 400 fully vetted, high-quality prospects to their client. The platform helped her team determine alignment and capacity at scale, most importantly by eliminating unnecessary work on low-fit prospects.

Both of these stories illustrate the same principle. When the research is fast enough to be comprehensive at scale, you stop triaging which prospects deserve your attention and start evaluating all of them. You catch the $2,500 donor who should be a $25,000 donor. You build a list of 400 vetted prospects from scratch instead of settling for the 50 your team had time to research manually. The depth of your intelligence stops being limited by the hours in the day.

Relationship Intelligence Changes the Workflow Entirely

The other dimension of this shift that doesn't get enough attention is relationship mapping, because it changes not just the quality of individual profiles but the entire way teams build prospect pipelines.

Rodman for Kids is a nonprofit serving over 100,000 children annually with a team of eight. Jessica Feenan, their Director of Development, was spending up to ten hours a week manually tracing connections and mapping networks. The question she was trying to answer is one every development shop deals with: which of our existing supporters, board members, and volunteers are connected to the people we're trying to reach, and how? Who went to the same school? Who served on a board together? Whose kids are in the same community? These are the connections that lead to warm introductions, and warm introductions are how major gifts actually happen.

The problem was that none of Rodman's existing tools could surface this information. They could generate basic donor profiles, but they couldn't show the connective tissue between people. So Jessica's team did it manually, spending hours each week piecing together who might know whom.

When the team adopted AI-powered relationship mapping, the platform automatically surfaced over 3,000 connections across their network that they had no efficient way of seeing before. The team raised more than $2 million in the year that followed, but the bigger change was operational. Instead of spending hours figuring out relationship pathways, they could start every prospect conversation with that context already in hand and focus their energy on building the relationships that mattered most.

The Work the Tools Should Have Always Done

The pattern across all of these organizations is the same. When AI handles the assembly, the nature of prospect research changes. Researchers spend less time gathering information and more time evaluating it. Gift officers walk into meetings better prepared. Pipelines get built proactively instead of reactively. And the intelligence itself is better, because a cited, current profile built from the open web is a fundamentally stronger foundation than a black-box score from a third party database.

Development teams have always needed stories about their prospects, not just scores. The difference is that AI can now build the first draft of those stories at a speed and depth that was never possible before, pulling from the full breadth of publicly available information and citing its sources so that the humans in the loop can do what they've always done best: evaluate, strategize, and build relationships.

Hundreds of organizations are already working this way. If you haven't looked at what's possible yet, it's worth seeing for yourself.

Will Schrepferman is the co-founder and CEO of DonorAtlas, the donor research platform built from the ground up with AI. Will raised his first dollar at age 13, studied government and data science at Harvard, and has spent his career helping mission-driven organizations find and connect with the people who can support them. Last year, DonorAtlas became the first donor research tool to release fully embedded relationship mapping, helping nonprofits see not just who can give, but who knows whom.

Meet an Apra-IL Member: Madeleine Marchaterre

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:02:00 GMT

In our "Meet an Apra-IL Member" feature, we interview a different individual from our member rolls every month. This month, we are pleased to be featuring Madeleine Marchaterre, an Apra-IL member since 2015.

Since 2017, Madeleine has been a Director of Development with Catholic Extension Society, where she oversees prospect research and prospect management, manages the organization's CRM, and smooths out the 17-person Development team's operational processes. Previously, she worked in prospect research at North Park University, and also at the University of Illinois Foundation - a "great training ground because of the complexity of development work across three campuses, and a host of great people to learn from."

Read on to learn more about Madeleine!

1. What is your favorite part about your current role, or about working for your current institution?

I love [Catholic Extension Society's] mission to work with impoverished rural areas across the US to build up vibrant faith communities. The needs we address are rooted in projects identified and deployed by religious and lay leaders in those communities. My role is the best ever—it’s varied in scope as I support annual, major, and planned giving efforts. One day I might be doing prospect research, event support, or running reports to track department metrics; another day I will be working on improving operational processes across the department or reviewing portfolios with gift officers. There is always something new on the horizon.

2. What is the silliest research request that you’ve ever been asked for?

I don’t know about silly but I had a true mystery once with someone who appeared to have changed his name to that of a friend/classmate who died in Vietnam. A gift officer was looking to connect, but he kept an exceedingly low profile and the trail went cold….I wish I could say I solved it, but that one is still a crazy mystery.

3. If you were not in prospect research, what career would you have?

Librarian? Financial Analyst? English professor? Polar explorer? Honestly, I probably would have gone to law school, but I have always been drawn to research and problem solving.

4. Why do you think local professional associations like Apra-IL matter?

Associations like Apra-IL are critical for creating a local network for professionals to access whether you are new to development or an old-timer like myself. I have dipped in and out over the years, but it’s always been there to find someone to talk to if you’re job hunting, to learn how other organizations navigate the same issues we all face, or to see what’s trending in the field. And I’m always re-energized about my role after networking with colleagues at events.

5. What is the last movie you watched (and how was it)?

I just watched the documentary The Thinking Game about DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, and the push for artificial general intelligence. It came out in 2024 and it’s amazing to think about how far AI has come and how much more pervasive it is in our daily lives. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the development of AI or to learn about how it deployed AlphaFold to predict 3D protein structures. That was Nobel Prize winning work that shows the positive way AI could transform the world. It was a bit of a rebalance for me since I’m reading far more negative things about AI these days.

Meet an Apra-IL Member: Adam Larck

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 02:24:45 GMT

In our "Meet an Apra-IL Member" feature, we interview a different individual from our member rolls every month. This month, we are pleased to be featuring Adam Larck, an Apra-IL member since 2024.

Adam joined the OSF HealthCare Foundation in 2019 as a Prospect Researcher, building the program from the ground up. Today, as the Portfolio and Prospect Development Manager, he has shaped the program into a vital part of the Foundation’s success.

Prior to joining the Foundation, he worked as a Marketing Communicator at TrendSetters Ltd., a Security and Technology Communicator at Caterpillar Inc., and as an Editor for the Morton Times-News at the TimesNewspapers. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in management information systems at Eastern Illinois University.

Outside of work, Adam serves as School Board President for Pleasant Valley School District No. 62, actively supports Excel Christian Academy, and was recently named to the 40 Leaders Under Forty Class of 2025.

Read on to learn more about Adam!

1. What is the silliest research request that you’ve ever been asked for?

Trying to find softball uniform numbers for two former players from a local university in the 80s. They weren’t retired numbers or star players, just two regular players a Gift Officer wanted to find the numbers for. I spent hours looking through old athletic programs online trying to find them online, but never was successful.

2. If you wrote a book about prospect research and development, what would it be called?

Down the Rabbit Hole: Using Your Resources to Uncover Hidden Information, and Knowing When Enough is Enough.

3. If you were not in prospect research, what career would you have?

I’d probably be back in communications or technology. I wrote for 9 years before going into this field, but knew it couldn’t be a permanent career for me with the landscape of journalism. I could never see myself going out of this field, though!

4. What has been the best part about being an Apra-IL member?

The networking opportunities. While I may not get to see many face to face being in Central Illinois, it’s great being able to connect via Zoom and in person at the annual conference in August. Can’t wait to see everyone in Chicago this year!

5. What book are you reading right now?

Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland. I’ve just recently started the series, but I’m enjoying the layers of the characters and worldbuilding the series has started so far.

Meet an Apra-IL Member: Jane Cronkhite

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 20:08:53 GMT

In our "Meet an Apra-IL Member" feature, we interview a different individual from our member rolls every month. This month, we are pleased to be featuring Jane Cronkhite, an Apra-IL member since 2024.

Jane has been a Manager of Research and Portfolio Management at the University of Illinois Foundation since January 2021. She has bachelor’s degrees in both History and Comparative Literature from Indiana University Bloomington (her hometown), and a Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (where she now lives). Prior to working in prospect development, she spent 20 years as a public librarian — including 9 years living in Silicon Valley — and she's continued to use skills from her librarian days like research and customer service as part of her current role in prospect research.

Read on to learn more about Jane!

1. What work of yours (or your team’s) from the past year are you most proud of?

My teammates in Research and Portfolio Management (RPM) at UIF put together a BPCon (Best Practices Conference) this fall that united our teams in Champaign, Chicago and our Analyst in Springfield. We spent two days learning from each other, asking questions, sharing experiences, and set department goals. It was one of the best times I’ve had with my teammates in 5 years on the job.

2. What “superpower” do you use most at work?

Asking clarifying questions. After twenty years of working on the reference desk at the public library, I know that taking the time to make sure I understand and am reflecting back to the client what I understand their need to be means I will be more likely to help them. Perhaps I cannot get them the exact thing they originally asked for, but if you take the time to listen, ask and clarify, then tell someone what it is you can do for them, often they are satisfied with how you are able to assist them.

3. What is your favorite lead you’ve ever uncovered?

Earlier this year, a faculty member followed up with me and the development officers who pointed him in the direction of a grant. He received grant funding to work with some students to develop graphic novels about periods and distributed those to women in Sierra Leone, addressing issues of period poverty. He shared photos and outcomes of his grant. It was very rewarding to see the outcome of research work and prospecting I did for that team.

4. Why do you think local professional associations like Apra-IL matter?

It is important to be able to learn from your peers, and not just at your own institution. My experience has been that our profession is very generous in sharing knowledge and best practices, and that we are change agents as well! National conferences are wonderful, but smaller, local groups also offer opportunities to dig deeply into specific topics or to reach out to a peer with a quick question. I have found that my best professional networks and professional development often come from local groups.

5. What is your hobby?

My current hobby is writing short fiction. I’ve taken a couple of classes on flash fiction and submitted my first story to a contest recently!

Meet an Apra-IL Member: Derek Beigh

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 21:19:59 GMT

In our "Meet an Apra-IL Member" feature, we interview a different individual from our member rolls every month. This month, we are pleased to be featuring Derek Beigh, an Apra-IL member since 2019.

Derek is a prospect Development Analyst at Lucile Packard for Children's Health, the fundraising partner of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University and Stanford School of Medicine in Palo Alto, CA. He broke into fundraising at University of Chicago in 2019 and built prospect research and management programs from scratch at Jewish Family Service of San Diego from 2022 to 2024. For the first decade of his career, he was a reporter and editor for local newspapers across Illinois and Indiana, covering government, education, business, arts, and crime. He works remotely from his home in Naperville.

Read on to learn more about Derek!

1. What is your favorite part about your current role, or about working for your current institution?

I have two sons under three years old, and I find tremendous satisfaction knowing my work helps kids like them. My second spent five days in the NICU after he was born, so I saw up close how philanthropy can help make patients and families more comfortable during times of intense stress. I hope my work at LPFCH can serve as a small way to pay it forward. I also really appreciate that LPFCH embraces remote work; of our seven-person prospect development team, four are remote (including my manager), and it’s an enormous benefit to know I’m not alone navigating the trade-offs that brings.

2. How do you explain your role to people outside of development?

I told a friend once my career is fancy Googling, and he’s never forgotten that! He knows now the reality is a lot more complicated, but I do try to start simple – “I work in fundraising for a children’s hospital” - and if folks are curious, talk about how I hunt down vital information that can pave the way for philanthropy and synthesize it into something readable and memorable. For folks who know my background, it clicks quickly that this work has a lot in common with what I did for local newspapers, and that’s a great springboard to talk about the different challenges of each industry.

3. If you were not in prospect research, what career would you have?

Had I been born 25 years earlier, in a more optimistic and profitable era for journalism, that may have been my only career - I decided in high school to become editor of the Chicago Tribune, and even though I fell well short, I’m tremendously proud of the work I did in the field and it broke my heart to leave. A couple fun alternates: I first came to the idea of writing professionally because I thought it would be awesome to review video games for Electronic Gaming Monthly, and I sometimes feel I missed my calling as a 70s sitcom writer, engineering misunderstandings and crafting snappy puns.

4. What has been the best part about being an Apra-IL member?

I really value the professional and personal connections APRA-IL has helped me establish. I had just moved to the Chicago area when the pandemic started, remote work is isolating, and it’s hard to get out as a new dad, so prospect research has turned out to be the community I needed. Apra-IL was also an invaluable resource when I was a one-man prospect development shop at JFS; I leaned a lot on folks at local nonprofits for advice and best practices as I figured out how to serve an organization that previously had no formal prospect research and could be almost hostile to prospect management as a concept. I cannot encourage enough reaching out to your peers in prospect development, both professionally and personally, and I’m grateful Apra-IL is a great venue for it.What is the last movie you watched (and how was it)?

5. What is the last movie you watched (and how was it)?

The new Naked Gun finally hit streaming last week, and I was thrilled it was just as funny and ridiculous as I hoped. (If I can make a bonus recommendation, it made me want to watch Angie Tribeca again.)

Meet an Apra-IL Member: Stacey Brownlee

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 17:29:14 GMT

Here at Apra-IL, we are proud to have an extremely talented member community representing all sorts of organizations, industries, and areas of prospect research. With that in mind, we are kicking off a new feature called "Meet an Apra-IL Member", in which we interview a different individual from our member rolls every month.

This month, we are pleased to be featuring Stacey Brownlee, Prospect Development and Research Manager at Chicago Public Media and an Apra-IL member since 2019. Read on to learn more about Stacey!

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role.

I’ve built a career out of answering the big question: Who wants to help, and how can we connect with them? I currently serve as Prospect Development and Research Manager at Chicago Public Media, the largest public media station in the country and home to WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Vocalo.

In my role, I design prospecting strategies to connect fundraisers to generous people and organizations who share our commitment to strengthening independent journalism and storytelling in Chicago. I collaborate with colleagues across Major, Principal, and Institutional Gifts, lead prospect management meetings, and support our efforts with data analysis and reporting. I also lead CPM’s Development internship, mentoring university students eager to learn about nonprofit development and prospect research. Before this, I worked as a grant writer supporting early childhood education initiatives nationwide. A lawyer by training, I bring my love of research, storytelling, and strategy to everything I do.

2. What is the best career advice you’ve ever received?

Early in my nonprofit career, I was working as a grant writer and was invited to a get-to-know you lunch with a new executive who had just joined our organization. From the beginning, it was clear she cared deeply about developing her team not only to retain people, but to help them grow, even if that meant they might eventually outgrow the organization.

Over salads, she asked me what I love about my job. I told her that I loved the focus and solitude of writing. I mentioned that I enjoyed the kind of flow state I could achieve when writing or solving a problem that required deep focus.

She nodded and then said something that changed the course of my career: "We have to diversify revenue if we want to meet our campaign goals, and we’ll need someone to take the lead on prospect research."

She helped me see how my skills and interests could support our work in a new way, one I would not have identified for myself. That thoughtful moment, where she connected what I loved to what the organization needed, set me on a path that led to a fulfilling career in prospect development.

And that lunch was a master class in leadership: If you want to build great teams, don’t just ask people what they can do. Ask them what they love to do, then help them connect the dots.

3. Why is staying involved with Apra-IL important?

One of the reasons I stay involved with local associations like Apra-IL is because they make a difference, not just in our day-to-day work, but in the long-term growth of the profession. Local chapters provide space for connection, collaboration, and learning that is directly relevant to the work we’re doing in our own institutions and communities. They help us build stronger networks, share real-world strategies, and push the field forward together. Whether it's a roundtable, a workshop, or just an email thread, being part of a local group like this means you’re never working in isolation, and that’s powerful.

4. What work of yours (or your team’s) from the past year are you most proud of?

I’m most proud of the fact that our team surpassed our FY25 revenue goal and grew the number of major donors by almost 23 percent year-over-year. That kind of growth speaks to more than just strong fundraising; it reflects meaningful relationship-building and supports our goal of long term sustainability. It means more people are deeply invested in our mission, and that gives us a stronger foundation for the future. It was a team effort and it’s been incredibly rewarding to see that kind of momentum build.

5. If you weren’t in prospect research, what career would you have?

Honestly? I think I would make a great private detective. There’s something about pulling threads and uncovering a story that really excites me. I love solving a puzzle, especially the moment when all the pieces finally come together, so if I were not doing this work in the nonprofit world, I imagine I’d still be out there investigating. Luckily, prospect development lets me embrace my inner detective and contribute to a meaningful mission, sans stakeouts.

6. What book are you reading right now?

I just got back from Apra PD in Baltimore, where I finished A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Sharp, funny, a little like speed dating across fifty years, the story seems to have no single person at the center of the action, but somehow everything links up at the end in a satisfying way.

That line, “Time’s a goon, right?” made me laugh. Yeah, time is a goon, pushing us around, stealing our hours and days, and somehow aging our headshots overnight. It also gives us perspective, which makes for better stories. So while I'm keeping one eye on the clock, I'm still reading, exploring, and trying to give away my time in meaningful ways.

A Q&A with New Board Member Melanie Pozdol

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 17:29:01 GMT

As we move from April to May, we're continuing our Q&A series with another new Apra-IL board member.

Up next is Melanie Pozdol, who joins the APRA-IL board this year as our new Secretary. Melanie has worked for Northwestern University since 2019, and since 2022 she has been the Associate Director of Prospect Management and Analytics at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Business. In this role she provides guidance to gift officers on portfolio management, assists with formulating prospect strategies, helps to plan and execute prospect pool analyses, and works closely with fundraisers to ensure they are effectively moving prospects through the fundraising pipelines. Read on for more about Melanie!

1. What is the superpower that you use often at work?

I love bringing people together, and this is something I do at work all the time, including bringing together people from different teams. I feel like I am often a “super connector” in that I often don’t specifically have the answer, but I know who to ask or can find the right person to ask when there is a question.

2. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

I like to think that APRA quite literally helped me get my job at Northwestern! I went to PD in Arizona in 2019, and Brock Silvey (who would eventually become my supervisor when I worked on the Central PRM team at NU) was rolling off the board. I was ready for a career change and looked to see if he was hiring. Sure enough, he had an open role on his team! I applied, and here I am still at Northwestern coming nearly 6 years later, though I am now on a different team over at Kellogg. In any case, I’m not sure I would have thought to even apply for a role at NU had I not seen Brock at PD!

3. If the annual Apra International conference could be anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

Somewhere warm and with a beach, like Hawaii. I’m overdue for a beach vacation, so I would definitely tack on some extra days after the conference to do some sightseeing and lounging on the beach!

4. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

I help identify rich people who could make a large gift to Northwestern and then give those names to the frontline fundraisers who then actually ask for the money. I also manage fundraiser portfolios, do a lot of data analysis, and manage a lot of rules and policies regarding how data is entered into our database. And if you were wondering, NO I do not directly ask people for money!

5. If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have?

I had a brief career working as a professional oboist in an orchestra after grad school. I would say that maybe doing something in the fitness industry would be a preferred career if I wasn’t in Prospect Development, but after having done music as a full-time career and burning out on something that had previously been a passion, maybe not…

6. If you could tell your 15-year-old self about your job, what would you say?

You have great health insurance and other work benefits, and you’re able to do work that is interesting while also enjoying many extracurricular activities!

7. Why did you join the Apra-Illinois board?

I joined the Apra board because I love creating connections and bringing people together. There are so many great prospect development professionals across Illinois, and I love that Apra-IL provides a space for those in our industry to connect! I also was really interested in bringing together people from institutions undergoing CRM conversions (Northwestern is undergoing a move to Salesforce), and Apra-IL felt like a great space for people to be able to share their experiences.

8. Why do you think Apra-Illinois and all of the local Apra chapters matter?

The main Apra organization is a great way to connect to people across the country, but the local chapters provide opportunities to connect with people who work at institutions nearby. It also can provide lower-cost opportunities to meet up with and learn from individuals from statewide institutions. This is a huge benefit, especially if members don’t have access to a professional development budget to attend Big Apra events.

9. What is your #1 productivity tip?

Take breaks when you need to! Sometimes going for a walk around the block can help when you’re feeling stuck!

10. If you wrote a book about prospect development, what would it be called?

How Dating Apps Can Help You Understand Prospect Development (and vice versa).

11. What book are you reading right now?

I usually am reading more than one book at a time – right now I’m reading Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano and Show Don’t Tell, which is a collection of short stories by Curtis Sittenfeld

12. Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

Not a restaurant, but I love Begyle Brewery in Chicago!

13. What is your favorite social platform to connect with people?

Instagram.

14. What is your hobby?

I have multiple hobbies – running and playing the oboe! I’m a member of the Chicago Fleet Feet Racing Team and also am a member of Team USA for the Beer Mile (I’m the 2022 Women’s World Champion). I studied music in college, and I perform as principal oboist in the Lakeview Orchestra, which is a community orchestra in Chicago.

15. Are you a texter or a caller?

I prefer calling, but now that I discovered that I can text using the google messages app on my computer, texting doesn’t annoy me as much.

20 Questions with New Board Member Salvatore De Sando

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 21:58:23 GMT

Happy first day of Spring! We're back with another round of 20 Questions with a new Apra-IL board member!

Up next is Salvatore (Sam) De Sando, who joins the APRA-IL board this year as our new Director of Membership. Sam is the Coordinator, Strategic Giving at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Read on for 20 questions!

1. What is the superpower that you use often at work?

Patience. I can usually see the big picture, the little picture, and I can wait a long time to see them come together in projects.

2. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

Apra has consistently connected me with high quality resources, both helpful documents and great colleagues, for my professional development.

3. If the annual Apra International conference could be anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

I would like the conference to be in Chicago or Milwaukee, because I do not like traveling anymore. If a conference is not near me then I likely cannot go.

4. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

Using public information and proprietary databases, I research, and I write confidential mini resumes on potential donors, to help fundraisers connect donors with organizations or projects that they might value and might not know about.

5. If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have?

I would be an archives or library manager, preferably at a college or university.

6. If you could tell your 15-year-old self about your job, what would you say?

There are interesting, paid, work opportunities for people who can do historical research for businesses. The catch is that you do not get to share your work publicly ever; however, the work can be fascinating.

7. Why did you join the Apra-Illinois board?

I wanted to learn more from experienced colleagues in my area, and I wanted to give back to a professional community that has done so much for me already.

8. Why do you think Apra-Illinois and all of the local Apra chapters matter?

Apra-Illinois and other local chapters connect professionals locally in ways that national organizations cannot. It is validating and it is humanizing.

9. What is your #1 productivity tip?

Work proactively, pace yourself, work ahead, and aim to consistently complete work at a sustainable rate based on when you have a bad week.

10. Best advice ever received?

Give yourself grace first.

11. If you wrote a book about prospect development, what would it be called?

Development: Connecting People with Purposes for a Better World

12. If you wrote a memoir on your life, what would it be called?

Processing: a Life in Archives and Research

13. What book are you reading right now?

I am not reading anything at this time. What do you recommend? I would like to know!

14. Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

Winnetka’s Spirit Elephant is my favorite restaurant close to work.

15. What is your favorite social platform to connect with people?

I prefer LinkedIn for connecting with people for work; I do not use the other platforms anymore.

16. What is the last movie you watched?

I have no idea what I last watched.

17. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

I would like to meet my great grandparents who settled in the US and my namesake too.

18. What is your hobby?

My hobby is local historical research. I am particularly interested in the history of culture community development in the neighborhoods of Chicago and across Illinois, as well as the period of time when written local history began to replace oral history.

19. Are you a texter or a caller?

I text for short messages; I call for conversations longer than a text.

20. Who or what inspires you?

Writers who master communicating in non-native languages inspire me.

20 Questions with New Board Member Andrew Gutierrez

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 21:56:22 GMT

It's hard to believe it, but we're already into our third month of 2025. With our new APRA-IL board members starting to settle in, it's about the right time to bring back our "20 Questions With..." series.

First up is Andrew Gutierrez, who joins the APRA-IL board this year as our new Vice President. Andrew has worked in the philanthropy space since 2018, having held roles such as Associate Director of Development Organizations at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and as a Systems Analyst and later Data Scientist at Cleveland Clinic’s Philanthropy Institute. Read on for 20 questions!

1. What is the superpower that you use often at work?

As someone who has worked exclusively in large fundraising shops for most of the past five years, I’m always thankful that I can draw from my first role in the field - working as a Development Associate on a two-person fundraising team at a small local organization. In practice, I was wearing just about every hat from annual giving and event planning, to communications and CRM management.

In the larger shops I’ve worked in since where those roles tend to be more separated out, my colleagues have definitely appreciated that I can “speak their same fundraising language”, even though my roles have primarily been more data-centric.

2. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

APRA’s resources for using analytics and data science in prospect development have been invaluable for me throughout my career, especially as a former liberal arts major who has had little-to-no formal training in statistics or in computer programming languages.

3. If the annual Apra International conference could be anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

I’m going to go with Montreal, QC - just on the off chance I can get a group to sneak out with me at lunchtime for some Canadian poutine.

4. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

Imagine if you combined the process of a scientific researcher (developing a hypothesis, proving or disproving it through testing) with the tools of a computer scientist (programming languages and statistical modeling), then pointed them at fundraising strategy. Which individuals are most likely to give? How much can we expect them to give? How many of them will come back and give a second time?

I guess if I can put it even more simply, I’m really just attempting to answer the big questions about fundraising that keep me up at night (emphasis attempting).

5. If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have?

I originally entered into the philanthropy field as a grant writer (I was a converted English major), so my guess is that I’d be somewhere on the proposal writing/foundation relations side of things. Although, I’ve always had this thought that I could make a decent wedding DJ - who knows, maybe I’d be the guy playing the Cupid Shuffle at your cousin’s wedding instead.

6. If you could tell your 15-year-old self about your job, what would you say?

“Andrew, while you unfortunately aren’t going to be the extra guitarist in a reunited Led Zeppelin, you’re still going to carve out a rewarding career niche where you get to use really cool technical skills to answer interesting questions about what makes people likely to give - all while supporting some extremely talented colleagues.”

7. Why did you join the Apra-Illinois board?

I relocated to Chicago from my native Cleveland in late 2023. One of the best parts about moving here has been getting to connect with so many talented PR&D professionals from such a diverse range of institutions, and this exposure has only helped my own growth as a professional (not to mention, helping me make friends as a new transplant in town too). It only felt right to join the board for 2025 and to get further involved with the amazing community here.

8. Why do you think Apra-Illinois and all of the local Apra chapters matter?

It’s one thing to be able to digitally connect with others in the PR&D field over, say, a webinar or a lunch-and-learn through “Big APRA”. But as I’ve found, there’s really no substitute for connecting in-person with colleagues who are living and working right in your own backyard.

9. What is your #1 productivity tip?

Definitely to use some sort of task management software. I’ve used Trello pretty religiously over the past few years to track items in my work queue, when things are due, and when things are completed.

10. Best advice ever received?

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

11. If you wrote a book about prospect development, what would it be called?

“Algorithms to Bullet Profiles, Coefficients to Deep Dives: The Continuing Hunt for (Prospect) Diamonds in the (CRM) Rough”.

12. If you wrote a memoir on your life, what would it be called?

“Moving Out of Your Hometown and Finding Your Way… for Dummies”

13. What book are you reading right now?

Niche topic alert, but Powder Days by Heather Hansman. It tells the story of how recreational skiing caught on in America and eventually became a “luxury” sport, and along the way there’s some really interesting explorations of inequality and housing prices in ski resort towns (researchers, if you want a tip on new leads - look for home addresses in places like Park City, UT or Steamboat Springs, CO).

14. Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

I had possibly one of the best meals of my life recently at Dear Margaret in Chicago’s West Lakeview neighborhood - every course was more mind-blowing than the last. Highly recommend it, especially for special occasions (and get the oyster mousse!)

15. What is your favorite social platform to connect with people?

I use Instagram as much as any Zillenial, but I’m really into the more specific interest-focused apps. I use Goodreads for tracking what my friends and I are reading, Beli for tracking our favorite restaurants, and Strava for tracking bike rides and runs (and, most importantly, for competing with my friends over who can come up with the goofiest names for our workouts).

16. What is the last movie you watched?

Most recently I saw Robert Eggers’ remake of Nosferatu at the Music Box Theatre here in Chicago. Did they really have to give the vampire a Mario moustache?

17. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

I’d love to have dinner with each of my late grandparents. I’d have so much I’d want to ask them about their lives when they were younger that I didn’t get the chance to ask when they were still around - what was it like to ride the streetcar to school every day? Or how was it being the child of first-generation immigrants? Or being stationed in Europe after VE-Day? I could go on and on.

18. What is your hobby?

It’s more of a true side gig than a hobby now, but I’ve been teaching spin class for about two years; currently I teach three times a week at Chicago’s Fitness Formula Clubs. I love putting together a fresh workout routine every week, along with an eclectic class playlist that might have anything from Kylie Minogue to Daddy Yankee to Alanis Morissette. And, in this post-pandemic era where people can struggle to find meaningful in-person connection, I love fostering a regular weekly community where my class attendees can make friends with other riders.

Beyond that, I stay busy with reading, outdoor cycling, playing guitar, frequenting thrift stores, and helping my bar trivia team to victory every Wednesday night.

19. Are you a texter or a caller?

Texting for sending memes and silly GIFs; calling for everything else.

20. Who or what inspires you?

Undoubtedly, it’s been my work colleagues - I’ve been very fortunate to have worked intra-team, cross-team, and cross-department with some extremely talented individuals at every step along my career. More than anything, it’s the amazing work my colleagues have done which continues to motivate and inspire me to become a better professional.

Apra-IL: A Day in the Life with Taylor Scott

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 19:02:32 GMT

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.

20 Questions: the Redux

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 19:22:18 GMT

Since we have a brand new board, we've decided to resurrect this series so you can get to know us a little better. Today's post is with Priya Balachandran, Prospect Research and Management Specialist at the Northern Illinois Food Bank and Apra-IL's Director of Membership.

1. What is the superpower that you use often at work?

Conscientiousness. It helps me ensure the accuracy, reliability, and ethical conduct of the research and reporting. It also plays a vital role in improving my time management, organizational skills, and collaboration within my team, all of which collectively contribute to more successful and impactful research.

2. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

I am a lifelong learner, and Apra is the right place for me to access the necessary resources and updates for my ongoing professional development. Through diverse and continuous learning opportunities, Apra ensures that I remain at the forefront of industry advancements. This has not only deepened my expertise but has also connected me with a network of like-minded professionals, enriching my overall professional journey.

3. If the annual Apra International conference could be anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

Venice, Italy… OK… let’s be realistic… Chicago

4. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

In simple terms - I am a Researcher in the Philanthropy team. If they are interested in a little more detail, then would explain - I am engaged in extensive data analysis, interpretation, and reporting to support the philanthropy team in strategic operations and programs. I help the organization understand potential supporters and engage with them in the most meaningful and aligned way with their values, ultimately contributing to enhancing the organization's efforts in better serving the community.

5. If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have

Healthcare... well, that's where I came from. So, if I were not a Prospect Researcher, I would have continued in the healthcare field.

6. If you could tell your 15-year-old self about your job, what would you say?

I do research to support the philanthropy team. But it's not just any boring, serious research... I magically crunch lots of data and facts, turn them into cool information, and write stories – just like the epic tales you love to read. By doing all this, I help my organization become even better at making the world a happier place!

7. Why did you join the Apra-Illinois board?

Being an Apra international member for quite some time, I wanted to get involved with my local chapter as well and so when the opportunity was offered, I happily joined the Apra-IL board. Joining the board gave me an opportunity to collaborate with like-minded individuals and contribute more to the field.

8. Why do you think Apra-Illinois and all of the local Apra chapters matter?

Local chapters like Apra-Illinois hold significant importance as they provide a real pulse on field developments and foster stronger connections within the community. This aspect is particularly valuable for individuals seeking in-person networking opportunities and a deeper understanding of regional trends.

9. What is your #1 productivity tip?

Maintaining and using a well-organized ‘To-Do Planner’.

10. Best advice ever received?

'You are not better than anyone, and nobody is better than you.' The best advice I ever received… equity and equality - explained in simple words.

11. If you wrote a book about prospect development what would it be called?

“Philanthropy: Behind the Scenes”

12. If you wrote a memoir on your life, what would it be called?

“From Self to Service”

13. What book are you reading right now?

Patrick Lencioni’s The 6 types of Working Genius

14. Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

A2B and Vai

15. What is your favorite social platform to connect with people?

When it comes to personal connections, I prefer text and in-person chats rather than connecting on a social media platform, but for professional or work-related matters, LinkedIn is my favorite.

16. What is the last movie you watched?

"The Super Mario Bros.” (…yes, I have a crazy Nintendo fan at home ;)

17. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

I believe I am already dining with people I love.

18. What is your hobby?

Intentional Doodling

19. Are you a texter or a caller?

Texter. That way I can keep it simple and stick to what I want to say and what I want to know.

20. Who or what inspires you?

As I wrap up every day, feeling assured that being an invisible, tiny drop in an ocean feels great too when you know that what you do helps someone who doesn't even know who you are. This keeps me going and motivated.

20 Questions: the Redux

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 19:11:43 GMT

Since we have a brand new board, we've decided to resurrect this series so you can get to know us a little better. Today's post is with Teresa Liu, Associate Director, Prospect Management at the Art Institute of Chicago and Apra-IL's Treasurer.

What is the superpower that you use often at work?

I always do a quick search for donors on Facebook and Instagram– you’d be surprise at what hidden gems are on social media, and this info rarely shows up in Google search.I love how social media is primarily self-reported info, so it often reflects the prospect’s identity, values, and what they are passionate about.It also is helpful for confirming any family/spousal relationships.
What is one thing Apra has done for you?

Apra has connected me with an amazing, supportive network of prospect development professionals. We’re in such a niche industry, so it’s fun to meet others doing similar work and to talk about our successes and challenges on the job.
If the annual Apra International conference could be anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

Italy! I can never get enough of Italy. And those networking receptions would have the best spread.
How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

In the simplest of terms, I like to say I’m a donor matchmaker.
If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have?

In another life, I’d want to pursue a career in architecture or interior design.I love the merger between creativity, beauty, and functionality.
If you could tell your 15-year-old self about your job, what would you say?

You’re going to spend many hours doing deep dives into wealthy people’s assets and their general whereabouts. It sounds a bit strange, but yes, this is a real job and it’s quite fun!
Why did you join the Apra-Illinois board?

I joined the board to give back to the Apra-IL community. I wanted to help the board think of ways to engage our chapter and offer opportunities for connection.
Why do you think Apra-Illinois and all of the local Apra chapters matter?

Local Apra chapters are incredibly helpful for prospect development professionals early on in their career; it’s a space where they can grow, ask questions, and learn about job opportunities in the area.
What is your #1 productivity tip?

I’m a big fan of using the urgent/important matrix (also called the Eisenhower Matrix). With every task at hand, I weigh out its level of urgency and importance. And from there, I decide on how to prioritize.
Best advice ever received?

If you don’t like a situation, then either do something actionable to change it or don’t complain about it.Back at my first job out of college, I saw this written on a sticky note on my mentor’s desk. My mentor was the hardest working (and most productive) colleague on my team. I still think about this piece of wisdom today.
If you wrote a book about prospect development what would it be called?

The Prospect Researcher’s Guide to the Galaxy: Find Your Rising Stars
If you wrote a memoir on your life, what would it be called?

Running Late, But I’m On My Way!
What book are you reading right now?

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin. It’s a sci-fi novel about a character whose dreams unintentionally alter the past and present.
Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

This is a tough one. My husband used to be a cook, so our list of favorite Chicago restaurants is quite long and always changing. But at the moment, I’ll say Monteverde for date night and EggHolic for Indian takeout.
What is your favorite social platform to connect with people?

I’m a millennial, so, Instagram of course!
What is the last movie you watched?

Women Talking. I highly recommend it. It’s a powerful story of nonviolent protest by a community of women.
If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

My grandma.
What is your hobby?

I love rock climbing, both indoors and outdoors. It’s a great way to tune out and focus on “problem solving” in a completely different way than my 9-to-5.
Are you a texter or a caller?

Both. But I’ll always make an effort to check-in with my friends & family over the phone.
Who or what inspires you?

My mother. She is the most selfless, kind-hearted woman I know. She immigrated to the US from Taiwan in the late 70s. She never takes things for granted and has taught me to cherish the simple things in life. She has also always encouraged me to value internal beauty, from the heart, and to not be afraid to gain a few pounds of good fat (spoken like a true Asian immigrant mother).

20 Questions: the Redux

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 20:48:10 GMT

Since we have a brand new board, we've decided to resurrect this series so you can get to know us a little better. Today's post is with Lilly Suwinski, Prospect Research and Development Associate at Northwestern Memorial Foundation and Apra-IL's Secretary.

What is the superpower that you use often at work?

I always have some excellent snacks available at any moment (in my desk drawer).
What is one thing Apra has done for you?

Networking! Getting to know more people and expanding my professional network.
If the annual Apra International conference could be anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

Australia! Somewhere I would like to visit but isn’t on my personal travel list for the next few years, so I would love a work trip to there.
How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

Lots of research on current and potential donors as well as reviewing data pertaining to our fundraising team to ensure we are working efficiently and effectively.
If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have?

Realistically, probably business operations. Unrealistically, paint murals in peoples homes!
If you could tell your 15-year-old self about your job, what would you say?

It isn’t creative in the sense you think you want it to be, and that is ok. Trust me, it is fun and challenging!
Why did you join the Apra-Illinois board?

To learn more about the Prospect Research landscape in Illinois and beyond and learn from others.
Why do you think Apra-Illinois and all of the local Apra chapters matter?

I think connecting with other people is almost always a good idea, and this collection of dedicated professionals in a niche career is awesome. Being able to learn about the hurdles that someone in the cultural arts area is going to be different from my background in healthcare, so I appreciate the sense of community.
What is your #1 productivity tip?

Making lists! Secondly, I swear by my Calm subscription to help me stay on task.
Best advice ever received?

If someone is going through a difficult experience and they share it with you, ask if they want support or solutions.
If you wrote a book about prospect development what would it be called?

“Leveraging Data + Fundraiser Relationships: A Guide to Prospect Development”
If you wrote a memoir on your life, what would it be called?

“My Colorful Life – A Collection of Short Stories”
What book are you reading right now?

“Where the Forest Meets the Sky” by Glendy Vanderah.
Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

Q Sushi, up in the Ravenswood area of Chicago.
What is your favorite social platform to connect with people?

Instagram.
What is the last movie you watched?

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

My maternal Grandmother. She passed away when my Mom was very young, and I would love to meet her and tell her how fabulous her daughter (my mom) is.
What is your hobby?

I love to create. Painting and making jewelry are a huge part of that.
Are you a texter or a caller?

Depends on the person, but caller.
Who or what inspires you?

Being outside, sunshine, and lots of colorful flowers.

20 Questions: the Redux

Thu, 29 Dec 2022 20:05:48 GMT

Since we have a brand new board, we've decided to resurrect this series so you can get to know us a little better. Today's post is with Peter Kotowski, Associate Director of Prospect Management & Research at Loyola University Chicago and Apra-IL's President.

1. What is the superpower that you use often at work?

Database knowledge! For the last three years, I’ve been one of the two members of Advancement responsible for training new hires on our CRM. Not only has this been a great way to begin establishing trust with fundraisers, a strong knowledge of the CRM has made it easier to extract data when prospecting or building portfolios.

2. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

The networking has been so helpful, especially when I was new to the field. The members of Apra-IL have always been so welcoming and happy to offer advice, suggestions, or benchmarking information. Being able to connect with such a wonderful network has been the best part of Apra-IL.

3. If the annual Apra International conference could be anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

Somewhere cold! After having to suffer through a summer conference in Phoenix, I’m ready to fight the tyranny of the heat and have an Apra International hosted somewhere cold in January. Maybe Yellowknife, Canada?

4. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

I tell folks I work in fundraising operations, supporting parts of the division who have to go and interact with alumni and donors.

5. If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have?

Academics. I spent over half my life planning on being a history professor. Now I just moonlight as an adjunct once or twice a year at Chicagoland universities.

6. If you could tell your 15-year-old self about your job, what would you say?

Don’t give up on math class once you get out of high school.

7. Why did you join the Apra-Illinois board?

The chapter was so helpful when I was an newcomer to the industry that I wanted to help provide the same networking, mentorship, and support to other newbies.

8. Why do you think Apra-Illinois and all of the local Apra chapters matter?

Sometimes the national chapter can be distant (and expensive). The local chapters often provide more immediate and helpful information.

9. What is your #1 productivity tip?

Lists. I’m a geriatric millennial so I love getting pen and paper and writing out my to-do list for the day/week.

10. Best advice ever received?

From a professor in grad school: “There’s no good writing. Only good rewriting.”

11. If you wrote a book about prospect development what would it be called?

My Neighbor Makes How Much?!: Ethics and Boundaries in Prospect Development

12. If you wrote a memoir on your life, what would it be called?

Alone in the Archives

13. What book are you reading right now?

My brother recommended Tenth of December, a collection of short stories by George Saunders that is weird and eclectic and nothing like what I expected.

14. Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

Passero

15. What is your favorite social platform to connect with people?

I still enjoy the manic energy of Twitter, especially around a big sporting event.

16. What is the last movie you watched?

A Christmas Story Christmas. A poor nostalgia grab that nonetheless had one or two heartwarming moments.

17. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

Tolkien and Lewis. I don’t even need dinner. Just let me eavesdrop while they spend an hour at the pub.

18. What is your hobby?

I try to read when I have the spare time. Lately I’ve been trying to take up fly tying.

19. Are you a texter or a caller?

Texter.

20. Who or what inspires you?

I am inspired by people who continue to advocate for positive change in the face of unrelenting opposition.

20 Questions: the Redux

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 14:53:27 GMT

Since we have a brand new board, we've decided to resurrect this series so you can get to know us a little better. Today's post is with Julia Dimick, Senior Development Analyst with the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and Apra-IL's Director of Marketing.

What is the superpower that you use often at work?

I remember weird things about people, which comes in handy when dealing with prospects. Usually, if I can remember the quirky detail about someone, I can remember a lot more about them. This has proved very helpful as there has been some prospect crossover between the organizations I’ve worked at.
What is one thing Apra has done for you?

Helped me figure out what prospect research was all about! I went to a new researcher’s symposium when I was starting out and it was incredibly useful. I recommend them to anyone new to the profession.
If the annual Apra International conference could be anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

Greece!
How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

I generally say I work behind the scenes in fundraising, both helping the front line fundraisers find new donors and find information on existing donors.
If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have?

I started out as a lawyer, so if I hadn’t stumbled into prospect research, I’d probably still be doing that. But I would love to own a bookstore.
If you could tell your 15-year-old self about your job, what would you say?

You get to stalk people and get paid for it! Seriously though, I’d tell myself that I get to do something extremely fun that is often very challenging.
Why did you join the Apra-Illinois board?

I wanted to get involved more with Apra locally, and this provided a great opportunity.
Why do you think Apra-Illinois and all of the local Apra chapters matter?

Because having a network you can reach out to for help or advice is incredibly useful as a professional, particularly if you don’t have colleagues you can ask.
What is your #1 productivity tip?

Lists! I make a list every day of what I want to get done. Sometimes the day throws me a curveball, but my list usually keeps me on track.
Best advice ever received?

“The worst that can happen is they’ll say no,” which is advice from my dad, given to me when I was younger and freaking out about asking a teacher for a letter of recommendation for a college application. The sentiment always helps me when I’m overthinking something.
If you wrote a book about prospect development what would it be called?

“Don’t Hit the Add Friend Button: Tales from a Professional Internet Stalker”
If you wrote a memoir on your life, what would it be called?

“I Was Being Sarcastic…Or Was I?”
What book are you reading right now?

“The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova. It’s basically a historical thriller about the folklore surrounding Dracula. I’ve read it a few times before, and thought it would be a fun re-read around Halloween.
Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

Athenian Room
What is your favorite social platform to connect with people?

I guess it’s still Instagram, since I love taking pictures, but I liked it better before Facebook bought it.
What is the last movie you watched?

I think it was “The Curse of La Llorona.” I’ve been on a scary movie kick in October.
If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

RBG. I would love to talk to her about the law and her general awesomeness and to thank her for all the amazing things she did for women.
What is your hobby?

I like to read, and usually have two books going at once. I also attempt crafty projects every couple of years, till I am reminded that I am not a crafty person. I'm currently convinced I can crochet. (I cannot.)
Are you a texter or a caller?

A texter, unless a call is unavoidable.
Who or what inspires you?

People who remain positive despite facing immeasurable hardships.

T.R.U.S.T - What Does Collaboration Mean to You?

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 13:41:22 GMT

T.R.U.S.T - What Does Collaboration Mean to You? Jessica Boudakian, Associate Director of Prospect Development at CHOP Foundation and Joan Ogwumike, Blogger and Prospect Researcher at the Obama Foundation are delving into the Apra Illinois inbox. They are answering questions and giving advice on relationship building in prospect development between frontline fundraisers and PD professionals, and so much more. If you want to submit a question please email us at apraillinois@gmail.com (you can be anonymous as well, we are here to help).

Anonymous Question: How can prospect development professionals gently encourage major gift officers to be better about qualifying the prospects we bring to them? There’s a constant refrain of needing new prospects, and yet, little work done when we provide the prospects. Since we’re obviously not their managers, what kind of “enforcement” can we do?

Jessica: My suggestion is to do a mix of leaning on the data you have and meeting the gift officers where they are, when possible.

First, go back to the basics and make sure that every record has contact information. Additional data could be as simple as having a list of their prospects in qualification along with a data point of when their last outreach occurred. I also like to see how many times each constituent in their portfolio has been contacted. Monthly action reports can also be helpful for gift officers so they can see their work outside of their portfolio. These data points combined will give you a more complete picture of their work, and the gift officers will be able to see if they are contacting the “right” prospects. Are they maximizing their time by doing outreach to these prospective donors, and what will have the highest return? Are they spending too much time with the prospects they know will return their calls, and not enough time qualifying new prospects?

Other ways to look at data includes doing a Gap Analysis to show the gift officers whether their current portfolio can meet their fundraising goal, and what solicitations are needed for the fiscal year. With this number on hand, you can then backfill the number of prospects they need to have in their portfolio. I’ve commonly heard that it takes four prospects to result in one successful solicitation, but on review of your data, you may find that your organization has a higher or lower success rate.

A different approach is to try to understand why your gift officers believe they need new prospects. Are the prospects in their portfolio the hot potatoes that pass from team member to team member? You may want to do a strategy deep dive with your colleagues to see what thoughtful outreach can move the needle on this prospect and then Disqualify if there’s no response. Are they doing outreach with little success? They may need additional training and help to craft a better message. If they’re still hungry for more new prospects, I would offer them a targeted list of unassigned prospects for cold calls.

You also must allow for the possibility that some of the prospects are not viable and should be removed from the portfolio. It helps to have a process in place so that the prospect will get some outreach, such as emails and direct mail. If they donate, great! Then, they can be reassigned as a warm lead. It may be difficult to hear that the prospect isn’t going to work for a gift officer but having a candid conversation can get you both on the same page. It is helpful to get input from the gift officer on characteristics of their ideal prospect, it could help you better understand their needs and find prospects that they are truly excited about doing outreach to!

Joan: Thank you, Anonymous, your inquiry is something many in prospect development struggle with. Our frontline fundraisers tend to experience a scarcity mind-set, a feeling that they don’t have enough and/or need more. Realistically, they have everything they need so I must agree with Jessica on her advice, and I would suggest the following:

When the plea for more prospects is made, ask about the progress on the prospects already in need of qualification. This can be simply and professionally stated as, “Definitely, I can get you more prospects, however, I see that you have 30 still in need of qualifying? Is there anything that I can do to help you move that along?”
Set up strategy sessions for the most difficult prospects. This could be a case of needing a lot of what Jessica has already shared – contact information, a more engaging message, or simply coaching (there are times in which our fundraisers need an extra push of boost of confidence in their work).
Tell leadership, get buy-in from those in-charge because qualification is everyone’s shared responsibility. The leadership at your organization has to hold frontline fundraisers accountable, and this can be done by making qualification a yearly goal that they are held to.
If your organization permits – you can set up a policy in which prospects can only stay in the qualification stage for a set amount of time, if no action is completed by that time, the prospect is either given to another fundraiser or placed back into a prospect pool. This is the type of policy that not only equates to accountability, but it respects the prospect researcher’s time for sourcing the name, and it acknowledges the importance of qualification work. It is strict, but sometimes that is what is needed. For example, fundraiser Bob is assigned prospect, Helen James, on March 29th, if there is no engagement by August 29th then Helen is no longer a prospect for Bob. Some organizations have 6-month outreach policies, and within that, a check-in at the 3-month mark to gauge progress and to give a soft push concerning the removal of the prospect.

Jessica and I have suggested strict and gentle enforcements that show seriousness in the qualification work, and partnership to get real work done. The real work requires for movement within a portfolio, rigid rules on the size of portfolios per fundraiser, and candid conversations on collecting prospects in portfolios. Collecting prospects means to exacerbate portfolios with little action or movement on prospects, they just sit there – this is unhelpful activity.

T.R.U.S.T - What Does Collaboration Mean to You?

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 17:08:47 GMT

Anonymous Question: Hello, here is my question and dilemma: How do I communicate my prospect research and strategy projects and bandwidth to a fundraiser, when they have differing ideas and needs for the next few weeks? Personally, I don’t feel like the project they have requested is truly necessary at this time. I don’t want to come off disrespectful, difficult or unprofessional, however, this is a random project that just doesn’t seem like the best use of my time right now nor do I see it the best use of their time. I am struggling with how to explain my thought process on the value of projects. How would you handle this situation?

Thanks!

Jessica: What a dilemma! I see two issues to tackle in your question: how to communicate your workload to the team and how to work with gift officers to ensure that you’re really meeting their information needs.

I have a couple basic suggestions for you: set a turnaround time for requests such as 10 business days from request date to deadline. Consider putting together a more detailed document on turnaround times for your most requested projects and/or streamlining which kinds of projects can be requested by prospect stage so that more time intensive requests (manual relationship mapping and full profiles, for example) are reserved for prospects who are farther along in the donor cycle. Next, make the effort to be overly communicative with your partners, and keep them updated on projects as you get closer to the deadline! And, as you’re tackling proactive research that will benefit them, let them know. This will help gift officers understand the type of work you do in addition to having more information on your workload.

The second part of your question is a bit trickier. I recommend doing a basic reference interview for all time intensive or confusing requests that come in. A reference interview is a conversation where you use open-ended and clarifying questions to better understand what information need your gift officer is trying to meet. Colleagues will often ask questions that they believe will get them the results they need, but the language they use or the project they request doesn’t always match their real need. I’m sure many of us have delivered a project that met the request exactly, only to learn that it wasn’t what the gift officer needed. The National Archives has a copy of Guidelines of the Successful Reference Interview from American Library Association that will help you get started. You’ll notice the language is oriented towards librarian work; substitute appropriate language as needed.

I will also say that it’s not disrespectful or unprofessional to push back on projects! You’re a strategic partner, and if you think a requested project isn’t the best use of everyone’s time, there are ways to have that conversation. As an example, I had a conversation with a gift officer who was concerned about the size of their portfolio and wanted more new prospects. I was able to do a quick analysis that showed them that the majority of their portfolio is in Qualification. Clearly adding in new prospects wasn’t the answer here. We decided that they would focus on moving prospects from Qualification to Cultivation, and I would make sure all accounts had good contact information so that they could be contacted. Together we came to a solution that met both of our needs!

Joan: Writer, thank you for trying to tackle this dilemma. That is the first step to the solution. Second step would be to make a side-by-side comparison of needs - list out the projects the fundraiser is requesting and then list out your own projects, and see whether there are correlations or through lines, and differences. For example, a fundraiser may say “I need 5 new prospects rated at $10 million.” But on your list, you already have a prospecting goal to find several highly-rated prospects. These two goals are needs you both share, however, it is being expressed and worded differently therefore, you can communicate, “yes, that is a great goal I already have a plan for that.” This method shows that you both are speaking to each other and thinking as a team, and working towards mutually beneficial results. When it comes to truly differing goals (or as you have stated, “a random project”) I would recommend asking for a deadline and for them to set the prioritization level for the task. Every thing cannot be a priority, therefore, what are they willing to shift around? Another question is, what is the purpose or end goal for this project? Really unpack this project with them so you both understand how they came up with it, and what they plan to do with it. A fundraiser can easily ask for something, and as they talk to you about it, they realize that it should look and feel completely different. There is nothing wrong with questioning what is being asked of you, because in the end, you want to make the best use of your time and talent.

Bandwidth is tricky, and I have to double down on Jessica’s sentiments. It is extremely important to vocalize how long research tasks take. If possible, create turnaround fact sheets and circulate to everyone in your department, for awareness.

T.R.U.S.T - What Does Collaboration Mean to You?

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 18:50:02 GMT

Anonymous Question: Thank you in advance for answering my question. I would like to know how to talk to my fundraisers about their lack of interest during our prospect management meetings. I know I can’t force interest, but this is my job, and I make their jobs better. How can I make them see that this is a necessary partnership? One of my fundraisers told me that although she believes “our prospect management meetings are important, it takes too much time.” I work at a small K-12 private school and we have a total of 5 fundraisers, I am the sole prospect research and management specialist, and my role was newly introduced to the organization in 2017. In the last 3 to 4 years, it has been a real learning curve, so, any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Jessica: I too have struggled with gift officers that are disinterested in prospect management meetings. Please continue to be enthusiastic about your work! Not only are you valuable to your organization, but colleagues can pick up on our enthusiasm. Our passion for our work can get them excited too!

A couple of thoughts:

One of your fundraisers says that the meetings take too much time. Are your meetings too long? Personally, I find myself struggling to pay attention to anything over an hour long, no matter how much I enjoy the work. Zoom fatigue is real!

Are you meeting too often? Find the right cadence to give your gift officers enough time to take action. This will hopefully stop you from reviewing the same data points over and over, and everyone will have enough time to make updates in the CRM. Consistently providing clean, accurate reporting will go a long way towards building trust between you and the gift officers you support.

What is the goal of the meeting? What is the ideal outcome? Think critically about what information needs to be covered and why. Consider taking a break from meetings. Pull down all meetings for a set period to see what is truly needed.

Get back to the basics. Start and end meetings on time. Send an agenda in advance with a time frame added to each topic (for example: open solicitation review - 15 minutes; planned solicitation review - 10 minutes; new prospect discussion - 20 minutes; research request updates - 5 minutes; etc.). I like to include “could have been an email” type information at the bottom of the agenda for gift officers to review on their own time.

Find a champion on the fundraising team that will advocate for you, and don’t be afraid to shine your own light. You are the expert on your work in your shop! If a prospect you identified gave a nice donation, don’t be afraid to let people know that you found them.

Teach your team how to use your work, and how to read data and find the actionable item. Some gift officers can receive prospect information and reporting and run with that, but others will need a little bit of coaching.

Depending on your relationship, you might be able to have a candid and vulnerable conversation on what is and isn’t working. Ask for feedback! You can do this 1:1, via email, or even by an anonymous survey. Listen to the feedback you receive too. Often colleagues just want to be heard and acknowledged even if you can’t incorporate their ideas.
And finally, it might be time to ~let it go ~ Sometimes you will do everything right and still the team won’t see you as a partner. This is unfortunate, but it’s their loss. Continue to do excellent work that is integral to a well-functioning fundraising shop!

Joan: Jessica has made phenomenal and practical points! My addition - Education is crucial to disinterest and partnership. Fundraisers shy away from learning the operational management of prospects, but they excel in cultivating relationships and asking for money. Which is exactly where we need them, but we have to communicate the need for portfolio cleanups, solicitation management, and prospect development. Both areas in the fundraising field need one another, and you are absolutely right, this is a necessary partnership. Stand in that truth!

Have you considered a training session that introduces or refreshes your fundraisers on the concept of prospect research and management? Sometimes, they know something is important but they don’t know why. Also, they may know something is important but not how it directly affects them.
Make sure your training session is not a presentation in which you are just talking at them, find a way to spice it up so you are having a conversation. If it is interactive, then they can feel involved in the experience.
Your experience with your fundraisers is a shared and relatable dance that far too many in prospect development have engaged in. But there is always an opportunity for enlightenment and change. Please try to not feel defeated by their attitude towards your great work because you are true to this, and they are simply new to it.

The Research Rabbit Hole – A Mysterious Relationship and Death

Thu, 21 Oct 2021 18:41:14 GMT

Welcome to the Research Rabbit Hole - a blog series exploring all the fun, random paths we end up on at work. Today's entry is from Amy Tibbs, Development Research Associate at the National Audubon Society.

My favorite kind of rabbit holes, which are born of the same cursed curiosity that leads to casual genealogy projects, a curiosity most people share in our line of work. My very favorite rabbit holes are the ones that uncover tawdry, pearl-clutching, gossip column fodder.

One that sticks with me involves the widow of a prominent developer known for his work turning a swampy southern city into a retreat for the ultra-wealthy. The widow was left a substantial estate in the 1910s and shortly after she was widowed, she reconnected with a former beau – a poor country lawyer, also recently widowed. They married after a brief courtship, and when she mysteriously died less than a year after their wedding, the whispers commenced. Despite swearing he would make no claims to her wealth, the poor country lawyer had been added to her will for a few million dollars, very upsetting to her relatives (note: she had no children, relatives were siblings, cousins, in-laws) who stood to inherit the lion’s share of the estate. What had he done? How can they prove there was foul play? Obviously an exhumation… and here’s where it gets wild. The family secretly assembled a team of high-profile doctors from all over the United States and transported them to the cemetery on private rail cars. Post-exhumation and examination, the family dropped their fight against his inheritance. BUT WHY??? While many rumors swirled, the results of the examination were never released. In the words of the wise Tootsie Roll owl, the world may never know.

Of course, often these stories are well-known to those at the family’s favored institutions. But they are new to me, and I would rather breathlessly pore over 25 Chrome tabs of century-old articles than click on a sanitized Wikipedia page any day. I think this Twitter thread from the great Rebecca Makkai, reveals bits and pieces of a mysterious relationship and death, excitedly I share these details as I learn them, in short bursts, with my poor husband: OKAY, mystery time…

The Research Rabbit Hole – Lost in Prospecting Holes

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 19:49:53 GMT

Welcome to the Research Rabbit Hole - a blog series exploring all the fun, random paths we end up on at work. Today's entry is from Joan Ogwumike, Prospect Research Associate at the Obama Foundation.

Can we unanimously agree that prospecting begets research rabbit holes? We all know what happens when you’re told, “I’m interested in X prospects with Y philanthropic interest, within 3.5 miles from the city that I will be visiting.” The prospecting project (affectionately regarded here as a math formula) equates to several hours of work, compiling a list and verifying the right prospects for outreach.

The wealth lists – 2021 Forbes 100 CEOs, Law 360’s Top Law Firms in the U.S., Top Tech Investors in New York – we are all familiar with them. We scour through them, and bookmark for “a quiet day.” How about the lists pulled from database reports, we can consider them mining expeditions. The typical prospecting process: you begin by intentionally carving out time to prospect, then the search per name via the web, begins. And, within moments, you suddenly switch to your 16^th tab to open a research tool so you can find giving information, property, and hopefully a live email.

Let’s talk about emails. Actually, let’s not, because there is no need to remind a prospect researcher of how long it takes to find, and verify, an email address. My success stories include the many moments when I found an email address buried in a person’s personal website – the photographer who puts their contact information in very tiny font on a random sub-page; the tech developer who has a “contact me” link on their personal website, and when you hover over link the email address appears; or the entrepreneur who is a part-time rockstar and you happen to stumble onto the band’s website just to find the entrepreneur’s email to their current VC firm. Sometimes, research tools are a success with emails and prospecting projects, and other times, Google is the undefeated source on what is current and needed.

Well, as they say, it is all in a day’s work.

The Research Rabbit Hole - What's in a Name?

Mon, 09 Aug 2021 21:54:50 GMT

Welcome to the Research Rabbit Hole - a blog series exploring all the fun, random paths we end up on at work. Today's entry is from Joan Ogwumike, Prospect Research Associate at the Obama Foundation.

Throughout our tenures as prospect researchers, we experience and conduct a genealogical search at least once – you know, the search in which a family tree is uncovered, explained, and analyzed. Well, my most recent search was unlike any before it. It was the year 2021, the Summer was hot, and Covid 19 masks were optional. The research request was based on an email from a daughter inquiring on how to get her parents more philanthropically involved with the mission. From there, my quest began – who were her parents, and what was their capacity? First, I searched high and low for more information on the daughter, learning occupation, spouse, and aha, alma mater! By knowing her alma mater, I hoped that I could find a graduation roaster. If I could find that, somewhere in the depths of Vint Cerf and Beyonce’s internet, then I could find her maiden name which would help me find her parents.

After an hour of selective keyword searches, I was able to find a scanned graduation program, and most importantly, the daughter’s maiden name. As I searched for any results on the name, I was able to find her grandmother and grandfather’s obituaries, which also listed her parents. This was a joyous moment, one of those moments when you sat back in your seat and felt accomplished because, finally, the parents were found.

But yes, now you are realizing it too…I had spent all of that time figuring out the parents’ names. Hours, spent on names, meant that now the actual prospective research was to begin.

Long story short, the parents were wealthy, what more could be said?

Research Rabbit Holes – The Search for The Elusive Celebrity In the Wild

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 22:14:19 GMT

Welcome to the Research Rabbit Hole - a blog series exploring all the fun, random paths we end up on at work. Today's entry is from Kathryn Thomas, Senior Prospect Identification Analyst at the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association.

How many of us in Prospect Research have done a biographical profile, capacity review, or contact update on Oprah Winfrey? How about Bill & Melinda Gates, MacKenzie Scott, or Sheryl Sandberg? And how many of our organizations have, in turn, received a gift from them? We all know, after working in this field for just days or weeks, that there are white whales of philanthropy. People whose names are quietly vetted by boards in closed conference rooms or lauded as program saviors in prospecting brainstorms.

A request came through our research request queue that perfectly describes my relationship with this type of prospect. One of our campus units focused on environmental sustainability met with their board and a name had been floated as the perfect campaign lead. For the sake of this conversation, I’ll call him “Jack.” You may know Jack; he is infamous for his shenanigans in the middle of the ocean – dancing a jig, falling in love, and tragically drowning despite the availability of a perfectly good, floating raft-like device.

Although his exploits in the ocean didn’t end well, Jack has a passion for clean water. Therefore, he was the perfect whale for our campus unit. The problem, from a researcher’s standpoint, wasn’t affinity, but access. Jack’s contact information wasn’t going to come up on LexisNexis or the YellowPages. His cell phone number and business numbers were as closely guarded as Rose’s grip on that door!

At this point, I was ready for a little research treat (some cerebral junk food to balance out the healthy diet of easy-to-answer capacity review questions and address updates). So, despite knowing it was a longshot and anticipating my request would end up with a recommendation to reach out to Jack’s foundation through formal channels, the hunt was on! And let me tell you, Jack has formidable fans. Sometimes it’s scary how much information we’re able to discover about our prospects, but when researching a celebrity, the information skews less scary and more … odd. I was able to, within an hour, describe where Jack likes to lunch, how he takes his coffee, and his suit measurements. Within two hours, I could name every country he had visited for his philanthropic work, every woman he had ever looked at, and his childhood pet. And within three, I found several addresses, email address, and phone numbers.

In the end, I did not share this contact information with our Development Officer. Not only would contacting Jack on his cell phone be unprofessional, I was certain it would also wig him out and not engender positive feelings toward the cause. But if ever we have dire (and relevant) need of another celebrity phone number, I know just the rabbit hole to jump down.

The Research Rabbit Hole - Micronations

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 21:04:09 GMT

Welcome to the Research Rabbit Hole - a blog series exploring all the fun, random paths we end up on at work. Today's entry is from Tesha Pittenger, Prospect Research Analyst at the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association.

Prospects Who Invent Their Own Countries

I’m relatively new to prospect research; August will mark my two-year anniversary in the field. One of the characteristics I love best about my work is its variability – you never know where a research request will lead. I’ve learned of the myriad ways wealth can be acquired (having a lumber baron for an ancestor, producing meat products, inventing just the right thing at just the right time) and stumbled across fascinating family histories (living in Nazi-occupied Holland, being a distant relative of a famous advice columnist, having a child who represented a country in the Winter Olympics in its first ever appearance). I can safely say, though, that I never expected to research royalty, much less the royal members of a country I had never heard of.

Earlier this year, a development officer had received an inquiry from a micronation representative and asked the Research Team for more information. I volunteered for the request and thus encountered my deepest research rabbit hole: the world of micronations. Defined broadly, micronations are political and generally small or virtual entities that declare their independence but are not internationally recognized. They can range in size; the Kingdom of Lovely, created as part of the BBC show How to Start Your Own Country, had an East London flat as its official territory, while Sealand is a metal platform off the coast of England. Their motivations are equally varied. Karo Lyn started the Ambulatory Free States of Obsidia as a self-proclaimed “ridiculous project.” The Principality of Hutt River began as a dispute with the Australian government over wheat production quotas, and Giorgio Rosa created Rose Island as a symbol of freedom. Micronations have produced their own currencies, flags, governing documents, postal systems, holidays, citizen applications, and more, depending on their leaders’ ambitions and priorities. Primarily, established nations ignore them, but there are some notable exceptions – the Italian Navy seized control of Rose Island in 1968 and used explosives to dismantle it in 1969.

As it pertains to development – though an individual can claim a country, announce that they are royalty, and express interest in making a gift – they may not be a good prospect. Cryptocurrency created by a fake nation certainly isn’t worth the same as Bitcoin…at least not yet. A kingdom may be more virtual than actual real estate assets. The title of “dictator” could evoke reputational risk concerns.

Time will tell what the results of my specific research will yield; however, an assignment to delve into micronations epitomizes the kind of fun and diverse requests that a prospect researcher can encounter. I’m happy to have joined the team!

The Hot Seat: Beth Bandy

Wed, 05 May 2021 15:06:49 GMT

The Hot Seat is a series in which prominent industry experts answer grueling questions stemming from prospect research to consulting to analytics. How will they do under pressure? Read to find out!

Beth Bandy is principal of Beth Bandy Research + Consulting (www.bethbandy.com). She has been an independent researcher, trainer, and consultant serving not-for-profit organizations around the world since 2011. Her weekly International Prospect Research Newsletter has been going out more-or-less regularly since 2012. Her clients include independent schools, colleges and universities, museums, hospitals, and global NGOs. She has delivered training sessions on fundraising, operations, and governance issues for organizations in the US, Canada, the EU, and South Africa. Earlier in her career, Beth worked for Harvard University’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations; was Director of Development Research at Amherst College; and contributed to fundraising efforts at Bennington College in various capacities, including as Manager of Research and Director of Advancement Operations.

Do you ever collaborate with prospect researchers or other non-profit professionals in the countries that you are researching, for help or advice? Is collaboration and networking important when trying to learn about wealth in other countries?

I think networking is important in general. As researchers, we are an inquisitive bunch. Touching base with colleagues in other parts of the world can be a fascinating experience, giving us insights into the day-to-day realities of working in the not-for-profit sector outside of the United States. That said, I have not collaborated with prospect researchers in other countries when working on specific research projects or to learn about wealth trends around the world.

I started doing international prospect research in the early 2000s and was working regularly on international projects by 2005. Back then, the prospect research profession was mostly centered in the US and other English-speaking countries (Canada, UK, and Australia) where it was relatively easy to figure out how to find the information I needed about prospects. When I researched prospects in other countries – from France to Mexico to Bhutan – there were no prospect researchers (that I knew of, at least) to contact.

In the absence of people to ask about wealth and philanthropy in other countries, I developed a two-part system of doing international research that I still use today. The first part involves asking a series of questions to find the best data sources. Who collects the data I need and why? Do they make that collected data available to the public? If so, is it in an electronic format that I can access from the United States? If not, what other sources might be available? The second part involves self-education. There are many research and philanthropy organizations around the world that regularly release reports on business, compensation, real estate, and giving trends. In addition to reading a lot of these kinds of reports, which are invaluable for understanding global wealth, I have hundreds of alerts set up for search terms related to wealth, business, and philanthropy. I also scan news feeds of dozens of international magazines and newspapers each week. My understanding of wealth around the world primarily comes from working in this system for a long time.
True or False: There are not enough resources or trainings on international research. Please explain your answer. Also, please tell readers about any resources that have helped you in your career so far.

Regarding resources for international prospect research, false. There are lots of resources available for this kind of work. It is difficult to find them, however, because they generally are not available through centralized databases and often are in languages other than English.

Regarding trainings, true. Some country-specific trainings are available, and these can be immensely helpful when you plan to research prospects in a particular country within the next six months to a year. Beyond that point, old resources may become obsolete and new resources may emerge.

One of the exciting things I find about doing international prospect research is that it requires a strategy for finding the sources you need, regardless of where a prospect lives. There are not enough classes that focus on developing an international research strategy, even though this process is essential.

Prospect researchers may tackle only a few international projects a year. How do you get up-and-running on an occasional international project without the ability to quickly figure out what sources might be available and best to use when you need them? When a researcher leaves one organization and joins another, they may find that they suddenly need to research prospects in countries for which they have no existing list of resources. How do you gain the professional flexibility to do international prospects for different organizations during your prospect research career? Having a solid international research strategy is the key.

When I started doing international prospect research, there were not many opportunities for training in international prospect research. I began collecting lists resources and looking for patterns in how data was collected and shared. Along the way, I found lots of country-specific wealth lists, salary surveys, philanthropy trend reports, and other resources that provided context for my work. You can see examples of these kinds of resources on my Pinterest account: https://www.pinterest.com/BethBandyResearch/_saved.
When it comes to researching international prospects, what are 3 challenges prospect development professionals and fundraisers ask you advice on, and what are your responses?
- Will my prospect in [fill in the blank] country want to give?
  
  As with prospects here in the United States, your prospects in other parts of the world will have individual reasons to make (or to not make) gifts to your organization. More broadly, there are many philanthropic trends reports for countries and regions around the world. Examples include the India Philanthropy Report, which has been released annually by Bain India, for many years (https://www.bain.com/insights/india-philanthropy-report-2021). You can find these reports by Googling the name of the country or region with terms like “philanthropy report.” Some reports may not be available in English, so you also can try searching in your prospect’s local language and then using a translation tool to help you read the report if it is in a language that is not familiar to you.
- Why can’t I find anything about my prospect in China?
  
  There could be many answers to this question, but often the first stumbling block has to do with not having the Chinese characters for the prospect’s name. There are many places to look for these characters – but no guarantee that you will find them. For top company executives, places to try include the Chinese-language versions of corporate websites and public company filings, as well as corporate registration materials, which will be in Chinese only. If you cannot read Chinese, use a translation tool to help you find the correct person by job title.
- Where can I find a deed for my prospect’s house?
  
  Here in the United States, we are used to being able to look up property ownership records by an individual’s name. This option is generally not available in other parts of the world. In some places, such as in Montreal, you can search by address and find the owners name on public record. In other places, you might find property records without any names listed. Many countries do not make real estate records available publicly at all.
  
  This situation is one in which having a solid international research strategy is key. Start by asking basic questions: Who collects real estate data and why? Are property records collected by a local government office or perhaps a national land registry? Are the collected records made available to the public in an electronic format that is accessible from your computer?
  
  In the absence of public records like deeds and assessments, you will need to find comparable values for neighboring properties. Try checking recent sale prices on local real estate websites in your prospect’s local language. Large real estate companies and government agencies also may put out real estate price trend data that can be helpful in your search.

The Hot Seat: Ruthie Giles

Fri, 02 Apr 2021 19:10:14 GMT

The Hot Seat is a series in which prominent industry experts answer grueling questions stemming from prospect research to consulting to analytics. How will they do under pressure? Read to find out!

Ruthie Giles is a thought leader in the field of prospect management. She is a straightforward, big picture thinker with an analytical mind and a passion for systems, analytics, and strategy. Ruthie is the Associate Director of Advancement Services at Westfield State University. Previously, she worked at Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Harold Grinspoon Foundation, The Loomis Chaffee School, and The Williston Northampton School. Ruthie has 5 cats and a dog, she is often found powerlifting at the gym, and embraces being a data nerd as if it were the most coveted superpower in the universe.

Questions:

How can we reimagine portfolio analysis with an eye for collaboration between fundraisers and prospect development professionals?

Portfolio analysis is the new and improved version of portfolio review. We are no longer reviewing a portfolio and the prospect within it. We are looking at the portfolio as a whole, doing data analysis on it to discover not only what is working well, but what is being overlooked and where to find the “white noise”. Portfolio analysis includes, directing fundraisers towards areas of opportunity and challenges, while making room for new opportunities; helping fundraisers become more efficient and effective in their efforts by offering them multiple strategies for various scenarios in their portfolio; And, transforming the old style of portfolio review meetings and fundraiser team meetings into meetings where we talk collaboratively about strategy. We need these meetings to be the forums in which we share what is working and what is not, and offer insight through various lenses of our work.

I know of fundraising shops that have seamlessly and brilliantly integrated prospect management and portfolio analysis with their frontline fundraisers. The silos are gone, the egos are set aside, and no longer is the phrase “but we have always done it that way” being muttered. The team looks to data and prospect research to help guide their strategy and help tailor their portfolios. The data and the work of prospect development professionals build the foundation for fundraisers’ success. This is an ideal configuration for any fundraising office; however, it is currently the exception and not the rule.

To achieve this level of “fundraising nirvana”, a paradigm shift is necessary in the entire nonprofit sector. Currently, we are in the early stages, and I expect that we will see this change happen one shop at a time until we reach the tipping point where everyone recognizes it as a best practice, and everyone scrambles to institute it. This type of transformation takes time, and it counts on there being buy-in at various levels. It also requires a leap of faith, jumping away from the way things have always been done, toward a new way of approaching our work. But the return on investment for making this leap is worth it, and the shops who have already gone this route can prove it. As Darth Vader once said to a young Luke Skywalker, "Join me and together we can rule the galaxy”.
What is a rule of thumb that motivates you through your everyday tasks?

Years ago, I heard a story that originated in a conversation by English architect Sir Christopher Wren (1623-1732) during the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire. In this story, Sir Wren came upon three men who were working. He asked the first man “What are you doing?” and the man replied “I am laying bricks”. He posed the same question to the second man who replied “I am building a wall” when he asked the same question to the third man he replied “I am building a cathedral.” While the three men performed the exact same task, their responses demonstrated how each saw that task through a different lens.

On a daily basis, we all do various tasks at work. We look up information, we do data entry, we reply to colleagues, we learn new skills, we write profiles, we create lists, we make recommendations, and we discuss strategies. We all make our own choice as to how we view our efforts. While I often think I am simply “laying bricks” I know that my ultimate goal is to “build a temple”.

When I go into the office, turn on my computer and check my email, I am not there to perform a task, pull a list, write a profile, or strategize with colleagues. I am there so a deserving young person has the means to attend the university, has the tools and resources necessary for their courses, and has access to quality professors. My work is important because these young people will go on to become our accountants, police officers, nurses, social workers, bankers, doctors, entrepreneurs, innovators, entertainers, teachers, veterinarians, librarians, mayors, nonprofit professionals, and perhaps even prospect researchers. In order for them to be the very best at their future profession, I need to make sure that I do my job well. Not to sound overly dramatic, but I get up in the morning and do my job because the future depends on it.

I think of it like the hologram message from Princess Leia saying “Help me Obi Wan, you’re my only hope” – I wake up in the morning and choose to be the Obi Wan to my organization’s Leia …. Every. Single. Day. Seriously, what better motivation is there than that?
True or False: Prospect Management is difficult, and it takes a long time to get everyone onboard with policy changes and portfolio management. Please explain your reasoning.

This is both true and false.

There is often one initial early adopter, and they are vital to getting your entire team onboard with a new prospect management system. The initial early adopter is a risk taker and a trailblazer. They are open to fully immersing themselves in this new approach to achieve better outcomes, in spite of the fact that no one has yet proven that the prospect management system works as promised. They would follow the teachings of Yoda: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” They are a strong partner with prospect management and an advocate for it. Every shop should be lucky enough to have an initial early adopter on their team.

Without this initial early adopter, things are a bit more of a challenge in getting everyone on board. People do not like change. There have been numbers of studies and papers on the topic of why people resist change. When faced with a team firmly grounded in their resistance to change, it takes a long time to get everyone on board. You will need to go over the new policies and procedures ad nauseam, and do a fair amount of hand holding as each team member tentatively dips their toes into the prospect management pool. All the while, you sit there like Darth Vader thinking “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

And in either situation - there is always the laggard - that one person who is the last to get on board with the implementation of prospect management in an advancement shop. These are the individuals who have an aversion to change and adhere strongly to their personal mantra of “this is the way we have always done it”. That person may hold out for years on fully embracing the prospect management system, and even then, they may still long for the old ways of doing things. In those cases, you must simply be comfortable with the fact that you cannot get the laggard to be fully on board, and turn your focus to the remainder of the team who have made the adjustment.

The Hot Seat: David Lawson

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 16:06:54 GMT

The Hot Seat is a series in which prominent industry experts answer grueling questions stemming from prospect research to consulting to analytics. How will they do under pressure? Read to find out!

David Lawson is a leader in bringing actionable insights to the fundraising community. He is the CEO and Co-founder of NewSci, LLC and author of the notable book, Big Good: Philanthropy in the Age of Big Data & Cognitive Computing. Additional career highlights include but are not limited to - In 1997, he founded Prospect Information Network (P!N), which became the largest wealth screening company before being purchased in 2004. In 2014, he was among the early application developers approved to use IBM Watson. And, David is the recipient of the Apra Distinguished Service Award and the CASE Crystal Apple Award for Teaching Excellence. If you have any questions for David, you can reach him at David@NewSci.ai

Questions:

True or false: Data is a renewable resource – vulnerable and valuable. Please explain why with your answer.

The blessing and the curse of data is it never stops being created, so while some call data the new oil, it is more like the sun, constantly generating new data and combining data to create even more for us to consume and make sense of. So, data is renewable in the truest sense of the word.

As to vulnerability, data presents special challenges because it can so easily be transferred between entities and individuals. That ease puts a premium on an organization's data governance capabilities. Too often data is merely stored instead of managed and that leads to data breaches and data leaks. Data is also vulnerable to becoming out-of-date or irrelevant. Two big vulnerabilities are the quality of the data and missing data. Ensuring data quality is a full-time job, and identifying missing data, including why it is missing, is too often overlooked and leads to erroneous information and insights.

The value of data is closely linked to the ability or inability for it to be turned into actionable insights. Without the insight, it is just a collection of facts and data points, and without actions, the insights are rarely turned into something of high value.

My experience over the years with wealth screening has been that the organizations who combine the data obtained from a screening vendor with internal information in order to go beyond just wealth indicators, and then integrate the insights into their fundraising processes, are the ones who realize the highest return on their investment.

Truly appreciating the value of data requires an organization to see data acquisition and analysis not as a cost-center, but rather as a profit-center. To make your case look at the value of the insights you provide such as what is the mean major gift from newly discovered prospects. Multiply that by the number of new prospects and you have a potential Return on Insight formula, and you can of course use the actuals to show the value already realized. For lower level donors, look at direct mail and marketing. You need a correct address in order to potentially receive a gift, so it is fair to highlight the amount of donations received through the mail from people who had a corrected address (or a correct email) in the last year. If you really want to show executives how valuable keeping track of people is, calculate the life-time value of your donors and then use that as you multiplier.

Machine learning, natural language processing, and deep learning, known collectively as AI, are making data exponentially more valuable. At the same time, this technology has the potential to dramatically increase the vulnerability of data as it requires the aggregation of more and more sources to create the algorithms used to glean insights. Monitoring the quality of all the data going into an AI-powered platform requires new levels of data governance especially around data provenance to ensure you know from where data came. Privacy regulations such as GDPR are making it mandatory for organizations to be able to explain how their algorithms work which means you have to know what data was used, how it was used, and its origin. We can expect this type of data regulation to become more prevalent as algorithms are more deeply integrated into our everyday lives making the consequences of data bias and misuse even more consequential
What is our argument for the ethical use of data analytics in the nonprofit sector?

Being data-driven has become a cliche, but it became one because it is critical to an organization’s success. For a nonprofit organization this is even more true because they do not have resources to waste being data-blind. Before analytics, organizations ran on intuition and gut instincts. In a small nonprofit you might get away with this approach much as a startup company relies heavily on the passion and knowledge of its founders. Once an organization matures it is frankly unethical to keep operating without a deeper understanding of what is happening within the organization and to use that understanding to make better decisions.

This does not, however, give a nonprofit free reign to do whatever data collecting and analysis they want to do. Just because one is doing good with data does not give one a pass on not doing that good as ethically as possible. Keep in mind data ethics isn’t just about you and your organization. It is also about the sources of data you acquire and the companies you use to manage your data. They too must adhere to the same standards you set for your organization.

Data ethics begins with establishing clear values and principles for how your organization sources, collects, stores, analyzes, transmits, and uses data. With these in hand you can build an ethics-first data governance program to support your organization’s actionable insights needs.
What are some strategies for effective data collection?

Start with cataloging all of your current data. This is a daunting task, but easier now that there are platforms specifically designed to help you create one. The data catalog needs to be across your entire organization, not just in a departmental silo. You will be amazed, and at times shocked, by where data resides and who has access to it.

With the data catalog as the foundation, you can begin a deeper analysis of the quality of your data as well as identifying missing data. This is never a fun exercise as you will surely find serious quality issues and critical data completely absent. Rather than fear what you will find, recognize the first step in data governance is accepting the inherent imperfections of data. What is important is to then establish processes to increase the quality of your data and minimize instances of missing data.

With the catalog and data analysis completed, you can focus on data provenance, also known as data lineage. This provides a clear picture of the sources of data, enabling you to accurately trace issues and errors back to their source and, if a breach occurs, where it happened and what data was impacted. Whether it is an internal source such as your gift processing team or an external data provider, knowing where, when, and who your data came from can no longer be ignored if your goal is to have an ethical, effective, and efficient data collection operation.

Given the speed at which data is created, collected, and analyzed, it is also worth considering an anomaly detection system. How you monitor for anomalies will depend on the frequency and importance of the data being monitored. You want to find a balance between being alerted to anomalies in time to take action, and not having so many alerts you start to ignore them. To help make the case for anomaly detection, take a data point such as the amount of a donation and trace it through your reports, dashboards, analytics, and predictive models dependent on the data to show, for example, the negative impact of a $1,000 gift being entered as $100,000 or meetings with campaign prospects not being recorded. Anomaly detection was something we did a lot of in my wealth screening company, Prospect Information Network (P!N). What we found was data providers during an update would not always send everything we were expecting. Because of the large volume of data, it would have been easy to miss, for instance, one county's real estate records, and only through anomaly detection were we able to find missing data and fix it!

The Hot Seat: Kelly Labrecque

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 21:22:49 GMT

The Hot Seat is a series in which prominent industry experts answer grueling questions stemming from prospect research to consulting to analytics. How will they do under pressure? Read to find out!

Kelly Labrecque is a senior researcher at the Helen Brown Group. Prior to joining HBG in 2013, she was a research analyst at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the Division of Development & Jimmy Fund as part of the prospect identification team. Kelly began her career in development in 2008 as an administrative assistant in Major Gifts at Wheaton College. When not doing research, you can find her at the barn with her horse, JP.

Questions:

When do you find conducting research difficult, and when do you find joy?

I think regardless of the level of difficulty of the task, I always derive joy from my work. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be in this business. That said, there are times of frustration. In particular, when I can’t find visible asset information for a prospect when my “spidey senses” are telling me he or she clearly has capacity. I tend to convert that frustration into creative energy – developing new ways to look at and think about wealth, philanthropy, and the process of cultivation itself. I think the most rewarding part of the job is when your organization or client gets a transformational gift as a result of your hard work!
When prospecting what is the last thing a prospect researcher should ever do?

Aside from the typical ethical standards, one thing I have learned over the years is “don’t judge a book by its cover.” I know it’s trite, but hear me out. I often think about the tag line from the book The Millionaire Next Door (Stanley and Danko, 1996),“most of the truly wealthy in this country don’t live in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue-they live next door.” Researchers need to dig deeper than the typical trappings of wealth in order to truly understand the extent of capacity. Delving not only into giving history and career, but genealogy, hobbies, and social connections.
What would be the perfect research tool, if you could create it? What would it be able to offer? What would be its downsides?

As far as I’m concerned, we already have the most perfect research tool -- the prospect researcher. No amount of machine learning or software can replace what we bring to the table. We are able to offer actionable intelligence to our teams by providing detailed, thoughtful insight into the wealth, capacity, and inclination of donor and prospects. We also bring a human element to the profession – we can put ourselves in the shoes of our donor – what information would we want or not want to see in a profile about ourselves? Would this project or program interest this prospect or are we wasting their time? Is now a good time to make an ask if they just sent their son to college? I’m sure many in the technology industry would differ with me in their opinion on this subject. But I dare them to try!

Be well, everyone!

The Hot Seat: Jennifer Filla

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 15:40:15 GMT

The Hot Seat is a series in which prominent industry experts answer grueling questions stemming from prospect research to consulting to analytics. How will they do under pressure? Read to find out!

Jennifer Filla

President, Aspire Research Group LLC; CEO, Prospect Research Institute

Jennifer Filla is a veteran fundraiser with a focus on prospect research. As president of Aspire Research Group, she helps organizations find and connect with their best donor prospects. She is also CEO and Founder of the Prospect Research Institute, which provides step-by-step, hands-on learning to the fundraising research community. She is co-author of “Prospect Research for Fundraisers: The Essential Handbook” and has served as a volunteer and trustee for a number of organizations.

If someone wanted to become a consultant in prospect development, what would be the most important first step?

Many people want to become a consultant because they love doing the work and want the autonomy that comes with being your own boss. That was me back in 2007! I like to say the joke was on me because the reality is that while I was doing the work, I also had to bring in the clients. That meant a much heavier workload and less financial security! And working sales was anything but comfortable for me.

Consulting has been a personally rewarding journey for me, but it has also been a lot of really, really hard work. If I were going to do it all over again now, my first step would have been to better define what was either making me unhappy with work and/or what seemed so attractive about consulting. Then frame it like any other research project and seek to find out if consulting really was a good solution for me.

I’d like to believe that I would still have chosen consulting, but that I might have gotten additional education sooner for sales and other business skills.
What are your predictions for the prospect development industry in the next 15 years?

Information technology has been driving our industry, and software products and companies are now being built and scaled that specifically target the nonprofit sector and fundraising. But we know that Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are fueled by BIG data. A nonprofit doesn’t necessarily need its own big data to benefit from models created, but having your own data is where it begins and is way more powerful.

If, according to Guidestar (2017), 66.3% of nonprofits have annual budgets of less than $1 million, who can afford to implement A.I. over the years it takes for an A.I. program to learn the business? For that matter, what nonprofit budget size is likely to have a large enough constituency for fundraising to benefit from A.I.? Probably one with a lot more than $1 million!

For this reason, I suspect that the relatively tiny number of nonprofits at the top will pull even further ahead through the various uses of A.I. The smaller nonprofits will continue to struggle with basic data integrity and analytics implementation issues. What does this mean for prospect development? Lots of opportunity!

If you work at the big organizations, you can develop specialty skills and receive the accompanying higher compensation, whether that is data science or the analytical prowess to translate information overwhelm into insight and action.

If you work at the majority of smaller organizations, you can remain a generalist with positive impact for much longer, and in a position where data analytics skills, such as regression models in Excel, will continue to have the potential for outsized impact.

As A.I. matures in the fundraising industry and the solutions for the big nonprofits spin into products for smaller nonprofits, prospect development professionals also have the perfect skill set to understand how they work and help organizations make better purchasing and implementation decisions.

The future is a BIG question and A.I. is only one piece, but I don’t want to close without suggesting another possible opportunity for development research professionals: jobs outside of nonprofits. Fundraising consulting firms of all sizes are already hiring for prospect research and analytics. As the for-profit industry around fundraising continues to grow, new positions are likely to become available for the prospect development skillset.
True or False: Prospect Research can strategically encourage philanthropic giving. Please include a why with your response.

True. Prospect research professionals have always held a double-edged sword: we choose what to include, and what not to include when we present information to the people who need to act on that information. While prospect research professionals alone are unlikely to effect organizational-wide cultural change, we can choose what words we use to communicate and how we frame the results of data analysis.

For example, if we notice that the founder of the family business recently named his daughter CEO and retained chairmanship of the board, or a similar situation with a family foundation, we can do more than state the facts. We can suggest that the development officer explore in conversation with the prospect whether there are family succession goals that could be furthered through philanthropy.

We could also “anchor” development staff on metrics such as affinity or philanthropic inclination by presenting those ratings first, especially in a numerical rating. To the human mind a rating of “10-5-5” is going to feel like a better score because it leads with the number ten and a rating of “5-5-10” is going to feel like it is not as good because it leads with the number five. If the first number represents affinity and the last number represents ability to give, you are encouraging the end user to favor affinity.

With deliberate attention and effort, we can recognize many ways to strategically encourage philanthropy giving.

The Prospect Development Professional's Haven

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 20:46:47 GMT

Apra-IL recognizes and acknowledges the heaviness and anxiety that many are experiencing due to the pandemic, and is starting this new series entitled, The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven, as a calming and reflective safe space. We are providing a space for you to anonymously share questions and reflections during these difficult times, pertaining to your work and role because many can relate. In times like this, you have to know that you are never alone.

Disclaimer: The Apra-IL writer is not a licensed therapist or counselor, therefore, please seek professional guidance beyond this series.

Around mid-March 2020, life changed and so did the planned content for the Apra-Illinois blog.

Everyone has been forced to make a strong and conscious pivot due to what the world is experiencing. And many lessons have been learned along the way thanks to The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven.

Move away from juggling to acceptance, sometimes, juggling two extremes can put unwarranted pressure on someone to be in two mental spaces at once – when you drop one you feel sad for being more engaged in another. Accept that in your new normal, there are people who are still millionaires, you are still a researcher who has great work to do, and your world and community is hurting but it will regain itself slowly. You can do both in this time, and by accepting you are alleviating the pressure of caring about one more than the other.

Practice Transformative listening, this happens when you hear something, reflect, ask corresponding questions, build on the topic, participate in being fully present (mind, body, and soul), and acknowledge the truths (whether you agree with them or not).

In July 2020, Prospect Development Professional, Beth Inman, shared “Think about questions to ask your supervisor if you are furloughed. For example, how will the organization communicate with those who are furloughed? Will you have access to your files/emails/intranet (your org's HR site, for example)? If you're going to file for unemployment, it wouldn't hurt to research what you will need to apply in your state so you have an idea of what to prepare. In some cases, it can take weeks for the benefits to kick in, so filing sooner rather than later is a good idea. Now is also a good time to review your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile and make sure it's up to date. If you decide to start a job search, it's good to have these documents in their best shape. And, if you start applying for positions, reach out to your references to confirm they're still willing to be a reference and give them a heads up if you learn an organization is contacting your references. If you use your work email for Apra and other professional listservs, make sure you update it to your personal email to ensure you continue to get important information. And, finally, practice self-care and utilize the Apra community! Self-care looks different for everyone but it's so important!”

Normalize the betterment of mental health by talking about it, sharing stories of good and bad work experiences, seeking therapy, and ways to better oneself physically, mentally and emotionally.

As working from home has been prolonged for many, there are five ways to find moments of peace while working from home - take technology breaks; make sure you prioritize self-care; try new things and test out ideas; daydream and take time for reflection; and catch up with coworkers.

As many are doing the work to create a more inclusive donor base that is truly reflective of the world, it is important to remember that as you aspire, continuously do the internal work for the external work to flourish. In October 2020, Prospect Development Professional, Marissa Todd, shared “We know we have to do better, and I am reading, learning, and advocating for ways to create inclusivity in the workplace and our donor community.”

Creating this series and space for reflection, discussion, and storytelling during 2020 has been more than enriching, it has been an important and challenging outlet. I hope the Apra community continues to create opportunities that preserve professionals’ expression and experiences even in times of difficulty, for we all can learn and lean on one another.

The Prospect Development Professional's Haven

Thu, 08 Oct 2020 19:46:24 GMT

Disclaimer: The Apra-IL writer is not a licensed therapist or counselor, therefore, please seek professional guidance beyond this series.

A conversation: How to be good to yourself featuring Marissa Todd, Development Director

Marissa, I’ve enjoyed seeing how you have publicly shared the ways you are being good to yourself during such uncertain and tense times. You recently started therapy, playing the guitar, and you like to write cards to people.

Let’s talk first about being good to oneself. How do you define that?

Marissa: I define being good to oneself as prioritizing ones’ mental and physical well-being. I know I can’t be a good partner, colleague or friend if I’m not taking care of myself. I like the bucket analogy – I can’t fill others buckets if mine is empty.

When did, being good to yourself, become important to you and how did you decide that these previously mentioned ways were how you wanted to take care of yourself?

Marissa: Being good to myself has always been important – and that importance seems to go up when things are particularly overwhelming or stressful and I struggle to just get out of bed and face the world. I’ve tried many things over time: exercise, reading, and cooking. During the early stages of the pandemic, I struggled to read for about a month or so (like I would read the same sentence over and over for five minutes and then just get frustrated) and I also got really tired of cooking. Not being able to go to the gym, and just feeling worried all the time made me reconsider how best to fill my bucket and create some sense of peace and happiness. Taking a step back from social media has certainly helped.

How did taking a step back from social media help?

Marissa: Doomscrolling is real, and it takes a toll. When most of what you see is reminders of all the terrible things happening, it’s easy to get sucked into a negative place. Also, being connected to people who are not socially distancing or wearing masks can really amp up anxiety, especially if they are family or people you will have to interact with at work. Social media can take up a huge amount of time, so, I replaced that time with reading and guitar, which feel more positive and productive.

Why did you choose to learn how to play the guitar?

Marissa: I have wanted a guitar since I was 12. I grew up listening to rock and roll and dreamed of playing in a band. We never had the money for a guitar. Now that we are at home all the time and spending less on dining out, vacations, etc. I decided it was the perfect time to invest in a guitar. Also, I read a book about Digital Minimalism and one of the suggestions was to develop a productive hobby (using your hands) so that you were engaging your brain. The book gave me the extra push I needed to just do it.

You work in prospect development, and you know that there are days that can be overwhelming or stressful; With the world in chaos, how has your understanding of being good to oneself changed or perhaps stayed the same?

Marissa: I don’t know that my understanding has changed. More reconfirmed that self-care is SO important and if we don’t take care of our mental health, as well as our physical self, it is hard to function. I am hopeful that one good thing that will come out of this pandemic is there will be less stigma around mental health care and perhaps in a super ideal world, we would actually provide more financial resources for it. I’m lucky my employer has an Employee Assistance Program that provides so many free sessions, but many folks who are feeling stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, etc. and don’t have the resources to pay for mental health care, or even know where to start. Therapy comes in all shapes and sizes, and finding the best fit can be intimidating.

Can you tap into this intimidation alittle, why is it intimidating? And for us in this profession I think I’ve noticed difficulty in reasoning with equity while researching the ultra-wealthy. How do you reason with your job, societal inequity, and foster self-care?

Marissa: Regarding intimidation – I think because we don’t talk about mental health very publicly, it can be kind of daunting to figure out how to find a therapist. And every therapist has a different style. It’s important to find someone to talk to that you are comfortable with, but it can be difficult to know how to decide that and then walk away from a therapist when you don’t click.

Societal inequity is on my mind all the time. I have been very open with my boss that I am actually struggling with feeling like this is the right job for me at times. I have a law degree and over 15 years of fundraising experience, and often I feel like I should be using my skills to help advance social justice. She reminds me art is a source of comfort and solace, speaks truth, and reflects the time it was created. However, museums historically are not diverse in terms of donors and board leadership. We know we have to do better, and I am reading, learning, and advocating for ways to create inclusivity in the workplace and our donor community. I’ve gotten very good at being uncomfortable (and by extension making others uncomfortable by speaking up) because that is what is necessary for us to change for the better.

Thank you, Marissa, for allowing these valid feelings and experiences to be shared within The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven.

If you want to share a question or reflection at The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven, please email us at apraillinois@gmail.com

The Prospect Development Professional's Haven

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 19:42:58 GMT

Disclaimer: The Apra-IL writer is not a licensed therapist or counselor, therefore, please seek professional guidance beyond this series.

5 ways to find moments of peace while working from home

Take real screen breaks

I have always taken the suggestion “take a screen break,” as “ok, time to stop looking at my computer, and stare at my cellphone (another screen).” But I believe we all know that “take a screen break,” actually means to take a technology break, which is hard to do nowadays. So, try to read a book during your lunch break instead of scrolling on your laptop, go for a walk or start journaling – all can really help you take a much-needed moment to yourself.

Add YOU to your priorities

If you are a caretaker of kids, family member(s), or disgruntled pets that are becoming restless by your consistent presence at home – make sure that you are taking care of yourself while upholding your priorities. When creating your to-do list, add time for yourself. In a day full of virtual schooling, lunch and dinner preps, taking the dogs out for their walks, and somehow getting your work done, there has to be time for your peace of mind. It can happen when it is penciled onto a sticky note, and/or set as a calendar reminder. Yoga at 6PM every Tuesday through Thursday, yes, the calendar reminders help.

Try something new and test the waters

How many of us have been using the same research tools for years, and still don’t know the function of certain tabs or know the extent a tool can actually best help our work? Well, it is time to push buttons and check out random tabs, or it could be time to change your research template or time to pull some data reports that question your typical process. This form of peace is based on challenging yourself, and sometimes a mental exercise can be a distraction and exhilarating. Maybe, this is what you need as you work from home.

Daydream, just for a second

Why is daydreaming still seen as something negative? Instead of stressing over the email that you still need to write, take some time to let your imagination flow or write-out your grocery list. The energy and words needed to write your email will be there when you return to it.

Why are we not appreciating the mental break? Can we flip our negative connotations with daydreaming and see it as a moment of reflection?

Catch up with a coworker, like old times

Having virtual tea, coffee, or lunch with a coworker is a great way to reset and have a pleasant conversation, similar to what you would experience as you walk into the office kitchen to wait on the microwave or get some coffee. Proactively, setting up virtual chats with coworkers to catch on life, is a reactive means to relationship building. It may not bring you peace in the serenity sense of the word, but it will remind you of a simpler time in the world when you could just engage with a coworker.

Thank you for allowing these valid feelings and experiences to be shared within The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven.

If you want to share a question or reflection at The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven, please email us at apraillinois@gmail.com

The Prospect Development Professional's Haven

Fri, 21 Aug 2020 20:17:50 GMT

Disclaimer: The Apra-IL writer is not a licensed therapist or counselor, therefore, please seek professional guidance beyond this series.

Now more than ever, we need community.

As we gear up for the first ever virtual Apra conference (August 24 – 27, 2020), we can all agree that our new normal has been difficult. And if you have been dealing with everything alone, then consider this the time for community. We could rely on our own understanding of our industry; we could easily ignore the emails and posts on social media by others in prospect development; and we could silently experience the stress and anxiety of furloughs, job loss, and increased work and meetings. We could also choose an alternative, and remember what it means to belong in a safe space, a safe world, or at least a safe world of data experts with similar skills and interests.

Remember that you have a community, bigger and stronger as a whole, that can support you, individually.

We are all experiencing similar ramifications of this pandemic and economic depression, to some degree. The effects transcend race, gender, age, and ethnicity, and the prospect development community knows this all too well as fundraising has been difficult and many experts are unemployed. We understand.

For many, reality set in once motivation drew low in April, forecasts for the extent of the pandemic twisted and bent mental aptitudes each day as things become more and more uncertain. We were experiencing the same emotions.

My question to you reader is how have you been dealing with admitting what you’re experiencing?

Exhaustion is real. We understand.

Your community has remained right here.

Many have found ways to keep learning, to keep asking questions, to share their experiences; and most importantly there has been an increase in normalizing the betterment of mental health by talking about it, sharing stories of good and bad work experiences, seeking therapy, and ways to better oneself physically, mentally and emotionally.

If there has ever been a takeaway that needs to be pronounced, it is that you are not alone. Reach out to one another, and remember your community.

Thank you for allowing these valid feelings and experiences to be shared within The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven.

If you want to share a question or reflection at The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven, please email us at apraillinois@gmail.com

The Prospect Development Professional's Haven

Fri, 17 Jul 2020 19:49:13 GMT

A candid conversation with Beth

Hi Beth, can you share with our readers where you believe your heart and mind is right now?

Name an emotion and I've felt it over the past few months. Worried, scared, angry, optimistic, hopeful, to name just a few. Right now, I'm feeling grateful and my heart and mind are in a good place considering all the changes over the past couple of months (being furloughed, long distance move, and starting a new job). I'm grateful for my fantastic new job opportunity and for our prospect development community which has been so supportive. I have received emails, texts, and dm's checking in, and those gestures have made a huge difference in keeping my spirits high.

Thank you for mentioning the prospect development community, can you share why community matters (you state that their outreach made a huge difference in keeping your spirits high) can you share more on that?

Community matters because it’s important to have a connection. That connection could be familial, professional, spiritual, etc. but it’s that connection or being a part of something that contributes to our overall sense of wellbeing. Our prospect development community on Twitter, for example, is so interesting because I’ve only met a handful of them in person. That said, I know they’re there when I’m frustrated about our work and I also know they’re there when we’re going through something like COVID and it’s affecting all of us in some way. Even when the “there” is virtual, it’s still so helpful!

Where would you say your heart and mind were as you waited to find out your furlough status?

Some days I was sure I would be furloughed and other days, I had a glimmer of hope that the work I was doing was important enough to not be furloughed. We knew a week ahead of time that furloughs were coming but we had no idea how many staff would be affected or what criteria would be used to determine who would be impacted. That was a really long week. That level of worry is exhausting and it affects every aspect of your life.

As many are going through this exact situation, what can you say matters?

2020 has been a rough year for everyone and we have all had very different experiences related to COVID-19 and its effects on our industry, our communities, and our families. I am a planner and I am a worrier so the past 5-6 months have been really tough for me. What I've realized is that I spend a lot of time worrying about things I don't have any control over and asking for help is OK. What matters to me right now is understanding that it's alright to not have a plan and to recognize when I should ask for help - that I don't have to do it all myself.

I believe you just spoke to so many of us who are planners and worriers, to break away from this ingrained piece of us would be difficult, how are you doing it? Is this a process or an overnight shift?

Oh, it’s definitely a process and one that I have to consciously work on! My therapist has helped me with ways to counter my worrisome thoughts when I start to go down that “what if” rabbit hole and it takes practice to do that, but it’s worth it. One of things I learned is to counter a negative thought with a positive one. This helps me think about the different ways a situation could go and options I need to consider. For example, when I was worrying with thoughts that “my house wouldn’t sell”, I flipped it and asked, “what if the house sells,” that helped me think about what I’ll need to do when it sells.

Ever since the quarantine started many have shared advice on working from home, and ways to stay busy and productive aside from their work; what did you do to keep yourself whole, sane, and happy?

For me, once I learned I was furloughed, I made a to do list and came up with a schedule (albeit a not very structured one) for the weekdays, which was really helpful. I had been working full time for 20+ years so to learn on a Thursday that I was no longer working was a really odd and scary feeling. I kept thinking, "what am I going to do?" That's where the to do list and schedule came in. They helped me structure my day in a way that helped me stay on track and feel like I had some control over the day. My to do list was everything from clean out the pantry to exercising to reviewing my resume and even what Netflix shows I wanted to watch. When I made the schedule, I wanted to start the day doing something that made me happy which was drinking coffee and reading. (I have read a lot over the past few months and if you need any book recommendations, let me know!)

Do you have any advice for people experiencing the fear of being furloughed?

In talking to friends and colleagues about furloughs, I have learned that organizations have handled their furloughs differently. For example, some organizations continue to keep in touch with their furloughed employees; they are part of regular meetings and they are provided updates on their furlough status. This was not my experience, so my advice is to think about questions to ask your supervisor if you are furloughed. For example, how will the organization communicate with those who are furloughed? Will you have access to your files/emails/intranet (your org's HR site, for example)? If you're going to file for unemployment, it wouldn't hurt to research what you will need to apply in your state so you have an idea of what to prepare. In some cases, it can take weeks for the benefits to kick in, so filing sooner rather than later is a good idea.

Now is also a good time to review your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile and make sure it's up to date. If you decide to start a job search, it's good to have these documents in their best shape. And, if you start applying for positions, reach out to your references to confirm they're still willing to be a reference and give them a heads up if you learn an organization is contacting your references. If you use your work email for Apra and other professional listservs, make sure you update it to your personal email to ensure you continue to get important information.

And, finally, practice self-care and utilize the Apra community! Self-care looks different for everyone but it's so important! The Apra community is helpful and compassionate and we want to see our colleagues succeed.

On July 1, 2020, Beth shared the joyous news of her new role and life in Maine.

Thank you for sharing your valid feelings and experience with The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven, Beth.

If you want to share a question or reflection at The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven, please email us at apraillinois@gmail.com

The Prospect Development Professional's Haven

Thu, 18 Jun 2020 14:58:53 GMT

Disclaimer: The Apra-IL writer is not a licensed therapist or counselor, therefore, please seek professional guidance beyond this series.

Question: My development team has been having a lot of conversations around race, equity, and inclusivity. I’ve enjoyed a lot of these conversations but I’ve noticed that there are coworkers who are not really listening. And based on everything going in the world I think us, self-proclaimed allies and leaders, need to listen.

Can you guide me on how to have a conversation with my coworkers around listening?

An Answer: Recognizing the importance of listening, especially in these tough times, is really amazing. And wanting to point it out and start a conversation around it with Apra-IL readers, and your coworkers is important and brave. So, first, we must thank you for bringing it to the forefront.

Now, listening is simple because we all hear things, but effective listening is transformative. And I believe that is what you feel like your coworkers aren’t experiencing. Transformative listening happens when you hear something, reflect, ask corresponding questions, build on the topic, participate in being fully present (mind, body, and soul), and acknowledge the truths (whether you agree with them or not).

The conversations that your team is having around race, equity, and inclusivity is not something everyone can handle, even allies. This is why it’s also important because it’s uncomfortable, it means one must question their ethics and internalized racism, and it also requires a lot of learning, unlearning and specifically listening. No one wants to listen to what makes them wiggle in their seats or fidget, no one wants to be uncomfortable. But people should listen to what can make them become better, and the best way to do that is to commit to the process – commit to opening up (breathe in deeply, exhale to relax the shoulders) and say yes to transformative listening.

Share this with your coworkers privately over a virtual tea/coffee chat, and see if they’re ready to transform with you.

Thank you for sharing your valid feelings with The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven.

If you want to share a question or reflection at The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven, please email us at apraillinois@gmail.com

The Prospect Development Professional's Haven

Mon, 18 May 2020 17:14:30 GMT

Disclaimer: The Apra-IL writer is not a licensed therapist or counselor, therefore, please seek professional guidance beyond this series.

Question: Working from home and social distancing has been hard, and a new normal for me. I’ve struggled with conducting research while knowing that many people are losing their jobs and income every day. So, how do I juggle with this reality and what is happening around me, while analyzing a millionaire’s multiple properties and total compensation?

An Answer: There is no right way to juggle these experiences as a prospect researcher (during an 8-hour shift) and be a human being who cares about social inequalities. An option that many have shared is that aside from socially distancing, they have also decreased the amount of news and negative and/or sad stories they consume, just to maintain a leveled- approach to the pandemic and its effects on their community.

But it's hard to know that people are struggling all at the same time, its overwhelming. Therefore, how you are thinking of it should shift from wanting to “juggle” to “acceptance”. Allow yourself to accept that this is what the world is experiencing right now, and that this is your job.

Sometimes, juggling two extremes can put unwarranted pressure on someone to be in two mental spaces at once – when you drop one you feel sad for being more engaged in another. Accept that in your new normal, there are people who are still millionaires, you are still a researcher who has great work to do, and your world and community is hurting but it will regain itself slowly. You can do both in this time, and by accepting you are alleviating the pressure of caring about one more than the other.

Let’s try this, close your eyes and imagine yourself literally juggling two oranges from one hand to another. It's hard right? This is what you are mentally experiencing. Now, put both oranges down on a table. And imagine yourself looking at the two oranges equally sitting on a flat surface – this is acceptance.

Try to move away from juggling to acceptance, and see how that makes you feel.

Thank you for sharing your valid feelings with The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven.

If you want to share a question or reflection at The Prospect Development Professional’s Haven, please email us at apraillinois@gmail.com

Questions, questions, read all about the answers!

Fri, 27 Mar 2020 14:26:20 GMT

It’s March! Apra-IL is celebrating Research Pride Month, Women’s History Month, and March Madness. We hope that you join us in the festivities as we test how well everyone addresses prospect research - specific scenarios. An online poll posted on Twitter and LinkedIn pose the questions, and here are the results and a review of the answers. We hope that you can participate, and thank you for engaging with us on all forums, as we learn from each other.

For the third and final question of this series, the correct answer is “It depends” and those who chose “True” and “False” are also correct.

The question is asking whether discovery is the MOST important stage for research, and it is not. There is no fundraising stage that is more important than the other, in which research is most required. During discovery, if you discovered a prospect and then conducted capacity research, this would be proactive research. Another fair perspective is that research is most important in the cultivation stage because the gift officer is getting to know the prospect and needs to know the appropriate ask range for solicitation.

Research is important in all of the fundraising stages because it is meant to advice a gift officer as the prospect journeys through the stages and becomes a donor.

Thank you for participating and share your thoughts and experiences with us on this question and the others!

Questions, questions, read all about the answers!

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 14:06:35 GMT

For the second question, we are in agreement that if a development officer was concerned about a prospect’s capacity range and felt that it was incorrect, you should ask why and review the range and research.

There are times in which a development officer may not agree with a rating. This is when you as the researcher and expert shine. It is important to explain your decision, and actively listen to the fundraiser. Take note of their viewpoint(s) and then review it in relation to your understanding of the prospect’s financial capabilities to give to your organization.

Never disregard the development officer because this is meant to be a partnership full of meaningful conversations, teamwork, and mission-driven endeavors.

Thank you for participating, and onward to question #3!

Covid-19 Update

Mon, 16 Mar 2020 15:34:47 GMT

All,

The Apra-IL board has decided to cancel the April 22^nd Spring Symposium. In making this decision, we sought information from health experts and our government officials, both local and national. We seek to approach this issue with an eye toward protecting all members of our community, with particular attention to those who are most vulnerable.

We will be sending out regular emails to our contact list with information about online events (both free and those with a small registration fee) hosted by other Apra chapters. If you know of an upcoming event you’d like shared, please email us at apraillinois@gmail.com to add the event to our calendar and future emails.

The Apra-IL board is actively planning for online webinars to be available this spring as well. For previously recorded webinars, go to the Webinars section of the Apra-IL site (accessible only to those with active memberships).

Because your membership sustains our organization, we’d ask that you consider renewing your Apra-IL membership this month as many of you likely planned to do in conjunction with registration for our spring event. Year-long membership costs $40 and gives you access to:

Discounts on events
Free event attendance for member appreciation parties, happy hour, webinars, and more
The Apra-IL chapter membership directory
Monthly member emails which contain information about upcoming chapter and regional Prospect Development events, blog content, and job postings
A curated links library with links for:
- The Career Center – information on how to write the perfect resume, job hunt, etc
- Research Resources
- Relevant blogs
- Apra-IL Salon content – targeted information on recent topics of interest including cryptocurrency and valuing art
Webinar recordings
Job postings (available through following our social media: Twitter and LinkedIn)
Yearly scholarships for professional development funds

We wish you all health and peace during this tough time. Please let us know if you have resources to offer other members, need assistance getting in touch with others in our industry, or any other help we can offer you.

The Apra-IL Board

Kathryn Thomas, President

Peter Kotowski, Vice President

Kara Mehrkens, Treasurer

Amy Tibbs, Secretary

Julia Dimick, Director of Marketing

Teresa Liu, Director of Membership

Questions, questions, read all about the answers!

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 14:17:01 GMT

And the results for the first question are in! The correct answer was real estate.

Philanthropy can be understood as a means of giving and showing generosity, generally displayed monetarily. So, in this case, a family foundation is an asset established to give away money through grants or contributions to nonprofits by a family or in honor of a family member. The act of giving to a community organization shows that you are philanthropic. Real estate (also referred to by some as real property) is actually a wealth indicator, and is a sign of a person’s ability to invest in an asset and gain equity. Therefore, real estate, does not equate to someone’s inclination to want to give and be generous. It is, however, part of the overall analysis of someone’s capacity to give, which includes philanthropic giving and wealth indicators.

Thank you for participating, and onward to question #2!

Placing a seat at the table, in this loving month of February

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:13:32 GMT

February is known as the month of love, and the celebration of African American history and culture. So, with love in our hearts here are few lists of diverse prospects (People of Color, women and/or part of the LGBTQ+ community) as you prospect this month for potential donors, board members, and volunteers. Diversity is the evidence of difference, and the outside the box of “normal”. And inclusion matters because it creates opportunity and representation. By adding diverse prospects to your donor base, you are making room at the table.

This month (and hopefully for the rest of the year and beyond), we hope that you make room for love and diversity at your organization:

10 Black Female Venture Capitalists

50 Female Entrepreneurs Everyone Should Know

The 50 Most Powerful Latinas in Corporate America

The 23 most powerful LGBTQ+ people in tech

21 influential black professionals in tech

5 Asian women in tech

26 Women of Color Diversifying Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, Media, and Beyond

20 Successful Companies Founded or Owned by Black Entrepreneurs

Goal Setting Tools 2020

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 15:37:00 GMT

Goal Setting Tools 2020

4 functional tools and applications that will help you get organized and set goals in 2020

Happy New Year, All!

As a new year begins and everyone strives to set goals and become more organized as a means of having a productive new year, here are four functional tools and applications that can set you up for success in 2020.

Yes, Pinterest! It is a great way to organize your thoughts and goals – visually. The visual aspect of Pinterest may intrigue visual learners who enjoy seeing their ideas. The application is free and user-friendly. The uses of Pinterest are endless as you have the ability to create a vision board for your year, on-the-go.

A Journal is still a reliable tool for 2020. It is a resource that has come in handy for all those who enjoy note-taking and idea-jotting. There are different types of journals that can help you be even more productive - a planner, for example. Planners have sections or pages for your daily, weekly and monthly goals. A place where you can see your own plans outlined, and enjoy the swift movement of checking them off as accomplished. A planner and journal can also work as spaces for reflection and celebration of written ideas.

If you prefer typing up your lists, notes, ideas, and goals, then here are three application options that are great for notes, audio, and organizing information:

Evernote is a great note-taking application that keeps you organized on-the-go, and on all devices. It also has different organizational features that make its users feel productive and have the ability to manage their tasks with ease. Evernote offers its products based on paid plans and a free basic plan.

If Evernote does not appeal to you, a similar application is Microsoft OneNote, which is free and can be used on all devices. However, the devices must have Microsoft Office or access to the OneNote website. OneNote allows you to manage notes, audio, PDFs, images, and more – OneNote can be “your digital notebook.”

Asana is a great project management tool that guides you through your tasks. You can set up alerts/reminders for when a task needs to be completed and it helps you prioritize your to-do list based on High to Low and stage of completion.

The always reliable post-it notes (sometimes referred to as sticky notes). This is a true and dependable way of making reminders and lists. Always trust in the post-it notes, large or small, because they will help you with your tasks.

Apra-IL Presents Notes on Gratefulness

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 13:43:07 GMT

As the year comes to a close, this new series will highlight what our members have been most grateful for in this industry in 2019. We look forward to hearing about rock star co-workers, tools without which we would be lost, and experiences that will stay with us for years.

Apra-IL would like to express its gratefulness for its members who continually push us to provide better programming, introduce new ways to network, and find the best catering and happy hour spots around!

This week's notes are provided by Kara Mehrkens, Associate Director for Advancement Research at Illinois Wesleyan University.

I'm grateful for a supervisor who loves to play with data. I think I'd even call him a data geek!

I'm also appreciative of all of the resources I have at work. This includes subscriptions, conferences, Apra sources, list servs, etc. There are so many ways to not only do prospect research but also to connect with colleagues.

Finally, I'm most grateful for walking out at the end of the day with a sense of accomplishment. It's good to work hard but it's even better to go home.

Apra-IL Presents Notes on Gratefulness

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 13:56:46 GMT

This week's notes are provided by Amy Tibbs, Development Research Associate at the National Audubon Society and Apra-IL Secretary.

I am grateful that we can do our work from anywhere! Combined with an organization that supports flexible work arrangements, I am able to strike a healthy work/life balance because I can access the resources and databases and public information I need from any location with the internet.

There’s something so comforting to me that I work in a field where most of us are supporting “Good Work” – being at nonprofits, our work helps donors connect with ways to support: environmental conservation and the fight against climate change; programs and students in higher education; medical research and patient care; providing food for the hungry; supporting our communities; and so much more! Being a cog in the machine to improve the world around me feels pretty good at the end of the day.

I’m always grateful for the prospect research community. Whether people come to the field with a librarian, business, programming, or data analysis background or if they just landed here somehow (like a lot of us), the tie that binds us is that this group is smart and generous with their time and knowledge, and more often than not, we can find someone to help us with CRM insights, tips to navigate tricky software, finding tough-to-locate information on a prospect, or just simple brainstorming on how to communicate our findings effectively. And, of course, to commiserate on the challenges we all face every day.

Apra-IL Presents Notes on Gratefulness

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 13:47:34 GMT

This week's notes are provided by Joan Ogwumike, Prospect Research Associate at the Obama Foundation and blogger.

I am grateful for community - the Apra community has shown me so much support since I joined the industry. In 2019, I am grateful to have met a wonderful group of researchers that have shown me what it truly means to be part of a community full of support, respect, kindness, and friendship.

For research when it is used not just as information but as a strategic tool.

And for the new year, which will bring so many new possibilities.

Apra-IL Presents Notes on Gratefulness

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 13:18:54 GMT

This week's notes are provided by Trent Nichols, Associate Director of Prospect Research and Management at Wheaton College.

I’m grateful for the Prospect Development industry’s openness and transparency to share best practices and professional development in so many ways. This happens more formally at various national and chapter conferences, through the PRSPCT-L exchange, Apra online newsletter, and more informally through posting LinkedIn articles and white papers, Apra chapter networking, and ongoing communication among researchers via email, phone, and in person. I’ve been in this industry for 20 years and I still see this same esprit de corps present today as I did when I started.

For new colleagues coming into the profession with eagerness and readiness to learn and absorb traditional and new paths in Prospect Development.

And I am grateful for a field that provides new opportunities for learning and growth, while rooted in a philanthropic tradition.

Apra-IL Presents Notes on Gratefulness

Fri, 08 Nov 2019 13:38:47 GMT

This week's notes are provided by Kathryn Thomas, Apra-IL Director of Membership & Marketing and Senior Prospect Identification Analyst at the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association.

I am grateful for a building absolutely brimming with school spirit! It is a reminder every day why my team does the work they do with the intensity and focus we do it.

This year, particularly, I am grateful for covered parking provided by my workplace. October snow is simply not my favorite thing.

Finally, I am grateful for the opportunity to serve on the Apra-IL board. It has gifted me with a broad network of colleagues and friends and I look forward to continuing that work in 2020!

Apra-IL Presents: 20 Questions with ... Kathryn Thomas

Tue, 29 Oct 2019 13:29:46 GMT

Apra-IL Presents 20 Questions with ... Kathryn Thomas

Based on the 73 Questions series produced by Vogue, Apra-IL presents a series of 20 questions to members and the board. We're excited for you to learn more about your leadership and fellow members in this series of 20 rapid-fire questions.

Kathryn is a proud representative of Wisconsin here on the APRA-IL board as Director of Membership & Marketing. She has worked at the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association since 2015; first in Prospect Research and now as the Senior Prospect Identification Analyst focused on proactive identification. Previously, she worked as a corporate archivist and librarian.

1. What is the super power that you use often at work?

I have the ability to organize anything. When I worked as a corporate archivist, this came in the form of physically organizing hundreds of boxes of photos, videos, and other items. As a prospect identification analyst, that means organizing accessible data on a person and distilling it into 3-5 sentences to help a Development Officer understand their connection to our organization.

2. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

Apra has provided me a broad network of like-minded, talented professionals who I can call on when in need – whether that’s asking for recommendations on vendors or wondering how to deal with an interpersonal situation in the office.

3. If the annual Apra International conference could be anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

Oh man – that’s a tricky one. I’ve always wanted to visit Singapore (my college roommate grew up there) and finding the time to go by myself has been difficult. I’d love to have a work-related reason (and funding) to travel there!

4. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

I tend to tell people I work in fundraising. If they ask follow-up questions, I tell them I do research on our alumni and donors to help Development connect them with the right funding opportunities.

5. If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have?

I’d love to be a university or museum librarian – being surrounded by art is a lovely way to spend the day.

6. If you could tell your 15-year-old self about your job, what would you say?

I would tell her that her lifelong love of learning was going to come in very handy while tracking down the fifth-great-granddaughter of a UW alumnus for whom a building on campus was named!

7. Why did you join the Apra-Illinois board?

I joined the Apra-IL board to get more involved in the programming aspect of Apra. Because I’m our current webmaster, head of member e-mails, and czar of Apra-IL’s social media accounts, it’s been a fantastic learning opportunity. Before taking this role, I’d never tweeted, processed an online payment, or created an event banner. I’ve also had great fun working with Apra-IL members on our blog (hi there!). One of the most fun series was our horror stories about the field – head over and read those if you haven’t yet!

8. Why do you think Apra-Illinois and all of the local Apra chapters matter?

Local Apra chapters give us a place to speak to people doing our work in our region. This is helpful when it’s time to implement a new process (vendor recommendations, best practices) and also when it’s time to look for a new career opportunity (both through Apra-IL job postings and networking). Apra international serves a similar purpose, but on a broader scale.

9. What is your #1 productivity tip?

When you’re in the zone, stay there. When you’re not in the zone, give yourself a break and do something requiring less brain power. I get a lot of Apra-IL tasks completed while I’m distracted from my day-to-day work!

10. Best advice ever received?

I can’t say I’ve received a ton of advice, but one quote that I love comes from The Book of Joy in which the Dalai Lama quotes Viktor Frankl, “Our perspective toward life is our final and ultimate freedom.”

11. If you wrote a book about prospect development what would it be called?

"Finding the Impossible, Immediately"

12. If you wrote a memoir on your life, what would it be called?

I’m not sure anyone would read a book about my life! But I guess I’d call it "From Little House on the Prairie to a Life Unbound."

13. What book are you reading right now?

I just re-read The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.

14. Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

Madison has lots of culinary variety. My favorite place is a Thai restaurant called Sa-Bai Thong that's about five minutes from work.

15. What is your favorite social platform to connect with people?

Though I’m in charge of Apra-IL’s Twitter account, I’m stuck firmly in the early 2000's and only really use Facebook to connect with people.

16. What is the last movie you watched?

I dove back into the 90s and watched Now and Then on Netflix.

17. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

I’d love to have dinner with Charles Dickens. I had a real obsession with his writing when I was young and he seems like he was a character ... I might attempt to put a word limit on his side of the conversation, though!

18. What is your hobby?

I’m not really a hobby person. When I’m not a work, I like to read and re-watch The Office. I also love a good road trip.

19. Are you a texter or a caller?

Depends on the person. I’m typically a texter until we get onto a good topic and then I’ll give in and call.

20. Who or what inspires you?

I’m really inspired by people who manage to find the good in a bad situation. That isn’t a trait I find easy, so to meet and know people for whom this is second nature is fascinating to me.

Apra-IL Presents: 20 Questions with ... Julie Fregetto

Wed, 25 Sep 2019 15:38:07 GMT

Apra-IL Presents 20 Questions with ... Julie Fregetto

Julie Fregetto serves as the Director for Prospect Development at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). She joined the ELCA in 2013 as one of the team members to help launch the organization’s first-ever comprehensive campaign, Always Being Made New: Campaign for the ELCA. On June 30, 2019, the church announced the successful completion of the campaign, raising just over $250 million in current and planned gifts.

Before joining the ELCA, Julie served as Senior Associate for a philanthropic consulting company in Chicago and worked for the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Business Administration in the Development Office. She completed her Master’s in Business Administration from Northeastern Illinois University and received a Bachelor’s in Business Marketing from West Virginia Wesleyan College. As part of her professional development, she serves as the Treasurer of the Apra-Illinois Board and, most recently, completed the ELCA Leadership Development Program. Julie enjoys traveling, coaching her son’s soccer team, and volunteering in her community.

1. What in Prospect Development fascinates you?

The fact that we can utilize technology and science to do good in the world and change people’s lives.

2. How do you manage the stress of working with people who do not understand the importance of your role?

Just as we suggest front-line fundraisers remain patiently persistent in working with donors, so too should we as prospect development professionals. It may take time for some people to see the importance of what we do, but the process does work and that will shine through.

3. If the annual Apra International conference could be anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

London

4. What is something on your desk that helps you be the most productive?

Inspirational quotes

5. If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have?

Sports management

6. What is a super power that you use often at work?

Telepathy

7. If you could tell your 15-year-old self about your job, what would you say?

There is a job waiting for you that will empower you to give back in this world while finding joy and a sense of purpose … no need to worry so much about what is to come!

8. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

I don’t … they get a bit freaked. I usually tell them I work with fundraising databases and analyze information.

9. What is one misconception about working in Prospect Development?

We are to blame for everything.

10. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

Given me confidence, opportunity, and a vision for what can be.

11. Are you an early bird or night owl?

Night owl

12. What book are you reading right now?

The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino: A Story of Corruption, Scandal, and the Big Business of College Basketball by Michael Sokolove

13. Coffee or Tea?

Coffee

14. Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

Via Roma – I love Italian food!

15. What is your favorite social platform to connect with people?

I wouldn’t say there is a favorite, but I typically check Facebook to keep updated on what my family and friends are doing and sharing. WhatsApp is a social platform that I use and like a lot to communicate with my sister who is an international school teacher.

16. What is the last movie you watched?

Revenge of the Nerds. Haha!

17. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

This is cliché, but my grandpas. They both passed away before I was born, but I have heard so many stories about them.

18. Are you a Chicago-native? If not, where do you call home?

I am a Des Plaines, IL native and live just five blocks from my childhood home. Some would say I’m a homebody.

19. What is your must-have snack while in the office?

It used to be M&M's, but these days a piece of fruit is the goal.

20. Who or what inspires you?

At work, my colleagues and our donors inspire me.

Apra-IL Presents: 20 Questions with ... Keli Jonas

Mon, 26 Aug 2019 18:03:11 GMT

Apra-IL Presents 20 Questions with ... Keli Jonas

Keli started volunteering with Apra-IL in 2017 on the Programming & Professional Advancement Committee. She is an Associate Director of Prospect Research at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and has worked there since late 2015. Previously, she worked in prospect research at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and in development at Marquette University.

1. Do you take work home with you?

If my team is up against a tight deadline, then yes, I absolutely will take work home.

2. How many unread emails are in your work inbox right now?

None at the moment…but then there all the un-filed emails that cause problems.

3. How many meetings do you have this week?

Four

4. What is something on your desk that helps you be productive?

I have a large calendar to which I’ve added important work dates and deadlines, so I can take a look at the upcoming month.

5. If you were not in Prospect Research, what career would you have?

I was fascinated with Russian history growing up, so I wanted to teach and research at the university level.

6. If you could travel back in time and meet the first person to ever have your role, what would you say to them?

I would want to ask them so many questions, mainly how long would it take to complete research without the technology we use today and what would the ROI on that be?

7. If you mentored someone in Prospect Development, what would be your first piece of advice or instruction?

My first piece of advice would be to sign up for Apra and Apra-IL! Both organizations are full of amazing resources and opportunities to learn of new developments in the field.

8. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

I say that I work in fundraising research at the Booth School of Business.

9. What is the best part of working in Prospect Development?

I have had the opportunity to learn about so many different industries, especially the financial sector, since I have been at Chicago Booth. I also get to uncover prospects to help support the work of the university.

10. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

I have met so many amazing people through Apra-IL and have learned so much about the various organizations in the state.

11. Are you an early bird or night owl?

Definitely an early bird. I like to feel productive early in the day.

12. What book are you reading right now?

I just started Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly. It is the second book in the Lilac Girls series and takes places during WWI and the Russian Revolution.

13. What book would you recommend to people?

I read The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead this year and have been recommending it to everyone. I also love the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series from Louise Penny. It’s a detective series with tons of Quebecois history added.

14. Currently, what is your favorite restaurant in your city?

I live in the Western Suburbs, so my favorite restaurant out there is Babcock’s Grove House. Fantastic comfort food, local beers, and amazing owners.

But since I work in Chicago, I’m adding Aba in the West Loop to the list. The rooftop patio and Mediterranean fare are incredible.

15. What is your favorite season?

I love fall. The changing colors, food, clothes, and holidays are all my favorite. But no pumpkin spice lattes!

16. What is your favorite hobby?

My husband and I bought our first home last year and it is full of projects for us inside and out. I have been learning so much about interior design and landscape design in the process, so if I have some downtime, I am usually working on that.

17. Favorite meal of the day?

If it’s the weekend, breakfast would be my favorite since I get to sit down and actually enjoy my coffee.

18. What country do you wish to visit?

The next country to visit on my list is Spain, but I am having trouble narrowing down what cities to visit!

19. Best advice you have ever received?

When I was little, my uncle always told me to “Keep on keeping on.” It was a simple way to teach me about the importance of perseverance.

20. What is a superpower that you use at work?

My superpower at work is figuring out what type of research someone is really requesting. Sometimes a requester doesn’t exactly know what they’re looking for or will ask for a comprehensive profile. By having conversations with research requesters, we can be strategic about what kind of research is appropriate for the situation and complete the work so much faster.

Apra-IL Presents: 20 Questions with ... Peter Kotowski

Fri, 02 Aug 2019 11:42:44 GMT

Apra-IL Presents 20 Questions with ... Peter Kotowski

Peter is a Prospect Research Analyst at Loyola University Chicago. He has been a member of APRA-IL since 2016. Peter got into prospect management and research after finishing his PhD in early American history at Loyola. Before joining the team at Loyola University, he was the Associate Director of Prospect Research at Loyola Academy. Outside of work, Peter enjoys reading, finding new television shows to enjoy, and traveling.

1. How do you explain your role to people outside of Prospect Development?

I generally tell people that I work in fundraising but that I don’t solicit donors.

2. When did you decide to become an Adjunct Professor in U.S. History?

I’ve been an adjunct since 2011 and I’ve been teaching in various capacities since 2009.

3. What was your favorite subject in high school?

This may come as a surprise to many, but it was history. I was particularly fascinated by early American history and early modern English history.

4. What is it like to both work as a researcher at and teach for the same institution?

I think it has given me a greater appreciation for the work that I do and a better understanding of what goes on at a university and the way it functions.

5. If you could travel back in time and meet the first person to ever have your role as Prospect Research Analyst, what would you say to them?

I’d ask them how they stumbled upon this career path.

6. If you could spend 24 hours in any period of history, what time would you go back to?

I’d take 24 hours to observe the construction of the pyramids to test my theory that they weren’t built by aliens, but rather by time traveling humans from far into the future.

7. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

It provided me some great information and resources when I first started out in the industry.

8. When you attend Apra-IL meet-ups, what or who do you also make time to visit?

I live in the city, so I generally go straight to the meet-ups and then head home.

9. Best advice you have ever received?

Always double check your sources.

10. What is something new you just learned or worked on at work?

I just finished a first attempt at developing an engagement score to better prioritize new prospect assignments for our gift officers.

11. By 2030, how would the field of Prospect Development have evolved?

I expect it will be much more prospect management focused as more of the research becomes automated.

12. What must you start your morning off with, tea or coffee?

Black coffee only.

13. How do you manage or balance work and life?

I set a firm daily schedule for when I arrive and when I leave, and I never deviate unless it’s absolutely necessary.

14. Where was your last vacation?

I went to Philadelphia for the 4th of July.

15. What is your favorite Season?

Winter. The colder and snowier the better.

16. Chocolate or candy?

Chocolate.

17. What was the last book you read?

A good friend of mine from graduate school, Noelani Arista’s recent publication, The Kingdom and the Republic: Sovereign Hawai’i and the Early United States. It's a fascinating exploration of how misunderstandings and misreadings shaped relations between native Hawaiians and European and American merchants and missionaries. Dr. Arista’s work draws heavily on Hawaiian-language sources and was one of the more interesting historical works I’ve read lately.

18. Who or what inspires you?

Pompey, a pug owned by William the Silent, Prince of Orange. He was so loyal to his owner that Pompey risked life and paw to thwart an assassination attempt against William. Thanks to his loyal service, the pug became the official dog of the House of Orange.

19. What was your first job ever?

I worked as a cashier at a drug store.

20. What is your favorite hobby?

Reading and running.

Apra-IL Presents: 20 Questions with ... Jessica Szadziewicz

Thu, 27 Jun 2019 18:44:28 GMT

Apra-IL Presents 20 Questions with ... Jessica Szadziewicz

Jessica Szadziewicz is the Assistant Director of Prospect Management and Research at Loyola University Chicago. She previously worked at Northwestern University as a Prospect Information Analyst before joining Loyola in late 2016. Jessica received her MLS from Dominican University in 2011 and her BA in History from DePaul University in 2009.

1. What is the first thing you do when you get to work?

Check email

2. How many meetings do you typically have in a week?

Anywhere from 3 to 10

3. What does your role as Assistant Director of Prospect Management and Research mean to you?

It means I get to do interesting work every day with great people

4. If you were not in Prospect Development, what career would you have?

Probably in a library or archival setting

5. How would you describe Prospect Development to your 15-year-old self?

I would say that prospect development is a part of fundraising where you look for wealthy donors

6. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

I usually say I work in philanthropy or fundraising where I help find wealthy individuals who may want to support the university

7. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

Introduced me to great people

8. If it was possible, where in the world would you want to attend an Apra international conference?

London

9. When you come to the Apra-IL meet-ups, what or who do you also make time to visit?

Because I live in the city I go to the meetup right after work and go straight home after

10. If you could watch only one movie for a month, what would it be?

The Man Who Knew Too Much

11. Where did you go on your last vacation?

Greece

12. What book are you currently reading?

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

13. What book would you recommend to people?

Anything by David Mitchell! Especially The Bone Clocks

14. If you could write your own memoir, what would it be titled?

What Not to Do

15. What is your favorite restaurant in your city/town?

Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinders

16. What is your favorite Season?

Summer

17. As a candidate for the Master of Business Administration (MBA) at the Loyola University Chicago, what advice would you give to those interested in applying to an MBA program?

It is definitely worth it, especially if you get a tuition discount. I’ve already applied some of what I’ve learned in my job and I’m not even half way done.

18. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

Boris Godunov

19. Best advice you have ever received?

Treat everyone nicely; they could be your boss someday

20. What is something new you learned at work today or worked on?

I worked on my presentation for the Prospect Development conference this summer!

Motivations of Leaders: Beth Inman

Tue, 11 Jun 2019 14:48:16 GMT

What makes prospect development a great career?

Apra-IL is asking local and national industry leaders what the field means to them and why and how they have pursued success in prospect development. Through this blog series, we will explore what drives industry leaders to propel their careers and prospect development forward.

For this month's piece. Joan Ogwumike, Apra-IL member and volunteer, interviews Beth Inman, National Director, Prospect Management for JDFR.

Beth Inman is the National Director, Prospect Management for JDRF, the world’s largest nonprofit funder of type 1 diabetes research, and is based in Charleston, SC; a position she’s held since November 2017. Prior to joining JDRF, she was the Senior Director of Prospect Management & Research Analysis at the University of South Carolina and Director of Development Services at The Citadel Foundation. At all three of these organizations, she was hired into newly created positions designed to introduce prospect management systems to drive the work of the major gifts enterprises.

Before her development career, Beth was the associate curator of American and decorative art at the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC. She is currently in her second year on the Ethics & Compliance Committee for Apra International and serves as Immediate Past President of Apra Carolinas. Beth is a native of Charlotte, NC and holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a master’s degree in art history from the University of South Carolina. She is mom to a 15-year-old daughter and is passionate about literacy, the arts, and women’s rights causes.

Apra-IL: Describe your journey into your current position.

Inman: My bachelor’s and master’s degrees are in art history and I went to graduate school with the goal of being a curator in an art museum. For the first part of my career, I worked as a curator for a history museum and then as the associate curator of American and decorative art at the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, South Carolina. They were both great experiences and I loved my work, but life led me to Charleston, South Carolina and continuing in the museum world wasn’t an option. I landed at The Citadel Foundation (the fundraising unit for The Citadel, The Military College of SC) in 2007 as the new Chief Development Officer’s executive assistant. That was such a great way to learn the ins and outs of development! I scheduled donor visits for him, accompanied him to meetings with Deans, sat in on meetings with the major gift officers, etc. About a year later, I was promoted into the new Director of Development Services position and over the next 3+ years, I created a prospect management program there.

In 2011, I moved back to Columbia, South Carolina to be the new Senior Director of Prospect Management & Research Analysis at the University of South Carolina. South Carolina was in the quiet phase of the state’s first $1B capital campaign and didn’t have a formal prospect management program, so I had my work cut out for me! In 2017, after almost 6 ½ years at South Carolina, I accepted the opportunity to be JDRF’s first National Director, Prospect Management. I saw it as a great way to utilize my experience in building higher-education prospect management program for a national cause-based organization. My first 18 months have been a whirlwind of learning a new database (Salesforce), learning how development works in such a large organization, and learning how to work remotely and it has been amazing!

Apra-IL: As a leader, can you tell us what motivates you in your current field? And perhaps whether your motivations have ever changed?

Inman: What motivates me is figuring out ways to identify more prospects, ‘clearing the tracks’ for my team so they can focus on what they do best, learning different ways to summarize & visualize data, and advocating for prospect management both within my organization and outside. I am also motivated by learning in the broadest sense; I get so excited when I have an opportunity to learn something new (I’ve been learning about Excel’s Power Maps) or when I figure something out/have an “a-ha!” moment (why a report wasn’t pulling the way it should). In many of our organizations, we are often the first place someone in our shop comes for help and that’s a great way to build relationships with gift officers, leadership, etc. and if we didn’t know the answer but found it, we learned something new, as well. Win-win! On the flip side, we can’t be afraid to ask for help either!

Apra-IL: What role has Apra played in your professional journey?

Inman: Apra, at both the national and chapter level, has played a significant role in my professional journey; I have learned so much about leadership, organization, delegating, conference planning, and even unexpected skills like updating our chapter’s website and filing with the North Carolina and South Carolina Secretaries of State offices! I am confident Apra will help me continue to add to this list as I progress in my career!

Apra-IL: Could you tell us one misconception people have about professionals in Prospect Development? What is the truth?

Inman: The role that prospect development plays differs slightly from organization to organization but something I’ve heard (granted, it’s been a long time) to describe us is “police” or that we’re “policing” what the fundraisers do. It used to make me angry because I vehemently disagree with the sentiment, but I learned to use those moments when the term came up to have a productive conversation about why they felt that way and also to educate them about how they can benefit from utilizing prospect development. Taking that approach proved to be helpful!

Apra-IL: How would you define a leader in Prospect Development?

Inman: Leaders in Prospect Development are nimble, diplomatic, open-minded, curious, persistent, and patient. It is also important to have the ability to think big-picture while also being comfortable “in the weeds.” We are often creating or editing policies and procedures so attention to detail is really important – at the same time, we’re also thinking about where we want our teams to be in the future so the ability to think strategically is also valuable.

Apra-IL Presents: 20 Questions with ... Amy Tibbs

Fri, 31 May 2019 12:52:46 GMT

Apra-IL Presents 20 Questions with ... Amy Tibbs

Amy joined National Audubon Society in 2018 and previously held prospect research positions at Elmhurst College, North Park University, and Rush University Medical Center. Amy has been involved with Apra-IL as chapter secretary and on the programming committee. She enjoys binging TV shows while surrounded by her favorite creatures (canine, feline, and human) and is excited that spring is (almost) sprung in Chicago!

1. Favorite meal of the day?

Snacks, I’m on Team Snacks all the way.

2. How many unread emails are in your work inbox?

Four unread in my inbox, with about 20 non-urgent/actionable unread emails in curated folders.

3. What keeps you engaged during a very long meeting?

Humor and memes thrown into a PowerPoint. I’m a sucker for a good Office or Parks & Rec gif.

4. If you were not in Prospect Development, what career would you have?

Probably something lame, because prospect development is basically the best. I always toy with the idea of going back to school to become a librarian (like so many in our field), which would be the polar opposite of lame.

5. If it was year 2080 and someone in your role traveled back in time to meet you, what would you tell them about Prospect Development in 2019?

“No, no one entered contact reports back in my day, either.”

6. When you are overwhelmed with deadlines, what is the first thing you do?

Write out a list, make a game plan, and close non-essential tabs.

7. What is your favorite thing about the National Audubon Society?

I love being with an organization that has been around for over a century, advocating for conservation and environmental protections the entire time, something that is so important now. Also, obviously, the beautiful bird paintings.

8. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

My work connects people interested in our mission with ways they can support our endeavors.

9. What is the best part of working in Prospect Development?

Being able to indulge my curious nature for the greater good.

10. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

So much! But building my network of peers locally and nationally has been helpful with my career and personally fulfilling.

11. When you come to the Apra-IL meet-ups, what or who do you also make time to visit?

It’s all about the members! I love connecting with friends and former colleagues, but one of my favorite things is meeting new Apra-IL members and researchers new to the field.

12. What book are you reading right now?

Re-reading Bad Blood by John Carreyrou about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos for book club. Bonkers! See also: The Dropout podcast and HBO’s The Inventor

13. What book would you recommend to people?

Oh man, tough question. Lincoln in the Bardo from a few years back, and I recommend the audio book in particular for the voice cast. It’s a solid story and put me on spiral of reading related books for a few months. It prompted me to reread The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, which I also highly recommend.

14. What is your favorite restaurant in your city/town?

Burger Antics in lovely Brookfield, IL – half a block from a Metra stop and super tasty. Everyone should go. Let me know when you’re coming!

15. What is your favorite Season?

Summer – I’ll complain about the heat, but the days can feel gloriously endless.

16. Tea or coffee?

Coffee

17. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

Is it the worst cliché to say the Obamas? I don’t care. The Obamas, one hundred percent.

18. What is your favorite animal, and would you want it as a pet?

I feel like I should say birds, but I cannot. We have two dogs and a cat, so I feel obligated to say they are all my favorite.

19. What is the best advice you have ever received?

“Keep Moving Forward” (from Meet the Robinsons but also, in a variety of similar phrases, from the strong women in my family).

20. What is something new you learned at work today or worked on?

SUPER YACHTS. I feel like there are a lot of stories lately about super yachts – their architects and designers, people who own them, and my favorite, a Forbes article about the “Ten Best Ways to Protect from Pirates and Paparazzi.” I’m not obsessed, but also I’m not not-obsessed.

Apra-IL Presents: 20 Questions with ... Evan Smeenge

Mon, 06 May 2019 12:44:55 GMT

Apra-IL Presents 20 Questions with ... Evan Smeenge

I am a Michigander who loves travelling. I dragged my then girlfriend, now wife, along to London where we both studied for our Master of Arts degrees, mine is in Museum and Gallery Studies. I was able to visit 20+ cities over that short period of time.

I’m an impassioned non-profit worker, currently, Manager of Prospect Management and Discovery at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. I have been emboldened to make sure the people I can help are helped, and those who I come in contact with have just as much opportunity that I have had; taking on the seemingly impossible.

I am excited to someday lead an organization with this goal.

I am Evan Smeenge.

1.You have experience in the Museum sector, what has challenged you lately?

My departure from the collections and curatorial part of museums.

2. What is something interesting that would surprise people about fundraising for a Museum?

The numerous paths to pull a donor in.

3. What is your favorite exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry?

Numbers in Nature is fascinating, but my favorite is U-505 … WWII geek.

4. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

I support the fundraising effort by discovering new prospective donors and placing them in fundraisers' portfolios. Normally, the person doesn’t understand, so they stop asking.

5. Describe Prospect Development with three adjectives?

Inquisitive, aggravating, personable

6. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

Connected me with some lovely people throughout the country!

7. When you come to the Apra-IL meet-ups, what do you always make sure to make time to visit?

Nothing, just love being with the Apra-IL peeps!

8. In what city would you love to attend the Apra International conference?

Seattle

9. If you were not in Prospect Development, what career would you have?

Archaeologist

10. In a day, how often do you drink a cup of coffee?

Two cups per morning. Maybe one in the afternoon.

11. How many meetings did you have this week?

Ten

12. Do you have lunch at your desk or away?

Always at my desk.

13. What book are you reading right now?

Oliver Twist

14. What book would you recommend to people?

Any book on Napoleon’s life!

15. What is your favorite Season?

Autumn

16. Candy or chocolate?

Obviously chocolate ...

17. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

Since I’m very focused on my family history right now, probably one of my ancestors. Perhaps one from over 1,000 years ago.

18. What country do you wish to visit?

With all my travels, I still haven’t visited Ireland!!!

19. Best advice you have ever received?

Take the help you are given.

20. What is something new you just learned or worked on at work?

Pivot tables!!!

Apra-IL Presents: 20 Questions with ... Megan Humphrey

Mon, 08 Apr 2019 12:52:51 GMT

Apra-IL Presents 20 Questions with ... Megan Humphrey

Megan has the good fortune of serving on the talented prospect research team at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. Before joining prospect development, she spent many years at the American Library Association, where she managed a national public awareness campaign to promote the value of libraries. Megan is also the new President of Apra-Illinois.

1. What must you start your morning off with, tea or coffee?

Either.

2. How many unread emails are in your work inbox?

Well, you never know when you might need an old email (I’m an email hoarder).

3. How many meetings do you have in a week?

Not too many! Between one to three.

4. If you were not in Prospect Development, what career would you choose?

I spent time in communications and marketing for non-profits before becoming a prospect researcher.

5. If you could travel back in time and meet the first person to ever have your role, what would you say to them?

I would ask them all of the questions. I’m a researcher – I love asking questions!

6. What is the first thing you do when you find out that you have multiple projects with close deadlines?

Make a plan.

7.What is your favorite thing on your work desk?

A few years ago for my birthday, my friend Annette made what is essentially an interactive art piece from an old office Rolodex. There are bandages under “B,” earplugs under “E,” paper drink umbrellas under “U,” etc. It is wonderful.

8. How do you explain your role to people outside of Development?

“I work in fundraising” is usually the amount of information people seem satisfied with.

9. What is the best part of working in Prospect Development?

There is so much to be curious about, and I get to be curious all day long!

10. What is one thing Apra has done for you?

Connecting with people from other types of institutions

11. When you come to the Apra-IL meet-ups, what do you always make sure to make time to visit?

I live in Chicago, so at meet-ups I make sure to chat with new people.

12. What book are you reading right now?

The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles, a novelist who lives in Chicago

13. What book would you recommend to people?

A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon

14. What is your favorite museum in your city/town?

I’m a member of the Art Institute of Chicago and love that I can dip in and out throughout the year, re-visiting favorites and catching new exhibits.

15. What is your favorite Season?

I like every season but prefer spring much less than the others until the moment that trees begin to flower, and then spring is my favorite…until summer.

16. Candy or chocolate?

All of the candy.

17. If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

Anyone from the distant past who would be patient and answer all of my questions about what daily life was like in their time.

18. What country do you wish to visit?

Norway… and Japan… and Chile

19. Best advice you have ever received?

Always read the footnotes.

20. What is something new you just learned or worked on at work?

I learned more about the SEC form D.

Match Makers Season 2: Round 4 - Finale!

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 14:48:43 GMT

Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition

The working relationship between prospect management professionals, data analytics, researchers and gift offers can make or break a shop's morale, efficiency, and ability to reach its goals! In an ode to all the popular reality match making shows, we present to you the second season of Apra-IL's series - Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition. Strengths and working style capabilities will be tested through random assignments, so have some fun with us as we imagine a world where we could match our perfect prospect development team whit a gift officer.

Host: Welcome back everyone to Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition. This is our final week and challenge!

On the last episode, our two teams, The Builders and The Cultivators, competed in the challenge "There is Always a Twist," and had to create lists of people based on an RFM (Recency, Frequency, and Monetary) model. But there was a twist: each person had to have a capacity rating above $50,000, could not have active steps, and could not be managed by a DO. The Cultivators won the challenge, bringing us to the finale of the competition with a tie.

Remember that both teams consist of prospect researchers, prospect management professionals, and data analytics professionals that need to collaborate within their specific teams, and harness their skills to win different challenges in order to become one development officer’s perfect team match at Ordinary University.

Let’s reintroduce our teams-

Team one, The Builders: Melissa who is our Season One winner and prospect researcher, Michelle from prospect management, and Juanita from analytics.

Team two is called, The Cultivators: let’s welcome Charles from prospect research, Shayla from prospect management, and Lauren from analytics.

And our development officer (DO) Anthony who will be our challenge judge.

Audience, our third and final challenge is called "I’m the Map."

The objective of this challenge is to create a map and visualize the top 50 people from Anthony’s portfolio based on one specific code in the University’s CRM. Each team must decide their own code and why they chose this method. The challenge will ultimately help Anthony focus on a specific group in his portfolio.

Once the visuals are in, we will hear from the teams about how they made their decision and Anthony will determine the winner of this challenge.

Teams, you have until the end week. Good luck!

*End of the week*

Host: Welcome back everyone. It is time to review the lists that both teams have created for Anthony. Remember, Anthony will decide the winner based on how the teams worked together, and came to their conclusion.

The Cultivators, please choose your spokesperson that will speak for you during this deliberation, and tell us how you built your list.

Charles, prospect research: Hello, my name is Charles and I will be speaking for my team this week. To tackle this project, we began by deciding on a code to use to filter, and concluded that the top 50 people should have the committee member code. We thought it would be great to map out the top 50 people in Anthony’s portfolio who were members of a committee and where they were clustered in the country.

We found that many were located in the Midwest region, and also found this to be extremely helpful for Anthony’s travel schedule and further engagement plans.

Host: Thank you. Great work, team! The Builders, please choose your spokesperson that will speak for you during this deliberation, and tell us how you built your list.

Melissa, prospect research: Hello, my name is Melissa and I will be speaking for The Builders this week. My team chose to pull the people in Anthony’s portfolio that were coded to have prospect research profiles. The research profiles validated the ratings and helped Anthony know his prospects’ capacity range. We chose the top 50 people, mapped them and found that many with profiles and major gift capacity ratings were closer to Ordinary University, and in the surrounding cities. This seemed like a perfect group for Anthony to email or call for visits based on proximity to the University. It would also be easy to bring these prospects to the University for special tours and meetings, for additional engagement.

Host: Great work team!

This is going to be hard Anthony, but what do you think of how both teams worked together, and their visuals?

Anthony: You are right this is hard. Both teams have done a fantastic job! The Cultivators really focused on people in committees, which is very important. I did not know that so many people in my portfolio were members of a committee at the University.

The Builders did a great job as well by focusing on people with prospect research profiles, and then mapping it out to reveal their proximity to the University.

Host: Anthony, it is time to tell us who is your perfect team match because whoever wins this challenge wins the competition. Who is the winner?

Anthony: Well, first I would like to thank you all for participating in this competition. You are all amazing fundraisers that are skilled in different ways that support and strengthen Ordinary University’s fundraising strategies.

With that said, the winner and my perfect team match is The Builders! The Builders won this challenge and ultimately have the title and role of my perfect team match.

Host: Folks this is so exciting! The Builders you are our winner!

Thank you to The Cultivators for participating and sharing your skills, not only with Anthony, but with our audience!

Thank you to Ordinary University for welcoming us back for Season 2!

And most importantly thank you to you, our audience, for being a part of this experience.

This has been Match Makers Season 2 The Prospect Development Edition.

Love Letters to Prospect Development

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 13:18:16 GMT

As love is in the air, we will share what we love about prospect development. Follow our weekly series (four entries throughout February) to discover the humor, pathos, and irony that comes from our ranks of Apra-IL members. You'll enjoy limericks, long-form poems, and odes to all aspects of Prospect Development and we cannot wait to hear your thoughts!

Devoted to My Database

By: Alex Mendez, Advancement Business Solutions Consultant, Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association and Treasurer, Apra-WI

The greatest foundation for any loving relationship is good communication. When moving in tandem, a synchronized pair can overcome even the most treacherous scenarios.

I’ve heard it over and over, but it wasn’t until I began working in prospect research that I came to really know the saying to be true. On my first day, I met a partner I’d soon come to rely on to get me through my most difficult challenges. I faced frustrations daily; losing hours in bottomless research. But my companion would never dwell on my mistakes. My every request was met with an instant response; I was understood. I counted on this knowing. Together, work became easier.

Eventually I learned the shortcomings. Came to appreciate the oddities. Love the quirks that encouraged our overwhelming oneness. Our symbiotic brilliance. And for two years I nurtured the relationship. But the flaws continued to creep into focus and the deficiencies began to pile high. I’d lose time trying to explain, wanting nothing more than to cut ties and proceed on my own. Then suddenly, as if overnight, I felt my perfect partner return to me. I began to receive the responses I’d longed for. The reactions I’d wished for; improvements I imagine we both wanted.

Again, I felt comfort and love for the coworker I needed most: my database. I'm thankful for our application developers and business intelligence teams for restoring our connection. Every newly required field, form, prompt and process improves our bond. We move as one. We research faster. Our communication is as smooth as ever. And now, again, the love and understanding feels shared.

Love Letters to Prospect Development

Mon, 18 Feb 2019 13:12:53 GMT

Passionate for Profiles

By: Joan Ogwumike, Founding Principal at Jstrategies and Prospect Research Analyst for Principal Gifts, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Dear Research Profile,

I write to you in a feverish dismay, longing for the next time we meet. For it has been two days since we were last together and time passes as though it works against our love. A day draws as though it fills its morning, noon, and night with envy and spite.

When shall we meet again?

Will Monday never come? For I await our reunion and welcome it with open arms.

Imagine, a new prospect awaits us and discoveries trickle from the tips of my fingers to your pages. I hope you reminisce on the fulfillment you gain when you learn biographical, business, philanthropic, and asset information.

Hold on to the fond memories, as we wait. For we must painfully grapple with the reality of time and its vengeance on our love.

But do not fear as I, dear profile, I know you long for our time together.

“Haste Monday, swiftly,” I say to it, “there is work to be done, asks to be made, and capacity ratings to be given.”

Our time together will be upon us once more. Slowly, but it comes as I impatiently wait.

My dear sweet, enriching, purpose-driven profile, I wait for you.

Sincerely,

Your loving Researcher

Match Makers Season 2: Round 3

Mon, 18 Feb 2019 13:00:00 GMT

Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition

Host: Welcome back, everyone, to Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition. It is a new week and a new challenge!

On the last episode, our two teams, The Builders and The Cultivators, competed in the challenge To Inherit or To Not Inherit, to create lists of people that Anthony could inherit from a previous DO’s portfolio. The Builders won the challenge and set the tone for the rest of the season.

Let’s reintroduce our teams-

Team one, The Builders, Melissa who is our Season One winner and prospect researcher, Michelle from prospect management, and Juanita from analytics.

Team two, The Cultivators, let’s welcome Charles from prospect research, Shayla from prospect management, and Lauren from analytics.

And our development officer (DO) Anthony who will also be our challenge judge.

Audience: our second challenge is called There is Always a Twist.

The objective of this challenge is to see how each team can successfully prospect and create a list of people based on an RFM (Recency, Frequency, and Monetary) model. But there is a twist, each person must have a capacity rating above $50,000, cannot have active steps, and cannot be managed by a DO.

Once the lists are in, we will hear from the teams about how they made their decision and Anthony will determine the winner of this challenge.

Teams, you have until the end week. Good luck!

*End of the week*

Host: Welcome back. It is time to review the lists that both teams have created for Anthony. Remember, Anthony will decide the winner based on how the teams worked together and came to their conclusion.

The Builders, please choose someone to speak for you during this deliberation, and tell us how you built your list.

Juanita, data analytics: Juanita here and I will be speaking for The Builders during this challenge. To build this list, our researcher put together a list of people who had the capacity to give above $50,000. Our prospect manager used that list to weed out all the people who had active steps and were managed by a DO. I took this list and organized the people based on their RFM score by segmenting (or grouping) them by their last gift date, how often they have given within the last three years, and their total gift amount within the last three years. We felt that three years was a good time frame to measure these individuals. Each group was ranked from one to five.

Host: Great work! The Cultivators, please choose your spokesperson and tell us how you built your list.

Lauren, data analytics: Hello! I'm Lauren and I will be speaking for The Cultivators. Everyone really worked together on this project: we began by pulling a list of all the unmanaged prospects who had given in the last fiscal year. We then narrowed the list down by how often they had made a gift and then segmented the list based on their capacity rating. We then created a ranking system and segmented the list based on total giving in the last fiscal year.

Host: Great work, team! Anthony, what do you think of how both teams worked together and built their lists?

Anthony: Both teams did an amazing job working together to build their lists. They are making it really hard for me, because they created great lists. I believe both lists are important and most likely overlap. The Builders did a fantastic job and I liked their ranking system.

The Cultivators also did a great job, but they produced a list I could use right away because I liked their time frame and focus on the last fiscal year.

Host: Who is our winner, Anthony?

Anthony: The Cultivators!

Host: The Cultivators have won the second challenge! This Season is really heating up! Both of our teams are tied!

Who will be Anthony’s perfect team match!?

Remember, these challenges are only going to get harder, and with one more challenge left, make sure to join us next time on Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition. At the end there will only be one match.

Love Letters to Prospect Development

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 13:18:36 GMT

Language of Love

Roses are sometimes red,

Violets are nearly always blue,

Thank you, Prospect Research,

For teaching me to never make a definitive statement about a prospective donor for fear of it coming back to me in an irate e-mail from a fundraiser.

Love Letters to Prospect Development

Mon, 11 Feb 2019 14:12:01 GMT

Limericks of Love

by Katie Ingrao, Manager, Prospect Research at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab

A good gift officer is rare

One with vigor and flair

They are worth the wait

Researchers wish they’d duplicate

Will HR hear our prayer?

Portfolio reviews happen twice a year

Gift Officers are bench-marked with their peers

Stress and anxiety abound

Goal and metrics pressures compound

At the close, all give a resounding cheer!

Love Letters to Prospect Development

Mon, 04 Feb 2019 14:18:56 GMT

An Ode to LexisNexis

by Kathryn Thomas, Senior Prospect Identification Analyst, the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association

LexisNexis, my most crucial tool;

Without you, I may just sit here and drool.

You’re always there, supplying me with data and suggestions;

When I’m stumped, I go to you for answers to my questions.

Yes, there are moments when your service is sketchy,

But it’s rare enough that I don’t get too kvetchy.

LexisNexis, we spend every day together;

We’ve been through ups and downs, but you’ve become my bellwether.

Whether I’m answering a request or proactively searching for a donor,

You’re there to help me brainstorm and prevent me becoming a moaner.

As this is the month to celebrate affections,

I’ve taken it upon myself to say without objections,

I’m grateful you exist; despite your imperfections.

Match Makers Season 2: Round 2

Mon, 04 Feb 2019 14:02:59 GMT

Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition

Host: Welcome back everyone to Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition. We are so happy to be back with our competitors at Ordinary University! During this Season, we will watch as two teams of prospect researchers, prospect management professionals, and data analytics face off and harness their skills to win different challenges in order to become one development officer’s perfect team match. Let’s reintroduce our teams- Team one is called The Builders, let’s welcome Melissa who is our Season One winner and prospect researcher, Michelle from prospect management, and Juanita from analytics.

Team two is called, The Cultivators, let’s welcome Charles from prospect research, Shayla from prospect management, and Lauren from analytics.

And our development officer (DO) Anthony who will also be our challenge judge.

Audience, our first challenge is called To Inherit or To Not Inherit?

The objective is to see how each team successfully transfers a previous colleague’s donors and prospects into Anthony’s portfolio. These donors and prospects consist of principal gifts, major gifts, and rated and unrated prospects/donors. It is up to the teams to determine who Anthony should inherit, and create a list.

Once the lists are in, we will hear from the teams on how they made their decision and Anthony will determine the winner of this challenge.

Teams, you have until the end week. Good luck!

*End of the week*

Host: Welcome back everyone. It is time to review the lists that both teams have created on who Anthony should inherit from a previous colleague. Remember, Anthony will decide the winner based on how the teams worked together, and choose the list of people he will inherit from the previous portfolio.

The Builders, please choose your spokesperson that will speak for you during this deliberation, and tell us how you built your list.

Michelle, prospect management: Hello, my name is Michelle and I will be speaking for The Builders. To build this list our researcher looked at all the interactions and ratings on each donor and prospect; I looked at how many had closed plans, were qualified, and how long they had been engaged by the previous DO; And Analytics mapped out the people who were in Anthony’s travel region. This was our process during the challenge, and it really worked out for us because out of 50 people we were able to create a list of 20 that were the best fit for Anthony. As a team, we also considered how many people Anthony currently had in his portfolio, and those who were being actively engaged. We did not give Anthony any principal gift prospects after speaking with the principal gifts program.

Host: Thank you Team! Great work! The Cultivators, please choose your spokesperson that will speak for you during this deliberation, and tell us how you built your list.

Shayla, prospect management: Hi, I’m Shayla and I will be speaking for The Cultivators during this challenge. We decided to focus on who the prospects and donors were, meaning their capacity ratings. We also took into consideration the current people in Anthony’s portfolio - Anthony has a lot of donors that need to be rated so we did not think he needed more. We also did not think it wise to give him any principal gift prospects based on the years of engagement by the previous DO, apprehension on having them meet someone new, and lastly Anthony’s years of experience in Development. No offense Anthony. We also decided to include some major gift donors because Anthony has brought in some major gifts all year. So, this was our process – out of the 50 people, Anthony inherited 30.

Host: Alright team! I see there was a lot of discussions on what Anthony could and could not handle. Shayla, did you all utilize Lauren from analytics in this challenge?

Shayla: No, we did not. We did not think it would be necessary.

Host: Alright! Thanks Shayla, great work. Anthony, what do you think of how both teams worked together, and built their lists?

Anthony: I thought they did a great job. I liked how The Builder utilized everyone in the team to truly build the list. They thought of ratings and interactions to mapping out locations, and strategically worked together to build a robust list of people that I could inherit.

The Cultivators did a great job as well. However, I wish they had utilized analytics because the point of the challenge was to collaborate as a team. I’m sure Lauren could have helped. Regardless, I liked the fact that they took a more micro approach into the content of my portfolio. They really analyzed the type of people who were currently in my portfolio, and who they could not add and why.

Host: Who is our winner Anthony?

Anthony: The Builders win this one. I liked the way everyone played a part in building the list. Both teams brought interesting strategies to creating the list, but The Builders really made sure that each person played a role and I believe they had a slightly stronger process in how they produced the list.

Host: The Builders! Great job on wining the first challenge!

Host: Well folks I think we have all learned a great lesson here: this is about building a team! And how you work together as a team is being analyzed.

So now that we have completed our first challenge, The Builders are leading and have set the bar high. I want our competitors to know that these challenges are only going to get harder. Remember to push yourselves, and think outside the box as you work together. Depend on one another’s skills! Thank you everyone!

Join us next time on Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition. At the end there will only be one match.

Match Makers Season 2: Round 1

Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:40:45 GMT

Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition

The working relationship between prospect management professionals, data analytics, researchers and gift officers can make or break a shop’s morale, efficiency, and ability to reach its goals! In an ode to all the popular reality match making shows, we present to you the second season of Apra-IL’s series -Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition. Strengths and working style capabilities will be tested through random assignments so have some fun with us as we imagine a world where we could match our perfect prospect development team with a gift officer.

Narrator: Welcome back to Ordinary University, small town USA! Today, we are back at OU for a second season of challenges with the advancement office! Since Season One, this shop has been on the forefront of matching the skills and strengths of researchers to their development officers (Dos) in order to build new portfolios and garner new and large gifts. In this second season, we will confront a new challenge: collaborations within prospect development.

At OU, prospect development professionals are divided into teams and only conduct their specific tasks with little collaboration. Therefore, in this season we will watch as two teams explore how prospect researchers can work with prospect management professionals and how prospect management can collaborate with data analytics. Most importantly, we will see how they can work together, within their specific teams, when faced with a project that harnesses their skills.

In this season we will have two teams that consist of one prospect researcher, one prospect manager, and one data analyst. Both teams will face off to be matched with one development officer who will also be our challenge judge that decides which team ultimately wins Match Makers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition.

Let’s welcome our teams: team one is called The Builders, and consists of Melissa who is our season one winner and prospect researcher, Michelle from prospect management, and Juanita from analytics.

Team two has named themselves, The Cultivators, and consists of Charles from prospect research, Shayla from prospect management, and Lauren from analytics.

These two teams consist of professionals from different backgrounds, with different experiences in prospect development. They all have cultivated great relationships with their officers, and have their own process in delivering their products.

Over the coming weeks we will be introduced to each team, and follow them on their collaboration journey. They will be tested on a series of challenges that involve, prospecting and portfolios to analyze their skills and compatibility with the DO, and their approach to producing a requested product as a team. The final result will be given to the DO to be analyzed for its usability, relevancy, and other preferred skills deemed optimal, he finds his perfect development team match.

Now let’s switch gears and meet Anthony our DO. Anthony is an alum of OU, a small-town native, and has been working in development for two years.

Over the course of three challenges, Anthony will decide his perfect development team, and we will be watching the entire journey. We hope you will join us next week on Match Markers Season 2: The Prospect Development Edition when Anthony meets the two teams and they begin their first challenge!

Motivations of Leaders: Preeti Gill

Fri, 07 Dec 2018 16:26:59 GMT

What makes prospect development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, Apra-IL member and volunteer, interviews Preeti Gill, Associate Manager of Prospect Development at Covenant House Vancouver and Founder of Sole Searcher Strategies.

Preeti Gill is an experienced prospect development professional in Vancouver, Canada. She has re-energized research and prospect management programs in education, the community foundation movement, health care and social services. At Covenant House Vancouver, Preeti is employing a gender lens to create a new(ish) prospect development program that supports both an ambitious capital campaign and a growing major gift fundraising team. She recently joined the group of advisors at Women’s Giving Circles International.

Apra-IL: Preeti, you have been very vocal about advocacy and Women and People of Color in Philanthropy. Can you share with our readers what advocacy means to you? And why you focus on Women and People of Color?

Gill: Well, just look at me…

Let’s be honest and real: do you think a short brown girl from a small mill town will successfully secure millions from a middle-aged white corporate dude? I knew the answer early on in my career, whether subconsciously or otherwise. Instead, I managed to find a supportive space in prospect development (PD) and make a small contribution to institutional philanthropy as an alternative.

I don’t stop and think about advocacy as a concept. I’m just not afraid to speak up when I feel disrespected or when my work – when our work – is needlessly discredited due to uninformed opinion. I hope that you feel empowered to speak up, too.

If you’ve heard me speak at a conference or read my blog, you’ll know that advancing female philanthropy is a personal mission, born out of stories of generous women not being adequately acknowledged, simply put. Their stories motivated me to enhance my own understanding of different donor segments and advocate for them as viable major giving prospects from my place in PD.

Women continue to be ignored if they’re not purchasing yachts or making mega-gifts. Wealthy people of color are treated as a “new” and “emerging” group of prospects, when they’ve given back to their families, communities, mosques, temples (as well as the charities you and I support) forever.

I choose to deliberately and intentionally focus on women and POC donors in my PD practice because they give more than we think they do; and they deserve recognition for their philanthropic efforts. Also, we can’t afford to ignore them anymore since our current donor pool is shrinking.

Apra-IL: In hindsight, would you say that advocating for these topics has kept you motivated to continue to build your career in Prospect Development? What else has kept you going?

Gill: Of course! Information is power.

I’ve had many opportunities to grow and evolve in PD which I think is more diverse of a field than it’s given credit for. It’s from my place in PD that I’ve had the opportunity to build curiosity, think differently, and come up with creative strategies to advance certain donor segments, in collaboration with donor-facing colleagues.

Learning motivates me a great deal. There are so many ways to be a better researcher with no formal or standard training; and I’ve been fortunate to take advantage of many diverse learning opportunities. In 2019, I’m planning to take courses in financial planning and board leadership and attend conferences focused on women’s rights and advancement services. How’s that for variety?

I’ve always been motivated by the generous people I research. Following the stories of some successful people in the philanthropic sector have kept me going, especially on days when I felt like giving up and going away. Check out Hali Lee at the Asian Women’s Giving Circle. She has done ground breaking work developing a welcoming space for wealthy donors of color in philanthropy. Explore the major gifts that Neda Nobari has made her to alma mater San Francisco State University, to foster understanding of the Iranian American experience. Follow Virgil Roberts at the African American Board Leadership Institute which is connecting black professionals with non-profit boards who need their guidance and expertise.

All their efforts keep me going and motivate me to do my part in PD.

Apra-IL: What role has Apra played in your career?

Gill: Joining Apra-Canada early in my career was one of the best decisions, I must say. I began volunteering just a few months after joining, so I started to work alongside different people outside my organization which truly opened up my world. As a collaborative association, Apra warms my heart and soul.

I think Apra can do more to address diversity and inclusion issues in the future, but the board requires pressure by its membership to do so. One starting point is to simply acknowledge and appreciate our differences. For example, sometimes I get the feeling that PD professionals look down on researchers while looking up to data scientists. Our learning opportunities seem to be increasingly segregated, perhaps as a consequence. I’m not down with that. Often, it’s the stalwart researcher who draws on both technical and soft skills to communicate the results and meaning of raw data, right alongside our rock star analytics counterparts.

Apra-IL: As professionals in Prospect Development, do you think we should have a voice in the issue of Diversity and Inclusion in Fundraising? And for those reading, inspired by you, how can they become allies on this issue or begin their advocacy journey for the field of Prospect Development or Fundraising?

Gill: Why not? I have to ask you right back because for so long prospect research and what we now call Prospect Development was dominated (and may still be) by smart women. PD professional women are paid less than our male counterparts, as Apra’s salary survey clearly demonstrated. We need to address this inequity inside and outside of PD.

Why leave this complex issue up to front-line fundraisers especially since that field is dominated by white women asking white men for money. (Yes, I just said that.)

I suggest starting your own advocacy journey by assessing your own life and career goals. How are you feeling about your work, your co-workers, your organization’s mission? If you’re feeling good and optimistic about the future, keep going. If not, figure out what will make you more effective and happier. As a PD professional, you have many choices and a lot to offer the philanthropic sector, recognizing that change requires courageous confidence.

Also, hone your own perspective. No one really cares about how much you know about other people’s money. They care about your perspective, the one you’ve honed through formal education, countless hours researching and analyzing donors and working alongside front-line staff crafting meaningful donor engagement and ask strategies.

The best way to be an ally is to participate in philanthropy outside of your PD role. Volunteer your time for an organization you care about. Donate, no matter the amount. Join a giving circle. Learn how to set up a donor advised fund. Reach out to other fundraising professionals just to talk about the issues in your community. Participating more fully in philanthropy will make you a better researcher, but more importantly, contribute to social change which philanthropy seeks to address in the first place.

Apra-IL: Fill in the blank with a piece of advice you wish you had received in your first Prospect Development role: When in doubt, _________.

Gill: Don’t react. Plan and act!

Full disclosure: I saw this on a sign; it was part of an activism exhibit at the Cultural Center in Chicago. It’s such good advice that I’ve tried to adhere to since coming across it. It makes sense for those in our field, being the prudent, resourceful and thoughtful professionals that we are in PD.

I think it’s easier to react sometimes, whether it’s to a profile request or a feeling you get when you feel you’ve been treated a certain kind of way. May I suggest: breathe deep. Step back. Then figure out how to proceed. Your future self will be grateful, in my humble opinion.

Tales of Terror: The Prospect Development Edition

Wed, 31 Oct 2018 14:25:03 GMT

Apra-IL presents Tales of Terror: The Prospect Development Edition. Inspired by series such as Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Goosebumps, this series will present stories that thrill, excite, and chill you to the bone ... just in time for Halloween!

This story is brought to us by Amy Tibbs, Development Research Associate at the National Audubon Society and Apra-IL Secretary. Prepare yourself for a wild ride through the unincorporated territory of a database gone feral in Dial D for Data.

Dial D for Data

On a bright, crisp fall morning, as the leaves are starting to turn, Sheila walks through campus. “I got this,” she thinks. Having just started a new gig, she’s ready to prep for her first meeting with her gift officers. Sure, she doesn’t yet know everything there is to know about their portfolios. And she’s still figuring out everyone’s style. Sure, the database seems a little chaotic, but her predecessor Frederick did leave behind a manual. Well, “manual” is a strong word; pile of documents in a file drawer may be a better description … stack of scraps and post-its would be more accurate. Given Frederick’s mysterious disappearance, she’s just glad to have some guidance.

Shaking off a chill as she passes through the graveyard next to her office, she bounds up the stairs. Waving to colleagues and bypassing the morning hellos, Sheila spends an hour testing the multitude of reports in the system and digging in to see how they were built. In minutes, she discovers that Frederick updated his reports almost daily and never deleted or re-wrote the previous versions. She realizes organizing reports could be a full-time job! As she struggles through page after page of v.1, v.10, v.59, her inbox begins filling up with gift officer notes. She reads one about a professor driving a Tesla, which results in a request for a capacity review, and starts into another that begins, “Do you think that Jenny and John Smith are part of THE Smiths? How about a full family tree…” and she quickly closes Outlook. With little time to spare, she pulls a rudimentary portfolio review and heads to the conference room.

Sheila sits down and begins reading through the gift officer portfolio reports, but she can’t make sense of the data. Gift totals aren’t adding up, last actions are all over the place, and time in stage ranges from zero to 730 days! The last lives on a record for a couple that recently made a huge gift – everyone in town has been talking about it ever since.

A few gift officers arrive early and Sheila takes advantage of the smaller group to ask them what the process has been like on their end. They look at her blankly. “But do you see how there’s an update to this record from last week? Who put it in? I just want to know who to ask for some insight …” Sheila trails off as the fundraisers grin and assure her that the information in the system is good, and Sheila should trust it. How are the Jones and Smith projects coming along, by the way? The meeting goes on around her, but Sheila cannot stop thinking that this is all strange. Why are people holding out on such basic information; information she needs to do her job?

Later at the coffee machine, a newer gift officer approaches Sheila and furtively pleads with her, “You have to stop asking questions. Please! Stop! Don’t you see? I thought it was strange, too, but you have to stop asking, Sheila!”

“What!? What do you mean? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?!”

“Sheila, the gift officers all input their own data. Everyone has full editing access in the database. They’re changing addresses on a whim, adjusting allocations on gifts that don’t jive with the information in finance, they change criteria in the queries that feed our reports. They are even entering their own research notes based on Google searches. I saw them record that Jenny and John Smith have seven multimillion dollar homes. They rated them $1 kajillion dollars! I know Jenny! She works at Panera! They live in ONE house!”

Taking a breath, he quietly ends with, “I’ve said too much. I have to go.”

“That was weird,” Sheila thinks. But when she returns to her desk, she pulls up the Smiths’ record. And indeed, the couple has a free-text capacity rating of $1 kajillion. Mumbling to herself, Sheila wonders, “Why aren’t ratings recorded in a code table? Is kajillion a real number? It can’t be, right? No – Google confirms it. It’s a slang term and not a real number!” The Smiths’ record has seven current mailing addresses. Their birthdates are seventy-three years apart and they have zero history of giving or interacting with development. Despite that, their stage is listed as “Super Cultivation” and there is a projected ask of $2million! Confoundedly, the couple’s record also has some information correct: Jenny is listed as working at Panera Bread and John’s occupation is correctly identified as paper sales.

Her belly full of dread, Sheila knocks on the Executive Director’s door. Sitting down, she asks whether she understands correctly: that everyone in the office has full access to edit the database. The ED swivels around and stares at Sheila. As she continues to talk, she hears her voice growing frantic, “But who is vetting the information? How are you pulling information if everything is going into the database all willy-nilly?” The ED responds, “We know what’s best for our people, Sheila, and we know how to Google things just like you do. Run along now and build us some dashboards. We’re particularly interested in discovering whether prospects with male dogs are also interested in recreational sports and if so, what their super-secret-sub-stage is and where they are in the pipeline.”

Sheila, struck dumb, stammers, “But … but … that information is not … what? That information is … it doesn’t exist in the database in any way we could report out and … nothing is managed and …”

The ED breaks in, “Oh dear, Sheila. Don’t you get it? That is why you are here. It is yours to manage, but we’ll control the information.” With an evil chuckle, she swivels away and Sheila exits the office.

Back at her desk, Sheila’s inbox has exploded with requests for research, record updates, relationship connections, stage changes … why doesn’t anyone talk with her face-to-face? What’s with the influx of requests? Completely overwhelmed and perplexed, Sheila heads outside for a walk. As she passes the graveyard, she notices a freshly dug grave. With great trepidation, she approaches the headstone, which reads, “Frederick Meusch – b. 1974 d. 2017 -- He just couldn’t stop saying data integrity.”

Gasping, she turns on her heel to see the entire development team at the iron gates. Marching slowly toward her through the graveyard, they chant, “The data is good … The data is fine … Do your job or it’s your time.”

~Fin~

Tales of Terror: The Prospect Development Edition

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 12:42:21 GMT

This story is brought to us by Katie Fanning, Senior Analyst, Prospect Research and Amelia Aldred, Lead Analyst at the University of Chicago. Walk with them through this twisting exchange that travels the globe and the bounds of your credulity.

The Mysterious Advancement of Jacob Harding

Date: September 25, 2010

To: Caitlin Mire

From: Jacob Harding

Subject: Quick Lookup?

Hi Caitlin,

I have a quick turnaround request – I just got a visit with an alum that I think has a lot of potential. Could you do some research on him? His name is Voievode Nicolae Lupei Basarab (see attached business card). I think part of the name might be a title though.

I met his personal assistant (I think? I wasn't clear what the relationship was exactly, but he definitely works for the guy) at the alumni event in Vienna. The PA gave me the business card and said that Voievode Nicolae was sorry he couldn't attend but would like to meet with me if my travel schedule allowed. I let him know that I was going to be in Europe for another week and scheduled a visit while I'm here.

Here are my questions:

-He sent an assistant to meet me and from talking to the PA, it sounds like the alum lives on an estate in the country; – I'm definitely thinking family money. Is there any info on the family/wealth etc?

-It sounds like the alum found out about the event from his network as he wasn't actually on the invite list (I didn't mention that, of course!). Can you tell me what his degree/year/affiliation is?

-Anything else you can find: other philanthropy, etc.

I know this is really last minute but any additional information would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Jake

Jacob Harding

Director of International Advancement

Office of Alumni Relations and Development

Carfax University

---------

Date: September 26, 2010

To: Jacob Harding

From: Caitlin Mire

Subject: Re: Quick Lookup?

Jacob,

You’ve got a live one there!

Although I wasn’t able to find much on Mr. Basarab personally, I suspect you’re correct about family money. The Basarab House has been prominent in Romania since the early 1300s when they established the principality of Wallachia. The family actually predates modern Romania by over 500 years.

Voievode looks to be a hereditary title analogous to a crown prince but with a distinctly military bent. The Basarab family has had the right to it since their inception. At some point, the family split into two lines: Dănești and Drăculești. It looks like the Drăculești line lasted a lot longer. Given Mr. Basarab is still using Voievode, I would bet he’s one of their descendants.

Although a hereditary title would be functionally useless in modern Romania (no legal standing), it’s still a good sign for social standing (and wealth!) that he’s able to use it.

I did find some information that there’s a family estate nearish Pitești though there’s conflicting reports as to whether or not it’s even inhabitable. Apparently, the Romanian government has tried (unsuccessfully) to take possession of it on several occasions. Can you confirm the location of your meeting? If he’s in residence, I would bet Mr. Basarab still has some claim.

As for his affiliation, that’s a little unclear. I wasn’t actually able to find a Basarab in the database but those records aren’t great for our older alumni. I ran by the library just in case and I did find a PhD thesis on Ioan de Hunedoara submitted to the history department by a Nicolae Basarab but it was from 1897. Unless Mr. Basarab has the world’s best diet, it’s not him. Probably a relative – Basarab isn’t a super common name. Could be an interesting conversation starter.

It looks like he has some giving (amount unreported) to the ELN Foundation, which supports European leukemia research.

I’d love to hear an update when you get back.

Caitlin Mire

Senior Analyst, Prospect Research

Office of Alumni Relations and Development

Carfax University

---------

Date: September 28, 2010

To: Caitlin Mire

From: Jacob Harding

Subject: Quick Lookup?

Hi Caitlin,

Thank you so much for the quick turnaround! You are a rock star.

I visited Mr. Basarab at his family estate today; it is an actual castle in the Carpathian mountains, surrounded by miles of forest. The castle is beautifully furnished, all antiques including some lovely medieval weapons and tapestries hanging in the hall. I attached a photo of the great hall. Mr. Basarab is posed by the suit of armor but he just shows up as a shadow (he must have moved). I suspect that you are on the right track regarding his family history – I noticed that several of the older paintings had the name Drăculești, including one that was nearly identical to Mr. Basarab. I mentioned the likeness and he laughed.

He seems to live very comfortably and does not appear to have a career outside managing the estate so I suspect that there is still family wealth. I tried to steer the conversation to his experience at the University and get a sense of what years he attended, but he only said that he attended “very long ago.”

I mentioned the PhD thesis you found and asked if he knew of any ancestors who attended the University. He said that history was a family passion and we had long conversation about the history of the area, of which he was very knowledgeable.

I tried to update Mr. Basarab on the University’s current activities but he was apathetic. He was very interested in me: he asked how long I had worked for the University, if I had family in Chicago, when they were expecting me back, etc. It was a little odd, to tell the truth.

Mr. Basarab has invited me to stay for a few days, hopefully I will find out more about his connection to the University and get a better sense of his gift capacity and interests.

-J

Jacob Harding

Director of International Advancement

Office of Alumni Relations and Development

Carfax University

---------

Date: October 1, 2010

From: Liz Wells

To: Caitlin Mire

Subject: Fwd: Jacob Harding Announcement

Hi Caitlin, got this announcement – forwarding it to you in case you didn't get it. I know you were the liaison for Jake. Apparently, it was really out of the blue (he emailed Johanna from Bucharest and starts his new job immediately). You can put his projects on hold for now, until we get a new International Advancement officer.

-Liz

----------

Dear Colleagues,

It is with mixed emotions that I announce the departure of Jacob Harding. He has accepted an opportunity to direct the Basarab Family Foundation, headquartered in Romania. Jacob served at the University for five years, during which he worked tirelessly to build up our International Advancement team. We wish Jacob the best of luck on his future endeavors!

Sincerely,

Johanna

Johanna Vanhelm

Vice President of Alumni Relations and Development

--------

Date: June 20, 2018

To: Mindy Murray

From: Lucy West

Subject: Capacity Rating for Nicolae Lupei Basarab?

Hi Mindy,

I was looking over the list you pulled of unengaged alumni in Europe and I wondered if you could do a cap rating for Nicolae Lupei Basarab (Entity ID: 0007846351). I see that some research was done on him several years ago and he was visited but no contact report was entered.

I'm putting together a visit list for my upcoming Europe trip and I plan on doing some qualification visits.

Thanks in advance,

Lucy

Lucy N. West

Director of International Advancement

Office of Alumni Relations and Development

Carfax University

The End.

Tales of Terror: The Prospect Development Edition

Wed, 17 Oct 2018 14:49:55 GMT

The first in the series was written by Katie Ingrao, Associate Director of Prospect Management at the National Audubon Society. Katie's story follows a Researcher desperately trying to find their way out of a tangled web of data while being foiled at every turn by inefficient and malicious management practices. Turn your lights on and sit with your back to the wall for this one, folks!

Moans from Policy Purgatory

On all Hollow’s Eve, in a quiet little development office, there dwelled a dedicated prospect management professional (PM). The leaves outside her window were bursting with autumnal colors and were beginning to flutter down to carpet the ground in soft mounds. This seasonal symphony of color and tempest winds could only mean one thing. Its portfolio review time! Our PM was feeling the buzz in the air and was becoming giddy with excitement to unveil her new dashboards developed over the summer. “These dashboards are the best I’ve done yet! My Development Officers will find them so helpful and convenient for quickly accessing their metric progress!” PM exclaimed. This excitement was contagious among her team and review meetings were hastily scheduled.

On the day of the big dashboard unveiling, PM anxiously watched the seconds tick down on the clock until she could begin setting up the conference room. The tap tap tap tapping of her cubicle neighbors’ keys and the slurp slurp slurping of her coworker’s PSL grated on her nerves; tightened her shoulders, until the clock struck 10 and she sprang into action! She strode down the hall towards the conference room with confidence and vigor.

PM’s co-workers slowly filtered into the conference room as the excitement and nervous jitters began to settle into PM’s stomach. “Just take a deep breath and clearly express the advantage of these new dashboards and you’ll be fine,” PM thinks to herself as she walks to the front of the room. As the presentation begins, PM unveils the first dashboard that displays each team’s progress to goal. The reaction is hushed but PM notices a growing murmur from the audience. PM’s eyes dart around the room in an ever-increasing speed as the rise of side conversations and remarks reach a crescendo and PM’s Director exclaims, “Ok everyone! Let’s let PM finish explaining the new dashboards and why we are transitioning our perspective on reporting metrics. We developed these to directly address your repeated requests for transparency and access to data.” This interruption allows PM to exhale and get her bearings and prepare for the onslaught of Development Officer’s dissection and interrogation of her reports. “I think maybe we pause and answer some initial questions before I continue on.” PM shakily states to the room.

PM looks out into the audience and calls on the most vocal and divisive Development Officer thinking to herself “Let’s just start with the most difficult objections first”. This Development Officer, PM knew is a talented fundraiser and definitely appreciates their skill and gumption when dealing with prospects but she really found her public questioning terrifying! “How did you determine the calculation of the qualification rate? I don’t think that a prospect can be truly disqualified until I’ve spoken with them and I think it’s unrealistic to give us only 3 months to qualify” the Development Officer declares. The Leadership Annual Giving Officer next to the Development Officer vigorously nods her head in agreement and adds, “Forcing us to give up good prospects just because of an arbitrary time period has passed rushes our process and lets good people slip through the cracks!” And then the Principal Gift Officer pipes in with his own grievance “And how come we can’t hold onto important VIP prospects even if they haven’t given in the last 3 years? They are HNWI and I’m still thinking of a strategy to get in front of them.” Following this comment, the room breaks out into further buzzing of agreements and the opinions of everyone in the room “Well, I don’t want my loyal annual givers to be taken away from me because you all need prospects because of this!” “I think we need to think more strategically about how we divide up our portfolios” “Maybe we just scrap this whole thing” causing a cacophony of noise.

These dissents were causing PM’s heartbeat to jump in her chest and a prickling sweat to break out across her body. “This was supposed to be a fun and exciting presentation to show my thoughtful work based on their issues and desires for prospect management reporting. How could it have devolved into chaos so quickly?!” PM thinks to herself. To the building dissenters in the room PM states, “I understand your concerns about ensuring that you have truly disqualified someone but in order to reach our fundraising goals, we need to churn and qualify at a higher rate. That means we need to limit the time we devote to qualifying and cultivating someone so we don’t waste time on people who aren’t going to be major givers to our organization.” The pounding of her heart rate continued to resound in PM’s ear following this statement as she stared out at their blinking faces. At this point, PM’s Director stands up and attempts to regain control of the meeting “I know you all have concerns and we will try to address them. I’m going to meet with the VP of Development and reaffirm that we all agree on the shared understanding of how and when to disqualify a prospect and the agreed upon metric for qualification. Thank you all for your time.” With that final statement, the meeting concludes and PM is taken aback and thinks to herself, “That’s it? I thought we had all decided this was the new format and was approved by leadership? Why are we backing down now in the face of only the slightest of resistance?” Her Director pulls her aside and says “That didn’t really go over as well as I had hoped, I’ll need to circle back with leadership on this. We may need to reassess our plan and redo the reporting.”

PM’s vision narrows, her blood pressure skyrockets and rakes her hands down her face as a low guttural groan of frustration radiates out of her. “Okay."

The End.

Tales of Terror: The Prospect Development Edition

Wed, 10 Oct 2018 12:49:52 GMT

The first in the series was written by Joan Ogwumike, Principle Gifts, Prospect Research Analyst at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Founding Principal at Jstrategies. Joan's haunting tale of disorganization and database permissions gone awry will have you looking over your shoulder all day. Enjoy!

Wednesday

Wednesday, as unique as her name, was not your typical Prospect Researcher. She always felt connected to her prospects while researching them and creating in-depth profiles. She felt like she knew them. And in a way she did; she knew them better than the fundraisers who met them. Wednesday also lived an organized life – everything organized by routine. She did everything the same way, every day. But on one Wednesday in October, things changed. She had come into the office feeling tired and slightly sick, despite getting her usual eight hours of sleep. Heading into the office kitchenette to make some coffee, she found her mug in pieces, clearly broken by a clumsy co-worker. Horrified, she swallowed her anger, and drank her coffee in a paper cup.

What a morning, she thought, feeling anxious but a bit more alert.

And what a morning it was. The weather was gloomy, overcast with dark clouds, and it was slightly chilly so you needed a scarf or knit sweater for warmth.

Her office mates were buzzing with excitement for the coming of fall and full of the Halloween spirit, but Wednesday scoffed at them. She didn’t believe or participate in the festivities. She believed ghosts, witches, monsters, and magic were for children and fairy tales as she only believed in what she could see.

Sitting down at her desk to being her morning routine, Wednesday received an email from an unfamiliar Fundraiser:

Good Morning Wednesday,

My name is Luke Knight and I am the new Regional Development Officer for the Midwest. I would like to request some updated research on Melissa King. You researched her years ago and it seems like she either owns a new foundation or is a member of one. I’m not 100 percent sure because I just became her new Prospect Manager and our first conversation consisted of her mentioning this foundation really quickly. Would you be able to get me more information on the foundation?

Thanks,

Luke

Wednesday, screwing her eyes shut and rubbing her temples, tried to remember Melissa King. After a few minutes, nothing came to mind so she started digging into the CRM and her old prospect profiles. Finding nothing, she began to wonder whether Luke was mistaken. Perhaps someone else had conducted the research and forgotten to include all their data in the CRM. Or maybe Luke had looked at someone else’s record.

Good Morning Luke,

I would love to help you but it seems like I have no record of Melissa King or a completed profile for her. There are also multiple people named Melissa or Melissa King in the CRM. Could you give me additional information? What year did she graduate? I don’t doubt you, but are you sure that I was the one that conducted research on Melissa?

Best, Wednesday

Email sent, Wednesday frantically searched for Melissa King. She began to perspire and grow increasingly nervous, as she still couldn’t find a “Melissa King” in the database. Something was truly wrong. When she googled “Melissa King,” she found an Edward and Melissa King Family Foundation, but it was clear Luke’s Melissa King was not associated with it as the foundation owner’s Melissa passed away many years ago.

How is this possible? Wednesday thought. Alarmed and needing some space to think, she headed to the office kitchen for more coffee. But the change of venue didn’t help with the onslaught of questions: who did Luke talk to if Melissa King passed away in 1999? Who is Melissa King? Why does Luke believe that I wrote this profile if I have no record of it? Who on earth is Luke Knight?!

Trembling, Wednesday returned to her desk to find six new research requests from Fundraiser Luke Knight that he needed done by the end of the week. Wednesday sat back in her chair, numb and frozen. In all her years in her position, she’d never received requests at this volume with such a quick turnaround. Gathering her composure, Wednesday began to look up all the people Fundraiser Luke was requesting and found them all marked deceased in the CRM. “How! Why! What is going on!?” said Wednesday out loud.

In that moment Prospect Manager Gina walked by her office, and Wednesday got up to inquire about Luke.

“Hi, Gina. So, Luke Knight is really building up his portfolio. How many people is he working with? I might have to sit down with him and learn more about his prospect pool and how he is trying to add to his portfolio.”

“Wednesday, who is Luke?” said Prospect Manager Gina.

“The new Regional Development Officer for the Midwest” said Wednesday.

Prospect Manager Gina thought for a moment, “there was a Luke Knight who used to work here years ago, but he sadly passed away. He was so dedicated to his job that he basically lived in this building and worked here even past his retirement age. Funny enough, he actually worked in your office. Are you feeling OK? You’re shaking!”

Wednesday replied in a slow whisper “But … I’ve been receiving emails from him. Luke Knight is the new Regional … Development Officer … for … the Midwest.”

“No Wednesday. He’s no longer here,” Gina said. Worried and shaking her head, she walked away slowly.

Wednesday turned around and stared blankly into her office. On her computer screen, she could see her inbox gradually filling with emails from Fundraiser Luke Knight.

The end.

Tales of Terror: The Prospect Development Edition

Thu, 04 Oct 2018 12:17:03 GMT

Apra-IL introduces a spooky new series: Tales of Terror: The Prospect Development Edition. Inspired by series such as Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Goosebumps, this series will present stories that thrill, excite, and chill you to the bone ... just in time for Halloween!

The first in the series was written by Apra-IL Director of Membership & Marketing, Kathryn Thomas. She presents to us the harrowing journey of a researcher on a Monday morning in an open office; complete with an early meeting, noisy co-workers, and a surprise ending.

The Opprobrious Open Office Opus

Dear reader, our story takes place on a dark and stormy morning. The first sign it would be a challenging day came with the invitation to an eight am meeting. On a Monday. The Pernicious Planner claimed it was the only hour when all participants were available, but everyone knows only sadists schedule meetings first thing Monday morning.

The second sign the day would not proceed smoothly came as the coffee maker slowly, but determinedly, began to bounce across the kitchenette counter. As it slid off the edge and crashed to the floor, its muffled demise echoed across the top of the hundreds of desks filling the fourteenth floor’s open-office-concept cubeless cube farm.

As our Protagonist made their way back to their desk, the sound of gift processing’s dot matrix printer hummed in a far corner. Near the back, IT’s Typhoid Tyler coughed and hacked his way through his morning routine. In our Protagonist’s neighboring work space, Ned the Nail Clipper went to town. Ned’s fingernails seemed to grow at an inhuman pace as nearly every day, new real estate sprouted up, needing pruning. Rounding out the Open Office Opus, the marketing manager, Misty the Masticator, rhythmically opened, poured, spooned, and chewed her third snack of the day.

Our Protagonist bravely tackled the first few hours of the day; staying awake through the meeting, performing research on prospects for Development Officers, and simultaneously completing the mandatory office safety training through their headphones. As mid-morning approached with the speed of an e-mail response from a Development Officer on the Friday before a holiday, the unthinkable happened: Chatty Charlie, head of constituent data management, approached, cellphone in hand. From several desks away, he began loudly hailing our Protagonist, “Hey! Happy Monday! I’ve got new pictures of my adorab…” Our protagonist, having lived through previous interactions with Charlie in the past, abruptly made the harrowing decision to unplug their headphones and speed walk to a nearby meeting room.

As our Protagonist neared the doorway, they found the room occupied. Turning to the next, our Protagonist encountered a second closed door. With the blood pumping in their ears adding a strong bass beat to the Open Office Opus, our Protagonist headed towards the bathroom in a last desperate attempt to outrun Charlie. As he turned the corner, he ran directly into Plodding Pete from payroll. Pete smiled a slow hello and took the next 60 seconds to get his “good morning” out. In that time, Chatty Charlie caught up and exclaimed (over the second half of Pete’s greeting), “Whoa there, partner! Is someone having a bad case of the Mondays?”

Our Protagonist made a fatal mistake when they took off their headphones and opened themselves up to chit chat. As such, they suffered through the torture of Chatty Charlie’s “adorable chinchilla pictures” and the slow and laborious comments provided by Pete, “How … just simply … well … I can just see … yes, indeed … can they … hmm … do you know … I’ve forgotten now …” Our Protagonist felt the walls closing in. The Open Office Opus had turned into the Wailing Workplace’s Weeping Wound with the additions of Loud Larry’s telephone call disputing his podiatry bill (on speaker phone as he’d never figured out how to send his calls to his handset), Sandy Squeaker’s flipping and flopping flip flops as she made her tenth trip to the (still out of order) coffee machine, and Muttering Manny’s mumbling about something or other.

Above the Weeping soundtrack and Pete’s occasional nondescript throat-noises, a loud and insistent beeping began. Our Protagonist looked around, but their colleagues didn’t appear to hear the noise. As our Protagonist prepared to interrupt Charlie’s excited swiping and Pete’s incessant droning, everything went black.

Our Protagonist opens her eyes and reaches over to quiet her alarm. It is 7:45am and she will likely be late to her Monday morning meeting.

The end.

True Life: A Day in Prospect Development

Mon, 10 Sep 2018 12:48:10 GMT

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.

Jillian Schuessler, Associate Director, Data Integrity & Analytics, Foundation and Corporate Relations at The University of Chicago and Apra-IL Treasurer, walks us through a day in her life.

True Life: I Work in Foundation & Corporate Relations

At the Elmwood Park Metra station heading towards downtown Chicago. Once at Union Station, I rush to catch the express bus to Hyde Park and the University of Chicago!

Our offices are located at Harper Court on 53rd St in Hyde Park. Everyone is very busy right now as we just entered the final year of our University of Chicago Campaign: Inquiry and Impact.

Today, I’m working on updating our progress to goals dashboard and also putting together data tables for the front-line fundraisers on our team to bring to meetings. Our team provides support to faculty and administrators who are seeking grant funding from foundations or corporations. We also provide prospect lists and profiles on foundations as well as proposal materials for our campus partners.

This is a rare scene! Our FCR fundraisers are usually on campus meeting with faculty members. I often touch base with them on the status of proposals that have been submitted to see if we should update them in our development system. Keeping data updated is half the battle for an analyst!

Thanks for visiting our office!

True Life: A Day in Prospect Development

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:06:41 GMT

Jessica Szadziewicz, Apra-IL Board Advisor and past Vice President, shares a day in her life working as Assistant Director, Prospect Management and Research at Loyola University Chicago.

True Life: Lu Wolf is My Sidekick

Heading to Loyola's Water Tower campus via the CTA Red Line. Thankfully, no delays today!

Settling into my desk, complete with our wolf mascot.

Current Apra-IL Vice President, Peter Kotowski, hard at work in our sixteenth-floor office that looks like a basement. We are both lucky to have fancy standing desks.

I'm going over portfolios, gift officer metrics, and Crain's. Finishing off my day, I complete a few research requests, and then head home to walk the dog!

True Life: A Day in Prospect Development

Tue, 14 Aug 2018 14:44:44 GMT

Marissa Todd, Prospect Research Analyst at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, presents our third entry with a collection of her Tweets from #ApraPD2018. She is the current President of Apra Missouri/Kansas.

Follow her @rissatodd

True Life: Prospect Development Goodness and Nerdy Things

Tweeting about my #DayinPD for @APRAIllinois today. Super pumped to share a day of #ApraPD2018 fun with everyone!

Excited about @Apra_MoKan breakfast! Great way to kick off the day.

Look at all these @Apra_MoKan faces!

Kicking off #ApraTalks2018

When you share all the cool connections you need more marshmallows.

The amazing Amy Turbes imparting wisdom to us at #ApraTalks2018

As an introvert, taking time daily to recharge and hydrate is important. Got to get prepped for speaking this afternoon!

Time for some learning!

Final prep for my session on managing prospects during staff transition. Come see me in 319 at 1:45!

Ending the #DayinPD with fellow chapter leaders Caitlin, Stephanie, and @KatieIngrao! Cheers to a successful conference!

True Life: A Day in Prospect Development

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 15:49:11 GMT

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!

True Life: A Day in Prospect Development

Mon, 16 Jul 2018 12:18:27 GMT

This first entry is presented by Kathryn Thomas, Senior Prospect Identification Analyst at the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association. She serves as Director, Membership & Marketing for Apra-IL.

True Life: I'm an Honorary Badger

I work as Senior Prospect Identification Analyst (PIA) at the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association (WFAA). My days follow a fairly familiar pattern as my work is structured in yearly and quarterly projects. What follows is a look at an average day in my role at WFAA.

Our work day on the Research & Prospect Management team at WFAA begins with a stand-up in our work space. During this fifteen minute period, each team member shares their triumphs and trials from yesterday and outlines their plan for the coming day. Pictured, you see members of our Prospect Management and Prospect Research sub-groups as well as an array of Bucky Badgers colored during a team-building meeting earlier this summer.

My PIA teammate, Emily, and I pull the best prospects for the University using a Tableau dashboard. Pictured above, the dashboard shows assigned and unassigned prospects as well as constituents with no active plans. The top left quadrant has the highest capacity/highest likelihood (based on a major gift likelihood score) and the lower right quadrant shows those with low capacity/low likelihood. When we are ready to pull constituents for Research review, we click on the boxes we wish to export and download an Excel spreadsheet which details the constituent’s capacity/likelihood as well as their giving to UW and other pertinent details. To learn more about our team’s proactive prospecting process, see me at Apra PD this year!

When a constituent is reviewed by Research, they are either qualified (receive a plan for a pertinent unit(s)) or disqualified (receive a disqualification note on the constituent record). After lunch, a colleague and I met in this Bucky bower in the Work Café to discuss our evolving policies regarding constituents marked Not a Prospect.

Here at my desk, you can see the one-page report created by the PIA's to take to meetings with Development. In it, we highlight their unit's progress with Research Identified Prospects (RIDPs) and call out specific RIDPs that have yet to be contacted by Development. During these quarterly meetings, we have the opportunity to discuss our qualification methodology and get clarification from Development on specific prospects.

After a long day at work, it’s time to head out. As I leave the office, I get this great view of our building and the 1848 and Bucky statue. The University of Wisconsin was founded when Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848 which is why the Foundation address is 1848 University Avenue. Our beautiful flower-covered Bucky comes from a public art event featuring 85 life-sized Bucky Badger statues throughout Madison, WI and Dane County. Our Bucky is called Flamingo Bucky and was inspired by the UW tradition which covers Bascom Hill with plastic flamingos each year.

Thanks for walking through a day at WFAA! I can't wait to see everyone else's posts in the coming months!

Motivations of Leaders: Michael Pawlus

Thu, 05 Jul 2018 14:13:37 GMT

What makes prospect development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, Apra-IL member and volunteer, interviews Michael Pawlus, Data Scientist at the University of Southern California.

Michael Pawlus is currently a Data Scientist at University of Southern California. Prior to this he was Director of Prospect Development at The Trust for Public Land and before this Assistant Director, Prospect Research and Development at Grand Valley State University.

Michael is chair of the 2018 Data Analytics Symposium planning committee. He has volunteered with Apra in a number of other capacities throughout his time in this profession, most recently as one of the faculty members for the 2017 Apra OverDRIVE/ conference. He also served as programming chair on the Apra-Michigan Board and as a member of the first ARC planning committee. Michael has presented on his work at: Apra-International, Apra-Canada, overDRIVE/, DRIVE/, as well as at regional and online Apra conferences. In addition, Michael assisted with the creation of two online training courses, contributed a section to Prospect Research in Canada: An Essential Guide for Researchers and Fundraisers and was featured in an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Michael has a Master’s degree in Librarianship from the University of Sheffield and a Bachelor’s degree from Grand Valley State University.

He lives in Greater Los Angeles with his wife, two kids and an orange tabby cat from Korea.

Apra-IL: Describe your journey into your current position.

Pawlus: My journey all started when I learned about R. I wish I could remember how I first heard about R but I do remember going to the library and getting my first R book. I can recollect so clearly sitting on the #4 Bus traveling north up Eastern Ave in Grand Rapids, Michigan and trying to wrap my brain around the syntax and R basics like vectors and data frames.

Even before then I was just extremely fortunate to work at really amazing organizations with really supportive and encouraging supervisors which is luckily still the case. I had the freedom to learn and try out new ideas. This actually started with learning Crystal Reports and then SQL but when I finally started learning R then I felt I suddenly had super powers and I needed to find a place where I could best apply this new skill set which brings us up to the present day.

Apra-IL: What does your role as a Data Scientist mean to the fundraising field?

Pawlus: It is really encouraging that an increasing number of development offices are hiring Data Scientists. As with so many other sectors, all of us working in nonprofits have access to more and more data but this only has value if we can convert this into actionable information which can best be accomplished through the scientific process.

When I used to just do prospect research, the main value that I felt I was adding was verifying data. Knowing that data is accurate is, of course, important however there is a critical next step that was always missing; how much value do these accurate facts have? It always felt like we had these formulas and heuristics that could be applied once we knew some data point however it never felt like these were tested or provable at all. This is when predictive modeling started to become more popular and started to answer these questions.

There is so much more to investigate as Data Scientists though and it is such an exciting and fast-moving profession generally and everything happening in this more general space can be applied to fundraising. In addition to discovering the most valuable pieces of data that we have, we can start thinking about how to then use this data and push it to front-line fundraisers. Integrating external data, extracting value from free form text using natural language processing tools and building recommender systems are all ways that we can provide more information to our colleagues and by extension provide a higher level of service to our donors which means our organizations can provide even more to those we serve.

Apra-IL: Could you tell us one perception people have about professionals in Prospect Development? What's the truth?

Pawlus: I remember being asked why I would want to leave prospect research to start doing data analytics or data science. I was always a little confused by the question because I think I am still essentially accomplishing the same aims as I was when I was in prospect research except now I can I can complete tasks at scale and provide a wider assortment of services but I am still providing fundraisers with actionable insights.

In theory, analytics is one of the three main branches of prospect development along with prospect research and prospect management. However, in practice, it always feels like analytics is off on its own island. It has a separate email list and separate conferences. I am not saying that everyone needs to become a data scientist however I think we should all know a little about what we all do.

Since the World Cup is right around the corner, I feel it is safe to use a soccer metaphor. In soccer, there are ten outfield players and some specialize in defense and some specialize in scoring but those that play in defense can still score and forwards need to be able to get back and help defend at times. The best teams are well-rounded and versatile in this way and I feel this would also be true for prospect development teams.

Apra-IL: What is something interesting you learned within your role this month?

Pawlus: I just learned about graph databases which are a different way of storing data that allows you to travel from node to node along relationships to find objects that are several degrees removed. This is similar to relationship mapping but imagine applying that to everything. You can also use these graphs to do something like this: let's say there are a group of foundations that give to your organization and these foundations also give to other organizations of course but then let's say there are foundations that give to those same common organizations that you discovered but they don't give to you; well these foundations might be good prospects for your organization and using graphs you can find these.

Also, I can't say I completely understand this yet but I have been learning more about this model called GloVe (Global Vectors for Word Representation) which essentially creates this matrix that quantifies the similarity between terms which is really helpful when you are topic modeling on survey data or contact reports. Using the example from the authors of the model, GloVe shows that Litoria and Leptodactylidae are related to frog and it can do this with other word and term groupings which wasn't really possible before. For those working in health, it is possible to find terms that all reference a similar medical condition without having expert subject matter knowledge using pre-trained word embeddings that have been done on the entire Wikipedia corpus for example.

I am sure I will look back at this in a month or two and realize I could have explained both of these concepts much better but then I will be on to learning new concepts and techniques. That is the way that it is right now there is just so much out there to learn and tons being developed constantly. It’s a great time to be a data scientist!

50 Shades of Prospect Development - Final Installment

Fri, 22 Jun 2018 13:27:50 GMT

Created by: Joan Ogwumike, Principle Gifts, Prospect Research Analyst, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Founding Principal, Jstrategies

Apra-IL presents 50 Shades of Prospect Development; a series of illustrations that seek to provide a visual depiction of the complexities in all aspects of the Prospect Development field. Each colorful image will represent the emotional ups and downs, moments of pride, successful projects and relationships, conflicts with our co-workers/technology/work-life balance, and/or opportunities for growth we find in our careers.

Apra-IL dedicates this final illustration to those who are new or desire to join Prospect Development. We welcome you to a field that is quietly growing and establishing its roots in fundraising for decades. The different roles in prospect development intertwine at times, allowing one to dabble in prospect research, prospect management, and analytics. You could even do all three if you’re in a one-person shop. And once you join the field, it takes time to learn about and recognize the three main roles in prospect development. In this illustration we are giving you an idea of who is who, and their purpose using a magnifying glass for our prospect researchers, a graph for those in data analytics, and a spreadsheet for our prospect management professionals.

To our seasoned colleagues, which role do you play in your organization? And what advice would you give a new colleague?

Motivations of Leaders: Jill Meister

Mon, 04 Jun 2018 13:40:19 GMT

What makes prospect development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, Apra-IL member and volunteer, interviews Jill Meister, Executive Director of Advancement Services at Adelphi University in New York.

Jill began her development career in 1991 when she joined the development office at the School for International Training (SIT) in Southern Vermont. She moved on to Landmark College in 1994, also in Vermont, and prospected lead donors for the first campaign ever at Landmark. In 1996, she joined the research office at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and became the Manager of Research Services in 1997. In 2001, Jill moved to Rhode Island and became the Director of Development Research at Bryant University. Jill was the Assistant Director of Prospect Development at Brown University from 2003-2007, Director of Research and Advancement Services at The Williston Northampton School from 2007-2013, and the Director of Prospect Research and Management at the University of New Hampshire from 2013-2017. She currently works as the Executive Director of Advancement Services at Adelphi University in New York.

Jill received a B.S. in Business Management from Franklin Pierce University, and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Jill is a director of Apra since 2011, served as President during the 2016-2017 year, and is the current Immediate Past President. She was the chair of the 2011 Apra International Conference Curriculum Committee, was a member of the 2010 Apra International Conference Curriculum Committee, and a founding member of Apra's Marketing and Branding Committee. Jill is a former director of NEDRA, and a past president of the NEDRA Board.

Apra-IL: In your Apra 2015-2016 Board of Directors biography, it reads that you have more than 20 years of experience in development and fundraising. Can you tell us what has kept you motivated all of these years?

Meister: What keeps me going is that through the work of philanthropy, we are ensuring access to education, health care, social programs that better people’s lives, and preserving the arts. Our non-profit organizations are important and have a positive impact in the communities and world that we live in. I like being a part of something larger than myself, and by continuing to work in philanthropy, it matches my vision to help the world and make it a better place. In addition, by being part of Prospect Development, I am helping to create scholarships or a new building that we are raising funds for that make a difference for many people. I like to see the fruits of our labor.

Apra-IL: What role has Apra played in your professional journey?

Meister: Apra has played such a huge role in my career. My first Apra conference was 21 years ago in Pittsburgh. I remember being so blown away by the scope of the conference and seeing all these different professionals in Prospect Development. I learned so much from the presenters and from the people I met. It truly helped me build my network. Early in my career, a much-esteemed member of the profession asked me, "When are you going to present at an Apra conference; when are you going to get more involved?" Every year he saw me he would challenge me to raise my sights. I volunteered at the Apra conference; I became a board member of my local Apra chapter (NEDRA), I presented, and took on more volunteer roles that had increasing involvement. The best part of being a volunteer was I learned even more and it directly helped me in my career. Being part of Apra comes with so many benefits. And, when I attend the Apra conference this year, I know I will still have the same feeling I had when I attended my first conference.

Apra-IL: So far in your career, what has been your biggest challenge or lesson?

Meister: Well, there have been many challenges! However, I believe this lesson can apply to all areas of our lives – learning there is always someone who knows more than you do. To restate that: recognizing that the collective knowledge and viewpoints are better than an individual one. There is more than one way to do something, and once I put myself in a fundraiser’s shoes, once I began to collaborate with my colleagues, it made me a better researcher. Every day there is something to learn, a new way of doing things and trying out new ideas. This is how we grow.

Apra-IL: What is next for you? Is there anything you would like to accomplish or a new challenge you'd like to take on?

Meister: I have just taken on a leadership position at Adelphi University. I am part of the leadership team that, with the VP, leads the advancement office. It is an opportunity for more growth and change. My involvement with Apra has helped me to get to this point, and will continue to help me in my new role. I am a big advocate for Prospect Development and Apra, and I think in my new role, I can have a bigger voice and advocate for our amazing field!

50 Shades of Prospect Development

Tue, 15 May 2018 12:35:10 GMT

Created by: Joan Ogwumike, Principle Gifts, Prospect Research Analyst, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Founding Principal, Jstrategies

In any field, your journey may feel like a never-ending trek up-hill as you grow, advocate, and demand equality and equity in your field. In Prospect Development, we face these issues and more (as illustrated above).

Above, we spotlight just a few of the obstacles PD professionals face in their journey to the top. What have you overcome to get where you are today? Share with us below!

50 Shades of Prospect Development

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:25:09 GMT

Created by: Joan Ogwumike, Principle Gifts, Prospect Research Analyst, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Founding Principal, Jstrategies

The field of Prospect Development, in name is still growing; but in theory, it has supported and made great impact on different areas in Development/Fundraising for decades. From the Development Generalist, who wears many hats, to the External Affairs Manager who works to prioritize outreach with curated lists from Research, to the Executive Director at a nonprofit who uses analytics and research to drive the mission - all the fields or offices represented, and more have in some way utilized the skills of Prospect Development professionals. And Apra-IL recognizes your consistent impact.

Motivations of Leaders: Mallory Lass

Fri, 20 Apr 2018 12:37:43 GMT

What makes prospect development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, Apra-IL member and volunteer, interviews Mallory Lass, Assistant Director, Prospect Research at the University of California Berkeley.

Mallory Lass is Assistant Director, Prospect Management at UC Berkeley, where she also supports regional fundraising efforts in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, and the Vice Chancellor for Research Office. Mallory works with her fundraising clients to provide comprehensive prospect management, prospect research, and data analytics services. Mallory started in prospect research as a student worker at UC Santa Barbara and was able to embark on a career in the industry after graduation. She returned to Prospect Development after she took a career detour as an estate planning attorney, where she was also involved on many community boards. Mallory joined the board of CARA (California Advancement Research Association) in 2014 as the Northern California Regional Chair. She is the immediate past President and current Communications Chair.

To stay in touch with Mallory, follow her on Twitter @datalover916

Apra-IL: Two-part question: Why Prospect Development? And what has kept you motivated?

Lass: I actually got involved in fundraising as a student. I attended UCSB and was looking for a student job and saw a posting that basically said computer proficient, so I applied. It ended up being in Prospect Development, and it opened up my world a lot. I took a detour to law school and practiced Estate Planning for a few years; in part because of the inspiration I had from fundraising and advancement to help people realize their goals. Ultimately, I was called back to the world of Prospect Development and have always been in Higher Ed because public education is my passion. Literacy and access to education are really important to me, so the students keep me going. The seemingly never-ending slew of world problems we have yet to solve are also a source of motivation. I know I am doing work that has wide-reaching effects, which will ultimately touch thousands of people. I don’t think everyone gets to say that about their job. It really is mission driven work for me. I find it intellectually stimulating even though it can also can be quite theoretical.

Apra-IL: What role has Apra/Cara played in your professional journey?

Lass: I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today without the Apra/CARA community. I remember, even back when I was a student worker, the woman who ran our prospect management program at the time attended Apra and came back full of new ideas. It sounded exciting, and I remember how nice she said everyone was, and that has always been my experience with the community; so willing to help and share information. As a life-long learner, professional development is something I am really passionate about. More than that, I think these organizations create a space to build community. Even though it seems like it sometimes, we don’t operate in a vacuum. We have peer institutions, parallel and intersecting missions, etc. and there is something really comforting in that. As our community grows and becomes more vibrant, there is no better place to be than in the mix at Apra PD or a CARA conference and seeing everyone so engaged and genuinely happy.

Apra-IL: Could you tell us one perception people have about professionals in Prospect Development? What's the truth?

Lass: I know there are stories about encounters with people in the outside world who have some perception of Prospect Development, but I would say for the most part, people have no idea that this is even a profession, nor what the day-to-day work is like. From early on, when I first got into this industry as a student, I created a little elevator pitch about what I did. The elevator pitch of my youth was certainly full of more snark and even some cringe-worthy language. But I have spent a lot of time now educating the general public/friends/family about philanthropy, even if it is with more professional language and the short pitch works. I can always go into more detail if people are interested. I continue to discuss the importance of private support for public education, the importance of supporting organizations and causes whose mission aligns with your own values, etc.

I think from within other areas of advancement, people are not always sure what we do over in prospect development. So, it is a little bit about demystifying our processes. Doing proactive education is a big help. There is no magic box, we work really hard to gather and analyze data and provide key insights into our strategies and prospects.

Apra-IL: Fill in the blank with a piece of advice you wish you had received in your first Prospect Development role: When in doubt, ___________.

Lass: When in doubt eat ice cream.

Everything we do (okay, mostly everything we do) is important, or can be traced to an important outcome. That said, sometimes we can take ourselves too seriously. When I get stuck on a problem, a prospect research request, a data project, have a challenging meeting, etc. the best thing for me to do is take a break and stop thinking so hard about it. Most of the time, the problem will still be there when you get back. For me, my happy place is eating ice cream, so I either grab some co-workers to join me, or just go it alone. I have been known to “schedule” ice cream related meetings into my calendar when I know I have a ton of non-ice cream related meetings, or a big deadline. The real advice here is give yourself and the people around you a break. Our work is important, but nothing is worth an ulcer. Okay, the real, real advice is to eat more ice cream!

Motivations of Leaders: Kevin MacDonell

Thu, 29 Mar 2018 17:49:49 GMT

What makes prospect development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, Apra-IL member and volunteer, interviews Kevin MacDonell, Acting Executive Director, Advancement Operations for the Advancement Department of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Kevin MacDonell is Acting Executive Director, Advancement Operations for the Advancement Department of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Formerly a journalist and editor, he entered higher education advancement in 2003 as a communications writer and later moved on to prospect research, annual giving (phonathon), and business intelligence. Along the way, he pursued an interest in data analysis, data mining and predictive modeling and applies these techniques to support all areas of university advancement. He launched the CoolData blog (cooldata.org) in 2009, focused on promoting the learning of predictive modeling techniques for professionals working in advancement and other nonprofit organizations. He has given many conference presentations on these topics, and in 2014 he was co-author (with consultant Peter Wylie) of a book published by CASE called “Score!: Data-Driven Success for Your Advancement Team.” Most recently, he published a how-to guide for predictive modelling as a free download from CoolData.org.

Apra-IL: Describe your motivations to build your career in Prospect Development, and what keeps you engaged?

MacDonell: My career has not been focused solely on Prospect Development, but it is fair to say that it has always revolved around it. I was a prospect researcher for seven years with responsibility for what, at the time, I didn’t know to call prospect management. Later, I worked in Annual Fund, data analysis, and managing teams in Operations (a.k.a. Advancement Services). None of those roles was really separate from Prospect Development, in the big picture: Annual Fund is part of a process that should identify key donors early and engage them appropriately; my data analysis work was in support of the same process, and Advancement Services professionals should be focused on supporting the smooth working of the “pipeline,” in its broadest sense.

My path through Advancement hasn’t been an outcome of a career built according to plan. I have moved from opportunity to opportunity. But the common thread is the satisfaction I receive from mobilizing data and information to enable leadership and frontline staff make decisions and support strategy. I’ve enjoyed learning new things, working on interesting problems with other people, and being useful in general. That has spilled over into my blog, the book I co-wrote with Peter Wylie, and the new (free) book I’ve just self-published.

Of course, those traits are true of anyone who enjoys coming to work each day, but the best people have those in spades. They are all intrinsic rewards of work. Nowadays, part of my role is to hire for that orientation toward intrinsic rewards, among other traits (including being smarter than I am).

Apra-IL: In your career, what has been your biggest challenge or lesson?

MacDonell: My biggest challenge was negotiating the transition to managing a team when all my previous experience related to hands-on work. This is a common problem - I’ve seen other new managers struggle with it - and I think it’s especially true for knowledge workers who may be managing a team but still have all the tools of the trade right there on their desktop. It took a while to feel right about letting go of things I once enjoyed, such as doing data analysis. It is possible to retain some elements of hands-on work, but I found that I couldn’t work on a priority project without becoming a bottleneck to progress. In roles I’ve had in recent years, holding on to any of that would drain energy from where it’s really needed: ensuring I understand where the frontline part of the organization is going, and being out ahead of it to support it, and proactively plan.

Apra-IL: In three words, describe the role of a Prospect Development Professional.

MacDonell: Collaborative. Empowered. Engaged.

Apra-IL: Please share a piece of advice with our readers you gained through a professional development opportunity.

MacDonell: I’ve attended many Apra conferences and sessions as an attendee and speaker, so professional development from Apra has shaped my view of Advancement in important ways. However, having seen prospect development from various angles, my advice to experienced people in the field is not to limit your view to what’s going on in Prospect Development to the exclusion of awareness of the strategic direction your department or organization is taking. I think of Apra as being forward-facing and in the vanguard of developments in the field, but we have to acknowledge that as much as we crave appreciation and respect from Advancement leaders, Prospect Development professionals are in service to their organization’s strategy. We may have had a hand in developing that strategy, but ultimately, strategy is developed by the organization’s leadership.

It’s analogous to something I like to say about an area I feel affinity with: data analysis and business intelligence. I have stopped using the term “data-driven decision making” in favour of “data-informed” or “evidence-based” decision making. Data doesn’t “drive” decisions, it “informs” them. Advancement leaders need to, well, lead – that is, chart a course. Analysts supply some of the tools, information, and advice to keep the ship on course. So it is with Prospect Development. A high profile for the people doing the work is important, but it is equally important for those folks to understand and support the strategy, and plug into it in proactive, effective ways – rather than seek to bend the organization to their concept of best practice. Prospect Development can show leadership where strategy is lacking, but otherwise it’s best to be in tune with the overall plan.

50 Shades of Prospect Development

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 12:23:18 GMT

Created by: Joan Ogwumike, Principle Gifts, Prospect Research Analyst, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Founding Principal, Jstrategies

There are issues with communication in every field. Understandably, Prospect Development has an issue with overcoming these one-way communication hurdles. We face obstacles when advocating for professional development, balancing our work and life, and a lack of respect for our work and voice. These burdens can begin to feel too heavy when carried alone. Apra-IL is here for you! We serve as a community of like-minded professionals always willing to meet up, reach out, and assist when asked.

Have you faced any of the above scenarios? How did you overcome? How can Apra-IL help? Let us know in the comments below.

50 Shades of Prospect Development

Mon, 26 Feb 2018 14:30:21 GMT

Created by: Joan Ogwumike, Principle Gifts, Prospect Research Analyst, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Founding Principal, Jstrategies

As professionals in Prospect Development, we have opportunities to learn continuously through webinars, conversations with colleagues, and conferences. Through those resources, we are able to celebrate the creation and discovery of new resources, wrestle with changes in tax law, and analyse wealth/capacity calculation advancements. The above illustration shows how far we've come as a field. Throughout the history of the field, we've utilized new tech to store our records more efficiently, found new ways to work with our colleagues in libraries, and collaborated with vendors to build systems that (while often full of quirks and frustrations) surpass the wildest dreams we would've had 10, 20, or 30 years ago.

Take some time today to celebrate the advances we've made and the ways these technologies have changed the way in which we do our good work. Celebrate, also, the potential in our field. Can you see ways in which you and your colleagues are working to alter the path of Prospect Development? Share them with us!

What do you think the future of Prospect Development looks like? In what areas have you seen growth that you never could've dreamed of only years earlier? Do you think AI and robotics will someday take over our roles as researchers and strategists?

Let us know your thoughts below!

Motivations of Leaders: Jami Hougen Johnson

Mon, 12 Feb 2018 14:44:57 GMT

What makes prospect development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, Apra-IL member and volunteer, interviews Jami Hougen Johnson, Director of Prospect Management at the University of Chicago.

Jami is the Director of Prospect Management at the University of Chicago. Previously, she was the program director of a workplace giving coalition that supported social change, environmental, and cultural causes in Iowa. At the University of Chicago, she leads a team of analysts that work with colleagues across Alumni Relations and Development (ARD) to develop prospect pools, improve portfolio management, build pipeline strength, analyze gift officer productivity, create prospect management policy, and implement fundraising strategies. The prospect management team is part of a larger decision support team that includes financial analysis and forecasting, and information engagement and education specialists.

She has presented at APRA International and APRA Illinois, and is hoping to present in the future on building out strong prospect lifecycle programs in higher education organizations. She received her BS in neuropsychology and certificate in nonprofit management from the University of Iowa and received a certificate in project management and is in the process of getting a MLA from the University of Chicago Graham School.

If hearing about any of the work at UChicago is interesting to you, contact Jami (jhougen@uchicago.edu) to learn more! The Prospect Management team is hiring and will be posting an analyst position in the next few weeks.

Apra-IL: Can you tell us what motivates you in your current field? Have your motivations have ever changed?

Hougen Johnson: I wanted to make a positive impact in the world through my career and nonprofits are like world-improving powerhouses. The people in these organizations are so dedicated to the cause, and in turn they help donors and prospective donors make an impact through their time and giving.

Higher education is something that is important to me, so my motivation there has never really changed – although I loved working with smaller social change organizations years ago. I’d say my motivations have changed when it comes to the different areas within a nonprofit. I’ve done frontline fundraising, database administration, some program development, and now prospect development. Challenge itself is motivating, so when I see a big gap in my knowledge I’m interested to move more in that direction.

Apra-IL: Describe your journey into your current position.

Hougen Johnson: I’ve heard people talk about how they “fell” into prospect development (and what a great career to fall into), but my journey was a little more direct. When I was an undergraduate, I wanted to work in the medical field and worked as part of a cancer research team and then in the heart transplant department. Both of these departments had wonderful nonprofits they worked closely with, and I got more involved. I was able to bring more analysis and data to these fundraising programs and was surprised at how much this insight impacted dollars raised. I focused on for-profit strategy for some time, but ultimately came back to nonprofits.

My first full-time nonprofit job was one of those where you get to where all the hats, and I mean all the hats. I learned a lot, but wanted an opportunity to become more specialized in my work. To get more specialization it helps to work in a larger nonprofit, so I saved up and moved to Chicago. When my friends asked what I wanted to do, I’d tell them I wanted to work on Michigan Avenue (it was the most opposite location from where I worked previously that I could think of) and have a chance to study what made people give some of the biggest gifts charity receive (again, opposite of the mostly annual fund program I ran previously). Believe it or not, I ended up working on Michigan Avenue working as a prospect management analyst focused on principal gifts.

Apra-IL: What advice would you give a new professional in the field of Prospect Development?

Hougen Johnson: Great question. I’ve been lucky to work with amazing people, and have gotten some excellent advice over the years.

1. Ask big picture questions.

Don’t limit your knowledge to just your role – even when you’re first starting out. What are the biggest challenges your organization faces? What is your organization trying to accomplish in the next 5, 10 years? How will fundraising impact the ability to achieve these goals? What are your organization’s key metrics? How does your work fit into these metrics? What are the biggest pain points your gift officers experience in their work? Tie what you learn about the greater organizational needs to your own work.

It can be easy to be a silo when working in prospect development. Understanding the big picture (and not just thinking short-term) will help you ask good questions and make your work more effective. Getting involved in professional organizations (like APRA IL!) is also a great way to understand the bigger picture, and learn about what other organizations are doing.

2. Study your impact.

UChicago’s prospect research, analytics, and prospect management teams recently did some cross-team interviews to better understand pain points and opportunities in our prospect development work. One common trend throughout these conversations was the desire to have a better understanding of prospect development’s impact on the organization. This wasn’t a surprising finding necessarily, but it did underscore the importance of taking the time to study your own work.

You can get feedback and reports from other people (and this should be part of reflecting on your work), but it is also important to track and understand your work yourself. Where are you adding value? One place to start is understanding how you might help increase funds and reduce cost. You might reduce costs by helping staff prioritize large groups of donors and prospective donors.

If you have some ideas for how you’re adding value, what actually is happening with your work? Keep a spreadsheet of prospects that scored highly on a model, you’ve identified, or you’ve assigned. Put it on your calendar to run a report on these names. Which prospects are giving? Which are being engaged? If nothing seems to be happening with some of these people, look at the data and think about what this is, and then reach out to your colleagues for feedback. Understanding your impact is an important motivator for work in general, but studying your work will also help you regularly improve.

3. Focus on your strengths.

Think back to mentors or people that you thought were excellent at what they did. They were probably good generally, but there was likely a handful of things they were particularly great at, right? When you’re first starting out you want to make sure you’re checking all the boxes, but pay attention to the work that draws you in. Take note and focus on that work whenever you can. Of course, you don’t want to ignore your weaknesses, but you can be “good enough” in some areas of your work, and then be great at a few.

I’m particularly fond of radar or spider charts for this (ask UChicago’s PM team, they are probably sick of these). Talk to your manager and colleagues about the skills that are most important to your job. Work with your manager to rate yourself on these skills so you can see any major areas to improve, and then work on the areas you want to get “pointy”. I’m not a fan of personality tests because I think they often put people in a box… but Strengthsfinders is a good tool if you’re looking for a place to start.

Apra-IL: #researchpride is a fun and meaningful hashtag that allows professionals in Prospect Development to reflect and share why they feel proud to be in the field. Can you share a moment in which you have felt proud to be in Prospect Development?

Hougen Johnson: First, can we get a #pmpride hashtag going too? Really though, I work with a brilliant team. They ask beautiful questions and are dedicated to finding answers. I’m regularly impressed, excited, and proud of the impact their questions (and answers!) have on our fundraising program. And when I think we’ve looked at all the data and there isn’t much more to review, we meet with gift officers and other teams and they ask questions that never crossed our minds. There is certainly an art to fundraising, but there is also a science and as a field we’ve seen a lot of changes to the different voices that are heard in organizational strategy conversations.

These conversations help us all think outside of the box about prospect development processes, portfolio management, how we engage donors and prospective donors … these improvements increase UChicago’s impact on people, our community, and the world. How can you not be proud of that?

New Series: 50 Shades of Prospect Development

Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:00:00 GMT

Created by: Joan Ogwumike, Principle Gifts, Prospect Research Analyst, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Founding Principal, Jstrategies

Apra-IL presents 50 Shades of Prospect Development; a series of illustrations that seek provide a visual depiction of the complexities in all aspects of the Prospect Development field. Each colorful image will represent the emotional ups and downs, moments of pride, successful projects and relationships, conflicts with our co-workers/technology/work-life balance, and/or opportunities for growth we find in our careers.

For our first entry, I’ve created the big picture of Prospect Development shown broken into its composite pieces. Each vibrant puzzle piece represents an aspect of the field and how each area of PD needs one another. Together, they create a larger picture. I hope that you can identify your role(s) in the puzzle. Which piece stands out to you as a primary function of your role? Which piece is your organization lacking? Can Apra-IL help you grow in that area? Let us know by posting below!

Welcome to 2018!

Mon, 08 Jan 2018 16:55:36 GMT

It’s a new year and we've got new offerings for our members. Our organization has accomplished a great deal in 2017, but we look to 2018 to reach new heights and maintain this exemplary prospect development chapter for professionals in Illinois and the surrounding region.

As I begin my last year as your chapter President, I want to reaffirm the mission that I set out to create three years ago: to build a chapter that is self-sustaining, a source of expertise, and a place full of collaboration and camaraderie. Throughout my term, we have made great strides in these goals, but we still have work to do!

A consistent struggle for our chapter has been getting and retaining board volunteers. Just recently, we added three new board members (hurray!). Megan Humphrey has taken on the role of President-Elect and will be shadowing me throughout the year. Peter Kotowski will be taking over for Jessica Szadziewicz as Vice President and Keli Jonas has agreed to become our new Programming Chair. Special thanks to Jessica for all of her work throughout her tenure with Apra-IL. We look forward to having you as a board advisor and active member. Thank you all for your participation in voting in our new board members! See below for more details about our new teammates.

As President, I am very proud of the work done by our chapter and its members and I hope to have the chance to meet you all this year at our events. The calendar for 2018 is always available on our website, so take this opportunity to browse and plan what you’d like to attend. The first event of the year will be in February for APRA International’s Share the Knowledge Week. Apra-IL will be hosting a webinar during this time frame along with our webinar partners Apra-MN, Apra-MidSouth, and Apra-Great Plains. More information will be available on the event’s page in January. I am looking forward to the coming year with Apra-IL and I hope you are, too!

Best Wishes and a Happy New Year,

Katie Ingrao, Apra-IL President

Happy Holidays!

Mon, 25 Dec 2017 14:55:12 GMT

2017 has been quite a year! We accomplished a lot as a chapter and it’s important to take a moment to note the hard work of our volunteers. I want to thank our chapter members who volunteered their time and talent this year, especially those members who served as speakers at our Spring Symposium in May and for our quarterly webinars. In addition to the formal educational programming that we provided, we were able to have a lot of fun! We hope you were able to join us at our SPiN ping pong night, attended the field trip to the Chicago Botanic Gardens, or lingered at one of our numerous happy hours/salons, and gathered in Anaheim, CA during the annual Prospect Development Conference for breakfast.

We look forward to continuing to provide our members with great events and opportunities in 2018!

In an effort to be more collaborative and diverse in our programming, we have continued to expand our webinar offerings.Currently, we are partnered with Apra-MN and Apra-MidSouth in a license to use GoToWebinar to provide webinars to all of our members free or at member pricing. Last month we extended an offer to Apra-Great Plains to join our license to provide another source of expertise and content. As a part of our agreement, each chapter will be responsible for hosting one webinar a quarter, thus reducing the strain of programming on each of our respective chapters. This is a great opportunity for us and I am very excited to be broadening our educational reach through webinars.

We also plan to expand our reach downstate. The board is currently exploring ways to live stream our educational programming and provide satellite locations to make attendance and participation easier for those who can’t make it to the physical event. More details to come on this via our monthly e-mail. Stay tuned!

I want to thank you again for supporting your local Apra chapter through attending an event, volunteering to speak, and/or responding to our requests for ideas. We appreciate you and hope to continue to provide excellent professional development through 2018.

Warmly,

Katie Ingrao, Apra-IL President

Dear Analyst: Overwhelmed by Obituaries

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 16:38:54 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates

Dear Analyst,

We have to review the obituaries every work day to check for alumni and donors. Mondays are the worst because I have three days of newspapers to review! Obituary review can take most of the day and it’s really monotonous looking up names. I’m not exactly sure why I do this and what benefit it presents to my organization. Is there another way to make this task less odious or tedious?

Thanks,

Overwhelmed by Obituaries

Dear Overwhelmed,

Reviewing obituaries isn’t an easy task! It takes time to review an obituary, check the names against your database, and then updating the record or create an email. Plus it’s not the most pleasant of topics either. However, it’s an important activity because it’s part of caring for our donors and alumni. Fundraising is about relationships, including the end of life. We should stay abreast of all the people (and their loved ones) who have passed away is to make sure we approach donors and alumni appropriately in their time of grief. We don’t want to keep mailing to someone who has passed; that’s a bit like putting salt in the wound (and not to mention a waste of resources). If we are cultivating a major gift donor, it would be a bit awkward to ask them for a major gift if they’ve had an unfortunate event. More importantly, we may even be able to provide some relief; depending on the organization, an institution may be able to provide pastoral care and/or even hold services for the beloved one.

Finally, there’s also the planned giving aspect of fundraising. It’s important to keep track of donors who have pledged to give part of their estates to your organization. Some planned giving departments will reach out to the estates to reconcile the donor’s pledge.

However, that doesn’t change the fact that obituary review can be extremely time consuming. There are several things that may help to alleviate the practice. First, you should consider reviewing the obituary procedure at your organization. How much time is it taking compared to the rest of prospect research activities? You could even calculate the yearly cost of obituaries by noting how many hours it takes a week. In one situation, a research department realized it was costing over $15K a year to do obituaries so the process needed to be reviewed. In that situation, the researchers reduced the depth of daily review; instead of reviewing every name in an obituary, it was limited to the deceased and their spouse or child and their parents. That reduced the time incredible.

Alerts are also a useful tool as well. You may want to consider setting up alerts for your top prospects and planned giving donors. You may want to do this anyway for any other newsworthy events for your organization. That way, you can get quicker notification of a death in the life of a major donor. But it has to be reviewed fairly regularly, possibly on a weekly or even daily basis.

Finally, it may be a great task for new researchers, interns and student workers. Reviewing obituaries and cross checking them with the database is a great way to train new hires. It requires attention to detail, follow through and more. Sometimes you have to spend time digging to ensure that the deceased person is the same as the person in your database. Student workers and interns can also be taught to assist with this task. Of course, you’ll need to make sure someone checks their work before anything is finalized in the database.

These are just a few strategies to help with obituary review. How does your organization handle obituary processes?

Motivations of Leaders: Tracey Church

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 14:01:33 GMT

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

APRA-IL is asking local and national industry leaders what the field means to them and why and how they have pursued success in Prospect Development. Through this blog series, we will explore what drives industry leaders to propel their careers and Prospect Development forward.

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, APRA-IL member and volunteer, interviews Tracey Church, Past President of Apra-Canada and Principal Researcher and Consultant with her company, Tracey Church & Associates, Research + Consulting Services.

Tracey has been a professional researcher for over 20 years and is the Past President of the Association of Professional Researchers in Advancement Canada (Apra-Canada). She is the Principal Researcher and Consultant with her own company, Tracey Church & Associates, Research + Consulting Services (www.traceychurchresearch.com). Tracey is proud to be the Co-Editor and Co-Author of Apra-Canada’s first book “Prospect Research in Canada: An Essential Guide for Researchers and Fundraisers” (Civil Sector Press, 2016). Tracey is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) International Research Council and is a Director for Apra International and AFP Golden Horseshoe.

Tracey has worked with over 300 organizations in the fields of health care, education, social services, the arts, and the environment. Her work includes customized one-on-one or group training, custom research profiles, prospect identification, database screening, pipeline management, strategic planning, time and database management, surveys and interviews, and specialized research projects.

Tracey is a part-time faculty member at Western University (London, Ontario) teaching the Prospect Research in Fundraising course in the Master of Library and Information Sciences program (MLIS). She has an MLIS and Professional Certificate in Not-for-Profit Management from Western University. She is a regular and requested presenter for Apra, AFP, AHP, OLA and other conferences and loves to see her students and trainees succeed in the exciting field of prospect research.

Apra – IL: How did you end up owning and running your own prospect research consulting company? Help us understand your journey.

Church: I have been working in the prospect research and development sector for ~15 years in gradual progressive positions. In that time, through my involvement with Apra International, Apra Canada, AFP, AHP and regional fundraising associations, I had built up quite a healthy network of contacts and relationships. So when I set up my research and consulting business a few years ago, I knew a great many people in the small to medium charitable sector who could benefit from affordable research and consulting.

Let me go back a bit. I've always been a researcher. When I first graduated from my MLIS program many years ago, I actually accepted a position as a Research Assistant for Clinical Trials at London Health Science Centre. So to me, research is research. You collect and measure relevant information to a question you are trying to answer and through quantifiable and qualification research you report on the outcomes, best practices, and recommendations moving forward. So not a big leap in the process from clinical trial research to prospect development research! From there, I worked at Western University in the Research Office and Institutional Planning and Budgeting Office. At that time, I was a member of AIR (Association of Institutional Research) which again used measurable results for strategic planning for higher education. We had massive budgetary lay-offs in the late 90s at Western, and I was one of them. I set up my own Research & Writing business which was international in scale but largely focused on academic and Canadian research. It was really interesting work, and really diverse, but my children were young and I found I was pretty well working 24-7 which doesn't work well for a young family. I spent a lot of time saying "please close the office door, Mom is working"! That's when I saw the "Prospect Researcher" position at London Health Sciences Foundation, and the rest, they say, is history.

After five years at LHSF, I became the National Director of Research for CNIB which broadened my scope from regional higher education and healthcare to a national human services agency. It was great for learning the challenge of fundraising for human services, the hardest by far, and for learning the regional differences across Canada. After four years at CNIB, I was recruited to KCI (Ketchum Canada Inc.) from CNIB and broadened my scope even further in regards to the types of research that can be done in fundraising. When I set up my own shop (again) in the summer of 2015, I had learned a great deal about the consulting industry in fundraising in Canada but could, once again, concentrate on the research and prospect development of it. Now of course, my children are older and out of the house, so I am at liberty to make my own schedule without having to worry about soccer or karate practice! I LOVE my work and my clients are very inspirational.

Apra – IL: Describe your motivations to continue in prospect development and what keeps you engaged.

Church: It sounds corny, but the people in the charitable sector and my clients are what keep me motivated. I love helping clients whether it's research, training or consulting. It's great when they get in gifts resulting from the research and I like to think my direction helped them along the way. Also, the teaching and presenting are exciting. I have taught the Prospect Research in Fundraising course in the MLIS program at Western University for eight years now, and it's great teaching students who think they are destined to work in libraries that there is a whole great world of the charitable sector out there that could seriously use their data and research skills. I now see some of my past students at Apra conferences and I get a real kick out of how they have chosen this profession after completing my class. Very rewarding! I also keep very involved in Apra International, Apra Canada, AFP and AHP. I can't help it! They are wonderfully helpful organizations for the fundraising sector and since I present a lot and continue to learn a lot from the conferences and webinars, I feel I need to contribute, too. I've made so many great friends through my board and volunteer involvement.

Apra – IL: What has been the biggest challenge or lesson in your career?

Church: Oh, for sure you have to be resilient and flexible! Life throws you curve balls (like getting laid off) and you have to step back, reassess, and take bold steps in a new direction. I remember my daughter's guidance counselor told their high school class "on average, you will have seven jobs/careers in your lifetime." So the younger generation is prepared for that, whereas our generation thought that some jobs were for life. Not necessarily so! So, for sure you have to keep up-to-date on technology, keep involved, keep taking courses and learning and you will eventually direct yourself into something new, challenging and rewarding when the time comes along, either by your own doing, or if something throws you off course. I can tell you that each new direction I’ve taken has been considerably more exciting than any previous course.

Apra – IL: What is one misconception people have about prospect development? What's the truth?

Church: Well, there are still some older fundraisers, and yes, some senior executives out there that think prospect research and development is a "nice to have" instead of a "need to have." Because we aren't front line fundraisers, we are often overlooked and shuffled to the bottom when in reality, the most successful fundraisers I know are self-confessed totally-couldn’t-have-done-it-without-research groupies! I always tell my trainees or clients that charitable organizations have to be responsible with donors' money, so soliciting without direction is plain old wasting money. Researchers can direct fundraisers away from prospects that have neither the capacity nor the affinity to give to their organization and we can do it in a much more objective way. We don't want fundraisers wasting time (i.e., money), so targeting and strategic consultation regarding the most viable prospects is absolutely necessary to meet their crazy major giving goals. We have to hold our ground in regards to this and need to be at the table at every strategic meeting and step along the way.

Where's my soapbox?! I could go on all day!

Reflections on the Apra-IL Fall Networking Conference 2017

Mon, 30 Oct 2017 18:31:57 GMT

Written by Kathryn Thomas

Director of Membership and Marketing, Apra-IL

Prospect Identification Analyst, Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association

Hello, colleagues! For those of you who couldn’t make it to the Apra-IL Fall Networking Conference, you were missed! Those of us who could attend enjoyed several hours of structured (and not-so-structured) conversation about how our shops define analytics and utilize them to aid us in our work, how we write and organize biographical information, how to wrangle gift officer portfolios, and more.

The Prospect Research tables had rousing conversations that veered away from our structured topic list to issues immediately effecting them. During round three, I learned the various attitudes toward and time allotted for proactive verses reactive research. Most shops allotted some time every month, but wished they had the ability to explore new proactive research projects. A few shops are able to devote considerable amounts of time to proactive research and have been experimenting with the best areas to focus on and improve over time.

The management of portfolios and portfolio reviews were the primary topics of conversation for the Prospect Management table. The conversation confirmed what we’ve all struggled with: what makes a healthy portfolio and does it change depending on a fundraiser’s level of experience or focus area? Development metrics was also touched on during round one. A participant noted that "[she loved] the round table format because the composition of each group really directs the conversation, and it’s a great forum for brain-picking and brainstorming with our peers on those hard-to-answer questions we all come across in our line of work, at every level."

Over at the analytics table, the round two conversation began with a definition of analytics at each of our shops. From there, discussion centered on projects various shops are undertaking – from using analytics to understand changing trends in corporate giving to parsing out the most beneficial annual giving segments. One attendee noted that she learned some new strategies for encouraging more contact data updates in their CRM. She also noted that she liked having the ability to, "discuss the overall philosophy of different shops on our day-to-day processes and documents" at the event.

Afterward, we paraded to the World of Beer for tasty snacks (including a truly massive pretzel), delicious drinks, and further conversation.

When asked what they thought of the day, one attendee noted, "It was a great opportunity to connect with my fellow chapter members and discuss our work and current challenges. This is the one time a year that I can connect with other similar organizations and compare notes. Taking the time to do that has greatly benefited my work and ongoing projects for my team. I’m looking forward to next year!" One new Apra-IL member noted that is was wonderful to have an understanding space in which to share interpersonal issues she's worked through with co-workers and to receive advice and support in that area from a new group of colleagues and soon-to-be friends.

For anyone who'd like to give the Apra-IL Board some feedback as we begin planning our fall event, please fill out this very short survey.

Thank you! And I look forward to receiving your feedback and meeting you at the next Apra-IL event in the spring!

Match Makers: Final Round

Mon, 30 Oct 2017 15:57:10 GMT

The working relationship between researchers and gift officers can make or break a shop's morale, efficiency, and ability to reach its goals. Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to match yourself with major gift officers based on strengths and work-style capability instead of random assignments? Apra-IL is having some fun imagining a world where we could pick our perfect research and gift officer match. In an ode to all the popular reality match making shows, we present to you - a new series, Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition!

Final Installment

Host: Welcome back, everyone, to the final episode of Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition. That’s right folks, this is our final episode! So far, our researchers Xavier, Veronica, and Melissa have been tested by research requests to analyze their skills and compatibility with Jared, our major gift officer. Our researchers have built portfolios, conducted targeted research in "Whose boat is it anyway," and uncovered a family’s inheritance. In today’s challenge, the researchers will work with a special guest on Jared’s portfolio, and at the end of this challenge Jared will decide who will be his perfect researcher match.

Xavier, Veronica, Melissa, and Jared, welcome back! I hope you all are ready for today’s challenge.

Let’s welcome our surprise guest Ericka. Ericka please introduce yourself to our audience, tell them what you do here, and fill them in on today’s challenge.

Ericka: Hello everyone! My name is Ericka and I am the Prospect Manager at Ordinary University. I manage the plans that Fundraisers like Jared put in our database on prospects, I work with each fundraiser to restructure portfolios, ensure that each fundraiser has a set number of prospects in his or her portfolio, and I analyze how the prospects are being moved along the cultivation pipeline. My job involves a lot of data and collaboration with researchers and fundraisers.

Today’s challenge is going to be very different. As we all know, Jared is fairly new to OU and has adopted a lot of the previous fundraiser’s portfolio. As a result, Jared is beyond the limit of prospects for his portfolio. Therefore, each researcher will get a chance to review some of the data I’ve compiled on Jared’s portfolio and suggest a "collaboration plan" that would help us as a Development team clean up Jared’s portfolio. This challenge is called,

C is for Collaboration

Veronica: Hi everyone, so I was the first to meet with Ericka. As I was looking through Jared’s portfolio I saw a lot of prospects that had old ratings, so I told Ericka that my collaboration plan would consist of updating the prospects’ ratings through quick screenings. Jared’s portfolio is full of prospects with 10-year-old ratings and several principal gift donors. I think it’s important that we as researchers update these ratings and consider distributing some of Jared’s prospects to their second units of interest, if necessary.

Host: Great plan Veronica! Time to hear from Xavier.

Xavier: Hi! So, as I looked through Jared’s portfolio with Ericka, I presented her with a collaboration plan in which research and prospect management would work together to redistribute Jared’s portfolio so that it would decrease the number of prospects. In fact, I am familiar with the prospects within Jared’s portfolio because I provided several of the researched profiles.

Host: Xavier that makes a lot of sense! Thank you for that plan! Melissa?

Melissa: Hello everyone, when I met with Ericka and looked over Jared’s portfolio, I realized that the best collaboration plan would consist of reviewing Jared’s prospects, and conducting some updated research. I also felt like it would make sense for us to figure out which prospects would remain in the portfolio based on the progress recorded on each prospect's plan. Jared is coming with his own strategies so we need to make sure his portfolio reflects this.

Host: Melissa, great plan! Ericka? It's time to decide who won this competition after reviewing their collaboration plans. What do you think?

Ericka: After speaking with Jared about each researcher’s collaboration plan, we really believe that Melissa’s plan won. It was a thorough plan that considered all aspects of how we needed to construct and clean up Jared’s portfolio.

Jared: And the winner of Match Makers, and my new researcher will be Melissa! All the researchers have done an extraordinary job! But I believe Melissa has been one inch ahead in the game. Thank you to everyone for participating!

Host: Folks this is so exciting! Thank you, Ericka, Jared, Xavier, Veronica, and our winner of Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition, Melissa!

I believe we have learned a lot from our researchers and Ericka. Thank you all for participating! And thank you to our audience for being a part of this journey!

Motivations of Leaders: Leigh Petersen

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 13:38:12 GMT

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

APRA-IL is asking local and national industry leaders what the field means to them and why and how they have pursued success in Prospect Development. Through this blog series we will explore what drives industry leaders to propel their careers and Prospect Development forward.

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, APRA-IL member and volunteer, interviews Leigh Petersen, former Apra-IL President and Senior Director of Advancement Services and Operations at Southwestern University.

Working with non-profits for over 15 years, Leigh Petersen is currently the Senior Director of Advancement Services and Operations at Southwestern University. She previously worked as the Director of Prospect Development at Harvard Business School where she developed the prospect management, analytics, and research teams. Prior to Harvard, Leigh served as Director of Prospect Development at Loyola University Chicago. Leigh chaired the 2017 Apra Data Analytics Symposium and served in leadership roles with Apra-IL. Leigh earned her MBA in Information Systems Management with a certificate in Data Warehousing from Loyola University Chicago and a BA in Music Performance from Doane College (Crete, NE). She enjoys singing with the Round Rock Community Choir, running Ragnar Relays, traveling worldwide, and nerding out with data.

Apra-IL: Describe your motivations to build your career in Prospect Development, and what keeps you engaged.

Petersen: Like many others, I fell into Prospect Development by accident. My career started in arts management, moved to working in finance, and landed in planned giving. As a gift officer, I enjoyed the donor stories, but found myself more interested in the big picture of prospect identification. Around the same time, I started my MBA at Loyola University Chicago and found my data classes to be very intriguing, which peaked my curiosity in this field. With the techniques learned as a gift officer paired with the data concepts from my MBA class, it felt very natural to transition into the Director of Prospect Development role at Loyola.

The Prospect Development professionals whom I have met through Apra and AASP or colleagues whom I've worked with at Loyola, Harvard Business School, or Southwestern University (as well as many other non-profits) continue to amaze me. These individuals continue to ask new questions of our field while taking the time to teach those around them. These wonderful people are why I stay engaged in this area of nonprofits.

Apra-IL: What impact does your work, and the overall field of Prospect Development, have (and could you describe who you believe your audience is)?

Petersen: Prospect Development's impact is enormous - locally in our organizations and globally across organizations of all types. Generally, I'm a person who wants to create improvements in my day-to-day role for not only myself, but the environment around me. It's greatly satisfying to know that even a small change in a process or a tiny update in a data point can lead to better productivity and growing results for the entire team and organization. Too often the unsung heroes, Prospect Development professionals, improve the data, processes, flows, relationships, etc. that help raise money in supporting noble efforts. Though it's very difficult to measure our direct impact, I can only estimate (with my experience in capital campaigns) that our impact is in the hundreds of billions of dollars across the industry.

Apra-IL: Please share a piece of advice with the readers on what you have gained during your professional development.

Petersen: I'd recommend readers build a network of 3-5 honest and fun people in the profession who can provide straight feedback, push you to be better, and cheer for you along the journey. There were plenty of times when I doubted decisions or walked unknown paths, but these individuals helped guide and support my efforts through constructive conversations. They are also super fun individuals who can handle chilling with a beer and not talking work if that's what's needed.

Next, I'd recommend learning how to be an expert in something. Whether it's prospect staging, data visualizations, or real estate valuation, find something and become the go-to person on the topic. I've found my passion and success in turning around departments and building teams and processes from scratch. Each situation has been different and extremely challenging, but also very rewarding, especially when you see staff who you've hired move to amazing, successful careers.

Apra-IL: What is next for you? Is there anything you would like to accomplish or a challenge you hope to overcome?

Petersen: It was an honor presenting at CASE Asia in Hong Kong in 2016 with Josh Birkholz. Speaking somewhere outside the US is on my short to-do list. Next, I recently purchased www.leighpetersen.com, so I guess I had better do something with that webpage! I want it to be more than just a blog, so feel free to send me any suggestions of what you're interested in seeing from me. Also, I'm continually intrigued by the power of analytics, so I'm currently investigating some online course options since I need more training in that area. Finally, I love donuts, so those continue to stay in my future.

Dear Analyst: Wealth Screening Flummoxed

Mon, 25 Sep 2017 13:45:01 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates

Dear Analyst,

My organization has decided to do a wealth screening of our entire database. I’ve never been through a wealth screening before. What are the benefits of doing such a large screening? What should I be aware of before we start this process? All I’ve been told is that we have to go through and verify the information of 1000s of records. How do I do that? And is that even feasible? When we are done with the verification, what’s next? I’m so overwhelmed!

Thanks,

Wealth Screening Flummoxed

Dear Flummoxed,

Take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay. Wealth screenings are a useful way of unearthing new prospects in your database. By matching people and their addresses from your database with possible assets and other data points, you can learn new information about people in your database. Many services can tell you about their real estate, securities, philanthropic giving, political giving, and much more. Some screenings provide demographic segments for the people in your database that could help in understanding a person’s philanthropic habits. Some screenings are quite comprehensive, including a large portion if not all of your fundraising database. Others may be smaller or more targeted based on the needs of your organization. There are also services that allow you to upload a list of prospects (like Parents or ticketholders) for a mini-screening. Some institutions set up continuous screening of ticketholders, new members, etc. based on their needs and what works best for your organization. You might want to consider a wealth screening every couple of years with some targeted screenings in between depending on what donor populations you want to look at.

From all of this data, you hopefully can replenish your pool of prospects with new major gift prospects to visit and qualify. Other opportunities from a screening could be developing a new pool of Planned Giving Prospects or Annual Giving Prospects. Through developing these types of pools, you may discover some annual giving prospects who have a very high capacity or you may learn that someone who had a low prospect rating has a lot of securities and may be worth a fresh look. Wealth screenings are very powerful and can aid the work of a prospect researcher enormously.

While these screenings can be immensely helpful, they also can be a lot of work both before and after you submit data. You mention that there are a lot of records and the information needs to be verified and common names such as John Smith can be tricky and slow the process down. How do you handle all that data? Having a plan for dealing with the wealth screening is very important. First you have to figure out how to handle the extra depends on a team’s time. Some shops have been known to go on a research freeze; only priority projects are worked on while the department work to verify gift capacities. Not all shops are able to do that and so it even more important to have a plan of action and a reasonable time line for verification to be completed. You may have to allot some of your time every day to the screening and the rest to the normal workload. Or you could try to schedule a day a week where you work exclusively on the wealth screening.

Second, how do you segment the wealth screening data? Chances are that you just won’t be able to get to everyone. So how do you do it? I would highly recommend a top down approach. Often times, wealth screenings will come up with a rating like $100,000 - $250,000 or a score. Some services will have a total of identified assets. Use these ratings, scores, and assets to prioritize your verification process. You may want to start at the very top rated prospects per the wealth screening or those with the highest number of identified assets. If you have a specific program or project you are working on, focus on that to help your prioritize. For instance, if you are helping a law school with their campaign, you may want to focus on law alumni with high number of assets. It would help to parse it out, by an area of interest like law or the arts or geographic areas. In other words, assemble small groups of people that need to be verified. For instance, you could create a group of all Illinois residents with a rating over $250,000+. In my shop, we’d try to segment it by about 250 people. That is way more manageable than 1000s. Dealing with the data in smaller chunks is a lot easier to comprehend and far more useful!

Third, how do you get your new prospects into gift officer portfolios? This likely will require discussion with management and major gift officers (and other officers) as well. A good approach would be to put together a list of new prospects that you think should be assigned overall or to a specific gift officer. Of course, as noted in previous Dear Analyst post, you may have to sell the prospects to get major gift officers interested in them. Some gift officers can be very eager for new prospects and make the process easier but we all know we will have to make a tough sell at some point. Another ideas would be to consider looking at the new prospects’ contact information to help aid gift officers in reaching out to the new leads. But that is very dependent on your availability!

As a final but important note, it will be important to set expectations with management at your institution. Also, some leaders may get very excited about the data and want the leads right now. While it’s great that they are onboard, you want to explain the importance of verification to ensure that you have the right data per prospect. You may have to show them your plan so they understand that it is a process and won’t happen overnight.

You are going to find a lot of new prospects but it probably won’t help as much with folks that you already know. Wealth screening can help uncover new prospects to support your mission, find new upgrade opportunities to build pipeline donors, and may help align high end donors to the right giving area. It’s an important complement to the efforts of prospect research and prospect management. These are just a few ways to help guide you as you handle your first wealth screening. Each screening is an opportunity and you should take full advantage of it! At the end of the process, you’ll have a new pool of prospects with lots of great information on their capacity!

Have a burning question for Dear Analyst? Email us at apraillinois@gmail.com or tweet us at @apraillinois.

Match Makers: Round 3

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 12:43:36 GMT

The working relationship between researchers and gift officers can make or break a shop’s morale, efficiency, and ability to reach its goals! Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to match yourself with major gift officers based on strengths and working style capability instead of random assignments? In this month of love, APRA-IL is having some fun and imagining a world where we could pick our perfect research and gift officer match. In an ode to all the popular reality match making shows, we present to you- a new series, Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition.

The Prospect Development Addition

Host: And we are back everyone! Welcome to another episode of Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition. Let’s also welcome back our researchers Xavier, Veronica and Melissa, and our major gift officer Jared. I hope you all are ready for today’s challenge because it will be enticing.

For this challenge, the researcher’s will show us their ability to verify the information gathered from a gift officer. We call this challenge,

True or False: A Family’s Inheritance

Jared has very important information about a prospect’s mother. The prospect: Gabrielle Hunter is now assumed to inherit a significant amount of wealth, in addition to her current career and status.

It is up to the researchers to verify this information, and report their findings to Jared.

Will our researchers uncover the truth about this mysterious inheritance?

Or will there be more to learn about this family?

Stay tuned folks, this is going to get interesting.

*End of the Day *

Host: Let’s hear from our researchers and find out what they’ve found.

Xavier?

Xavier: So, I spoke with Jared this morning and learned that Gabrielle Hunter’s mother supposedly owned several properties in her home state of Illinois, and several farms in Iowa, where she lived with her husband for some years. The Hunters are an interesting family and have always been rumored to be an affluent family, with a name tied to wealth thanks to several Hunters being very successful in rural real estate, in the late 60s.

I began to search for the Hunter name in Illinois, and thanks to Jared, I also was familiar with the towns in which their properties were located so I knew resources to use to access property records related to ownership and taxes. After searching for an hour, I found nothing beyond property values of these rural properties to help inform me of their wealth beyond real estate. I was able to find a few properties but only one or two were being held by the family. Being able to confirm that the family holds at least one of these homes does give me some idea of their capacity but the lack of clarity on their ownership of the other properties makes it hard to give a complete assessment of their holdings. Based on the difficulty of my search, I can confirm that this family has taken great steps to shield their wealth using LLC’s and other strategies. I found an old interview with the Chicago Tribune in which Gabrielle Hunter’s father describes an interest in being an angel investor to several real estate companies in the country, and would not reveal the ones he was in talks with. While this explains the hard to find personal information, it still gives us something to work with since he has disclosed that he has enough capital to be an angel investor.

I brought this information to Jared and explained the significance of an angel investor- someone described to be an investor to small start-ups, and entrepreneurs, and to meet the Securities Exchange Commission's (SEC) standards, an angel investor is one who must have a minimum net worth of $1 million and an annual income of $200,000.

And based on the Hunters’ anonymity, as a researcher I could only conclude that their wealth has been based on the residuals from these investments.

Host: This is amazing, I was not expecting this! Melissa, what were you able to find?

Melissa: I could not find any signs of property under the Hunter name, and search tools such as Lexis Nexis, only gave me old addresses. But what I did find was a large gift made to a hospital in Illinois under our prospect’s mother’s nickname. Although we already know her nickname is Shelly, I still had to verify that it was really her because she was acknowledged as simply “our most devoted volunteer Shelly”. Michelle Hunter, Gabrielle’s mother, is known to speak highly of this hospital in public settings and her previous gift officer has noted her volunteering experience.

I think this information should be a great indicator of the Hunter family’s capacity, and perhaps what Gabrielle could inherit from her parents, being the only child.

Host: Great work Melissa, I would like to remind our audience- It’s important to emphasis that your fundraisers are keeping their interactions with prospects in the database up to date, and recording all the details. A good contact report can sometimes be the only trace of a previous relationship or strategy and could make or break future solicitations. It truly helps the researchers. So, shout out to that previous gift officer who entered their contacts!

Now onto Veronica.

Veronica: After getting all the information about the prospect’s potential inheritance, I started searching for the properties and farms, and came up with not much to work with. I unfortunately spent hours using all the resources available to us, and still found very little. I did find that although Gabrielle’s mother didn’t own properties, Gabrielle has two a summer homes in Florida and recently bought a condominium in New York. Thanks to some interactions with her previous gift officer I verified her comments on wanting to own homes in those states as factual. I think Gabrielle has major gift capacity, and although we hear things about her family, she is building her own reputation!

Host: Wow, I’m sure Jared appreciates learning this news about Gabrielle, thank you Veronica!

Jared, its time now, the audience and I are dying to know what you thought about the researcher’s feedback and who won this challenge?

Jared: Well honestly, I am shocked at what they uncovered. Each one of them gave me so much to work with and I will be setting up a meeting with Gabrielle to talk about a gift, using all the information learned today. Today, I will not be crowning one person the winner because they all did an exceptional job with the information I gave them. I think they made sure they brought something I could use and add to my strategy and I am grateful. Thank you researchers!

Host: *In shock* Folks I think Jared just changed the show on us. This was not planned! Are you saying we don’t have a winner today Jared?

Jared: Nope, I’m sorry they all won this one!

Host: Well there you have it folks! Today everyone is a winner. Thank you all for joining us for another amazing episode! This challenge was full of twists and turns!

Make sure to join us next time on Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition. At the end, there will only be one match.

Dear Analyst 14: Social Media Confused

Mon, 21 Aug 2017 13:49:05 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates

Dear Analyst,

I know that there are a lot of resources for prospect development professionals through social media out there but I’m not sure what to do with it all. Are there better social media sources than others? How do I decide what platform is best for my research purposes? Should I be using any information I find on Facebook or LinkedIn? Is it ethical to be using these platforms? Is it reliable? I’m wary of the potential effectiveness and ethical implications of using social media research sources but also have researcher’s FOMO (fear of missing out) by not utilizing these tools.

Thanks,

Social Media Confused

Dear Confused,

You are right. There is so much information out there that it is hard to know what to do with it all. You are asking the right questions about ethics and reliability. There’s no one size fits all when it comes to the use of social media in research. Platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn in particular present specific ethical challenges for prospect researchers. You might first decide what social media sites you want to use. For instance, LinkedIn seems to be a fairly standard social media site used by fundraisers and prospect researchers alike. The purpose of the site is professional with job information, etc. Gift officers may even use it as a tool to supplement their regional visits. Facebook may be trickier since it contains much more personal information, beyond the job. Twitter even more so.

With whatever sites you choose to use, you should probably take the information with a grain of salt. Everything is self-reported and may not always be up-to-date. But then again, anything a prospect says to a gift officer or staff member is also self-reported so don’t shy away just because of that. I like to look for clues about the person by looking at their LinkedIn profile. I like to consider how much information is available? Do they list one job and that’s it? Or does it seem they are updating it constantly? That can provide some clues as to the reliability and potential usefulness of the information. That’s a first step. Second step is try to verify the information to the best of your ability. For example, if they work for the XYZ Company, it may be worth going to the company’s website and seeing if they are there. Some companies will have lots of information about their employees and some don’t. You can also look up companies and see if there is information about them to ensure they exist. You can see what’s in your database about the person and see if it matches. Basic attempts at verification like these can greatly enhance your confidence in using these types of social media resources and doesn’t stray too far from traditional prospect research work.

In terms of ethics, APRA International has provided guidelines about the use of LinkedIn that can be found here: http://www.aprahome.org/d/do/4884. One point that they are explicit about in this discussion is that it’s okay to look at a person’s profile even if you are signed in. You can even do it anonymously by adjusting your privacy setting. However, you cannot create a fake account or misrepresent yourself. That would be considered unethical.

Special note: There’s a lot of furor in the UK about data and prospect research. You can read a little bit about it here http://apraillinois.org/blog/5016608. If you are conducting international research it is important to remember to tread carefully and consider local laws in regards to privacy and data use. Ultimately, you may want to work with folks in your organization to put together a policy statement about how the information is going to be used. That way, everyone adheres to the same set of rules.

Hope that helps you manage the amount of social media out there and make use of it for your work! Good luck!

Have a tricky prospect management/research or analytics question? Ask us at apraillinois@gmail.com

Post-APRA International Wrap-Up

Mon, 07 Aug 2017 15:12:21 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates

This is the saddest week of the year. It’s a little over a week since APRA International ended. It’s the longest period until the next one!

As you may tell, APRA International remains one of my favorite times of the year. There’s nothing like a few days to talk and learn from your colleagues from all over the world and different institutions. Plus, this was the 30^th annual APRA International.

One of the sessions that I attended “Organizational Capacity Ratings: Don’t Leave Them out of Your Campaign Mix Tape”. Four institutions presented their different methods for handling organizational data including University of British Columbia, University of Alberta, University of Washington, and University of California – San Diego. Each institution reviewed how they rated organizations. I thought that University of Alberta’s system was the most impressive. Instead of developing one system to rate both corporations and foundations, they have developed two different systems for each. In their system, they use three criteria for rating corporations, creating a matrix to rate corporations on operating revenue, affinity, and fit. The system for rating foundations has four criteria including capacity, assets, affinity and fit. This is such a great idea! It never occurred to me to have different systems but it does make a lot of sense.

I also attended a very useful presentation, “Grateful Patient 2.0: Integrating Patient data into Distinct Prospect Pools” from the University of California San Diego. They talked about how they turned their direct mail grateful patient system into physician based fundraising with a major gift focus in two years. That’s pretty incredible! The majority of their presentation dealt with how they got a daily patient feed of in-patient and out-patient data from the hospital each night and the administrative work that went in to it. That feed needed to be HIPAA compliant so it was critical to have good relationships with Compliance Officers to earn their trust and get the right data consistently. Their end result was a problem that every shop hopes for- a huge number of new constituents.

My last session was “You Spin Me Right Round: Fundraising Regulation & GDPR Changes in the UK.” This session talked about the current and future privacy laws and their impact on fundraising. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will make the privacy laws stricter and will be implemented on May 25, 2018. It is critical to note that organizations need to be compliant when the law goes into effect so the time to plan is now. This law will “enhance data subject rights, increase fines, international reach, and stricter consent requirements.” People need to be informed of their rights about their data in a clear way. People must opt-in, instead of opting-out like here in the States. Further clarification will be released in the upcoming months and even at the beginning of 2018.

The above are just a few nuggets that I learned at this year’s APRA International. I met wonderful people, learned a lot of great things. I can’t wait for next year’s conference!

Motivations of Leaders: Jo Theodosopoulos

Mon, 07 Aug 2017 12:18:27 GMT

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, APRA-IL member and volunteer, interviews Jo Theodosopoulos, Manager of Prospect Development at The Minneapolis Foundation.

Jo Theodosopoulos is the Manager of Prospect Development at The Minneapolis Foundation. She launched the organization’s first prospect research program in May 2014, after successfully doing the same at Sanford Health Foundation/Edith Sanford Breast Cancer Foundation (Sioux Falls, SD) in 2012. She works across the organization with all departments to find and help build potential relationships. Jo was elected to the board of APRA-Minnesota in January 2016. Prior to joining the prospect development field, Jo spent five years in development and donor relations at the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation. She holds a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies from South Dakota State University. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and Wyatt the Rottweiler.

Apra-IL: What impact does your work, and the overall field of Prospect Development have? And could you describe who you believe your audience is?

Jo: Community foundations work to improve the lives of people in a geographic area. They bring together resources to support nonprofits in their communities. So, in a sense, my work impacts a lot of nonprofits and, therefore, the overall community by helping to find and build those resources and partnerships that support the good work that frontline organizations do. I think the same can be said for the overall field of Prospect Development. We’re all trying to help improve our organizations and communities in some form. I believe that my audience is pretty broad. I work with our Philanthropic Advisors, our executive team, our Impact Directors, and other members of the nonprofit community to further our impact.

Apra-IL: As a leader, can you tell us what motivates you in your current field? And perhaps whether your motivations have ever changed?

Jo: I’m motivated by the fact that our work at The Minneapolis Foundation helps support so many organizations that work to improve our community. I love working with our staff to strategize the best and most efficient way to make this happen. I also love collaborating with others across the Prospect Development field to share ideas and best practices. We’ve developed a great community among Prospect Development professionals. I definitely think my motivations have changed. I never realized before that I could be a leader, but now I’m happy to take on that challenge.

Apra-IL: With 3 words, describe the role of a Prospect Development professional, and why?

Jo: Strategy. I think that one of the most important jobs we have is to help inform the strategy of the organization in regard to fundraising and, in my case, grantmaking and partnerships using the data we provide.

Information. Sometimes I like to use the word “information” rather than “data”. It seems a little less daunting, but that’s my opinion. At any rate, we provide the data/information used to inform strategy (see above!).

Partnerships. Whether they are internal partnerships with other staff members or external partnerships with other prospect development professionals, our networks, grantmakers, donors, etc., we should strive to make those partnerships as strong as possible.

Do you know a leader you want us to profile? Let us know!

Email us at info@apraillinois.org

Apra-IL is California Dreaming... See You in Anaheim!

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 12:30:17 GMT

One of our favorite times of year is almost upon us! Apra International is only a few weeks away. Many of us from Apra-IL are heading off to Anaheim, CA to learn, socialize, and even present. We are excited to announce that blog feature, Dear Analyst, will have its very own panel! Come with questions for our panelists, Katie Ingrao, Rush University Medical Center, Elisa Shoenberger, Grenzebach Glier and Associates, and Jessica Szadziewicz, Loyola University Chicago to answer!

We have noted the sessions of other folks from Illinois below. Come and support your colleagues!

Dear Analyst

Katie Ingrao, Rush University Medical Center, Elisa Shoenberger, Grenzebach Glier and Associates, Jessica Szadziewicz, Loyola University Chicago

Thursday, July 27

2:15pm to 3:00pm

Frontier or Failure? The Social Impact Bond

Sarah Brandywine Johnson, University of Chicago

Friday, July 28

11:00pm to 12:30pm

Scaling up Interest-Based Fundraising

Elizabeth Goodman, John McBride, University of Chicago

Friday 28, 2017

3:45pm to 4:30pm

What’s Your Style? APRA Chapter Board Members on Leadership

Katie Ingrao, Rush University Medical Center, Amy Begg, Harvard University; Nicholas Sollog III, The Sollog Group; Iberia Zafira, University of California, Berkeley

Saturday, July 29th

9:30am to 10:15am

Natural Partners: Levering Analytic Talent at Your Institution

John P. Gough, The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

10:15am to 12:00pm

Motivations of Leaders: Sabrina Latham

Mon, 08 May 2017 12:29:56 GMT

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, APRA-IL member and volunteer, interviews Sabrina Latham, Director of Prospect Management and Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Sabrina Latham has been employed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) for more than 25 years and is currently the Director of Prospect Management and Research - a position she has held since October 2012. She is a member of Apra International and most recently served as a member of the planning committee for ARC 2017 Conference in Atlanta. Sabrina is also president of the Apra MidSouth chapter that represents Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. She has one daughter, Anissa Simone, who graduates from UAB this month.

APRA-IL: Describe your motivations to build your career in Prospect Development, and what keeps you engaged.

Sabrina: It is so easy to burn out from doing the same job repeatedly. However, one comment I heard recently put things into perspective for me. Schoolchildren today are going to be working in careers that have not been created yet. I had to stop and really think about that in comparison to prospect research’s evolution to prospect development. Looking back to the eight or nine years that I’ve worked in the field there have been substantial changes in the various techniques and tools that were not available several years ago. I guess you can say that really keeps me engaged and excited about coming to work.

Also, the outstanding work my colleagues from near and far are doing to promote our profession via the various professional development offerings and through Apra’s Connections newsletter motivate me to do better every day. I don’t know what I would do without their contributions.

APRA-IL: Describe your journey into your current position.

Sabrina: My journey started sometime in 2000 when I was working as web communications specialist in the vice president and dean’s office of our medical school. The senior associate dean and I had a long discussion about what it would take to move up in the rankings of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) federal funding. You can say we were a couple of nerds excited about all of the information that we able to find on our peer institutions as we traded random, yet interesting, statistics back and forth. Additional faculty and staff joined in on the fact finding and the project eventually grew into a school-wide strategic plan that drew over 150 team members, affectionately known as N.E.R.D.s (Network for the Evaluation of Research Data). During this time, I was also writer and editor for the dean’s faculty newsletter, inforMED.

A few years later, a position on the school’s annual giving team opened up and the associate dean recommended me since I had a knack for persuasive writing. That opportunity led to philanthropic grant writing and ultimately my present role in prospect research and management. It wasn’t your typical foray into the field, but it really helped me develop the persistence for finding and analyzing information that is needed for this type of position.

APRA-IL: Can you share three takeaways from your time as an APRA chapter leader?

Sabrina: Never be afraid to ask for guidance from your colleagues that are serving in similar roles because starting out can be a bit intimidating and overwhelming. Everyone is willing to provide advice. When I first started, I reached out to leaders as far as Colorado and picked up wonderful tips with every call or e-mail.

Along those same lines, take advantage of the national networking opportunities offered by headquarters. For example, Apra hosts a Chapter Leaders’ Summit in Chicago every February to distribute important information (i.e. new branding, new web platform, etc.), develop leadership skills and allow us to get to know one another, so we can eventually…

Collaborate, collaborate and collaborate again as much as possible. Just because you volunteer with one chapter does not mean that another chapter is off limits. At the last leadership summit Katie Ingrao (Apra-IL), Jo Theodosopoulos (Apra-MN) and I discussed merging our webinar calendars. Instead of one chapter hosting multiple webinars in a year, Apra-IL will host one and make it available to Apra-MN and Apra-MS members and so on each quarter. More details on the webinars are forthcoming.

Do you know a leader you want us to profile? Let us know!

Email us at info@apraillinois.org

Dear Analyst 13: Prospect Hostage Negotiator

Mon, 01 May 2017 13:55:00 GMT

By Katie Ingrao, Associate Director of Prospect Management, Rush University Medical Center

Dear Analyst,

I’ve really been struggling with my portfolio review meetings with my gift officers. In particular their tendency to “hoard” prospects in portfolios when there are no planned activities or strategy to move them. My job is to assist them in controlling the number and quality of prospects in their portfolio but the more months and meetings that pass they continue to hesitate when I make suggestions for removal. Is there any way that I can communicate with them better that it’s ok to “let go”?

Best,

Prospect Hostage Negotiator

Dear Prospect Hostage Negotiator,

I feel your pain and you’re definitely not alone in this struggle. We as prospect management professionals are placed in a tough position when meeting with our gift officers to help them make educated decisions about prospect movement. We can be both the angel and the devil on their shoulders in these meetings but it’s important that you have established a shared understanding of what a “healthy” portfolio means in your office for effective change to happen. In addition, your organization should have set policies on how to maintain an ideal portfolio to help prospect management execute clear consequences for any portfolio that is not being maintained. If your office has not done this ground work you have nothing to support your cause to reach a common goal of managing optimal portfolios.

Shops that are starting to implement such standards usually start with basic goals of agreeing on an ideal portfolio size, amount of time allowed to attempt to qualify, and reinforcing a capacity rating minimum for portfolio additions. It’s key to include leadership in these discussions. They will most likely be charged with addressing noncompliance of said standards and so their feedback on changes will determine the ultimate success of enforcement. Not all shops will prioritize the standards that I have suggested but with whatever your shop decides, you must also be prepared to track your data. I’m assuming that your frustration is caused by seeing no change over and over in meetings; your shop is already tracking some prospect data that enables you to notice this lack of movement. You’ll need to review these reports and determine if they help illustrate whether or not a portfolio is meeting your current standards and then identify any potential standards you’d like to implement. Ensuring that you are tracking your data and creating meaningful reports will go a long way in identifying areas that portfolios need to improve.

While addressing the way you track your prospect data currently, you should also consider how to put tracking policies into place that will help alleviate some of the anxiety of your gift officers about moving prospects out of their portfolios. The main fear, I believe, of gift officers is that they will be unaware of a future event with the prospect after they are removed from their portfolio i.e. gift, significant contact, or cultivation opportunity. We can’t completely alleviate all their fears but we can take actionable steps to create what I like to call “safety nets”. Examples of these safety nets would be segment coding with your database for stewardship and or annual appeal activity, an ear marking system with your database to track clear chain of command when it comes to communicating with a donor, and a regular review of recent transactions by the research or management teams to identify donors who should be managed in a portfolio. I pitch these safety nets to gift officers as reassurances about systems put into place for their benefit so that they can trust to let prospects go and keep their portfolios uncluttered. Finding the right number and variety of safety nets rests with each office and how they operate but being open and transparent on what happens to prospects once they are removed from a portfolio can build a strong sense of trust with a system for many overloaded gift officers.

So you’re probably thinking, “Yea, self-analysis and overhauling policies are great steps but what should I do if they still just won’t let go?” This is probably where the majority of us live. Going 10 rounds of “Why are you holding on to a low rated prospect when I have much better options?” It’s critical at this point to know if you have the support and buy-in from the gift officer’s manager. If you’re positioned well, you only need to reiterate the shared agreement on what a “healthy” portfolio is and what the consequences are when that isn’t the case. Move forward with said consequences while always being clear that your responsibility is to the efficiency of the portfolio. If you are not in a good position or lack the support of their managers, you will need to reevaluate your office’s policies and goals. It is impossible to reinforce rules that everyone doesn’t follow and seriously jeopardizes your ability to be effective in helping gift officers reach dollar goals. I find that consistent communication of the goals and the steps that need to be taken work well in the fight against prospect hoarding.

Have a question for Dear Analyst? Email us at apraillinois@gmail.com or tweet at us @APRAIllinois

Dear Analyst 12: Wealth Tracker

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 15:09:31 GMT

By Jessica Szadziewicz, Prospect Management and Research Analyst, Loyola University, Bill Farr, Director of Prospect Research, Rush University Medical Center, Angie Herrington, Development Associate, The Helen Brown Group

Dear Analyst,

I am writing to seek you advice/recommendations on best sources of information on tracking/handling children of wealth before they themselves attain major gift capacity. We have been working towards identifying the MG prospects among the parents of incoming freshmen as early in their 4 years at our institution as we possibly can. We try to find ways to “touch” these families early and often so we can turn the parents into donors while their children are still students. Once the children graduate, most parents (although not all) redirect their philanthropy to other causes. There is nothing more frustrating to me as the lone researcher here to uncover a family with capacity during the child/student’s final semester. What a squandered opportunity!

We are also trying to expose the students of these families to the meaning and impact that philanthropy (including their parents’ giving) has on the institution. Most importantly, and most germane to my original purpose in reaching out to fellow professionals, we are looking for effective ways to identify, track, and stay connected to these the students after they have graduated. We would like to closely follow these individuals through their careers so that we are on their radar screens as one of their top philanthropic causes BEFORE they acquire Major/Leadership capacity.

Thanks,

Wealth Tracker

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For this special Dear Analyst, we’ve asked three researchers for their input:

Dear Tracker,

To expose the students and families of the impact of philanthropy, you can do a few things. In their freshmen year, encourage a day of community service to some other organization, no monetary donation mentioned. This introduces the idea of giving back. DePaul did this a day before classes started, so it was easier for everyone to participate. Reach out to sophomores for a donation of $5 to the school and tell them why it matters to the university. Ask juniors for $10. Then the senior gift ($20.17, $20.18, etc.). I think this is a good introduction to giving and is manageable.

Loyola also does a special day in March (it was this past Wednesday) when they go to busy buildings and have giveaways to entice students to write brief thank you notes to donors. This day is done in March since that is when tuition payments run out, donor money is needed to keep the university functional. I love this idea and the students line up to write letters (they get a stuffed wolf and kettle corn).

In terms of tracking in the future, news alerts can be set up. A better strategy might be to keep an ongoing spreadsheet with their names. In five years, do a quick LinkedIn or Google search. If nothing comes up, keep the name on the list to check again in a year or so. This can be made manageable by checking on about 5 everyday; checking on 100 at once isn’t sustainable. If they have a fancy job now is the time to reach out. Build a relationship with emails/ letters early so a larger gift can be solicited in the future. (Jessica Szadziewicz, Prospect Management and Research Analyst, Loyola University)

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Dear Tracker,

I worked at two colleges that kept pretty strong FERPA boundaries, which meant we didn’t have access to student records. Both tried parent giving clubs. We often knew when alumni and non-alumni donors were sending their kids, so we’d mark the parents’ records accordingly, and then cross-reference the kids and the parents as soon as the kids became alumni and were added to our databases. Parent giving clubs were modestly successful – anecdotally, I’d guess they had better success if the kids were active in athletics or performing arts or some such – if there was a reason for parents to visit and be proud of their kid, that kept them giving throughout the four years and perhaps beyond; otherwise, it was often one-and-done or two-and-through.

For the second part of your question, my undergrad school’s alumni department started beating the drum during freshman orientation that tuition only covered 75% of an Elite University education with alumni giving making up the difference. That drum kept beating gently but persistently throughout the four years. Class gifts were pushed, and then both online directories and blurbs for the class notes in the alumni magazine were pushed. Donor circles had reduced rates for newer alumni; there would be class challenges, etc. Reunions are pushed hard every five years; local alumni clubs exist, mostly through the efforts of volunteer alumni with serious spirit and love for alma mater… Now with LinkedIn and other forms of social media, it’s even easier for colleges to keep tabs on new alumni – if they join your school’s groups, you then have instant updates every time they change their page. (Bill Farr, Director of Prospect Research, Rush University Medical Center)

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Dear Tracker,

This is a unique group for your pipeline and it’s important to maintain your list within your database and not a separate spreadsheet. Give this group a code or flag to track in the database for reports. Plus, a special indicator on their record will remind anyone coming across their name they may not look like a prospect now, but there’s future potential. Have one person in the research or prospect management department take ownership and maintain this group. That person can set up news alerts and add the names into periodic screening batches. This ensures one person is always keeping them on the radar when there’s inevitable turnover.

The ideal scenario is to outright rate and assign them to a major or annual gift officer’s portfolio with the relationship now focused on them and not their parents. Unfortunately, metrics will be a common reason given as to why they’re not contacting them annually or dropping them from portfolios. This group of alums is likely not going to meet major giving thresholds or be immediate dollars raised for annual goals. This is another good case to create a metric for cultivation and pipeline building.

If you’re unable to assign them directly to a portfolio, send the names to your class reunion or other alumni relations colleagues. Keep them in your mind for all types of participation. Is a development officer traveling to their area? How about a quick coffee? Hosting a party in their city for incoming freshmen? Invite them to attend or participate in some way. Ultimately, building a relationship when they’re not giving and keeping them invested in their alma mater is key to cultivation and keeping you as one of their top philanthropic choices. (Angie Herrington, Development Associate, The Helen Brown Group)

Have a question for Dear Analyst? Email us at apraillinois@gmail.com or tweet at us @APRAIllinois

Match Makers: Round 2

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 13:06:10 GMT

Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition

Host: Welcome back everyone to Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition. We are so happy to be back with our competitors at Ordinary University! Let’s reintroduce our researchers- Xavier, Veronica, and Melissa, and our major gift officer is Jared. Welcome back guys, I hope you’re all ready for our first challenge.

Audience, our first challenge is called “Building Blocks- Can you build a portfolio?” The objective is for our researchers to compile prospects for Jared’s new portfolio which would aid OU’s School of Nursing. A portfolio must consist of top major gift prospects the researchers believe Jared would want to meet.

To make things a little more interesting, the researchers have one week to put this together- 60 total prospects, so it is a very small portfolio, and 30 must be found through proactive research- we are trying to expand the Nursing School’s prospect pool.

Once the portfolios are in, Jared will decide who the winner of this challenge is.

Clear?

Great! May the force of Lexis Nexis be with you all!

And we are back with our researchers and major gift officer. Let’s take some time now to get to know our researchers and how their week has been.

Xavier: Hello my name is Xavier, I’m originally from Virginia and I’ve been a researcher at OU for one year and have been in the research profession a total of 2 years. I’ve worked in other small shops before besides OU so I have some experience fulfilling research requests for portfolios of this size. I feel like this was a good challenge for me, because I think as a researcher my strengths lie in my tenacity to find necessary information. But I still feel overwhelmed at times due to the amount of information one can find about a prospect. I mean, let’s be honest, these are very high capacity givers- their careers didn’t start yesterday, so putting together the portfolio was not the easiest under this kind of pressure. It felt like I was picking long needles out of a haystack. Looking at my portfolio, it’s strong- I made a list of the best 30 proactive and 30 reactive prospect’s names, and included their companies and giving capacity.

Host: Wow Xavier, I feel the pressure just hearing your feedback. Let’s hear from Veronica.

Veronica: Hello my name is Veronica, I’m originally from Texas and I’ve been a researcher at OU for 3 years and started as a Development assistant. I enjoyed this research request despite the pressure, and I felt like there were too many options when it came to searching for the 30 proactive prospects, so that took majority of my time to gather the 60 total. I decided to include a map of my prospects as a visual aid for Jared’s travel plans. I then listed the prospects based on funding priority, and added a very small blurb for each of them. For me, choosing priority was based on the prospect’s philanthropic behavior, and career history.

Host: Impressive Veronica! Next, let’s meet Melissa.

Melissa: Hello, I’m Melissa and I am an OU alumna and small town native. My career started in the finance department and somehow, I maneuvered my way into prospect research, and have been here for 3 months. I feel like my portfolio is strong because I gave Jared the ammunition he truly needed- along with my 60 prospects I gave short blurbs on each prospect and focused on capacity ratings. I believe the time span allotted for this challenge was THE challenge- I think with a portfolio of this size you still need a lot more time, so I am grateful for the days and evenings we were given to work on it.

Host: Well, thanks everyone for participating! Sounds like Jared has a hard decision to make. So what do you think Jared?

Jared: All three portfolios were great and honestly made this decision difficult. There were similarities across the board, but I must say that one stood out to me and that was Veronica’s. Veronica, you won this challenge mainly because you included a document flagging an order of priority. Which you stated would help me in setting up my meetings and travel plans. You also included a document that geographically mapped out the prospects in this portfolio. I really feel like these add-ons made your portfolio stand out and were just more helpful.

Host: What?! Whoa Veronica, you really grabbed the bull by the horns for this challenge!

Now let me say, we never made restrictions on what could NOT be in the portfolios- Just so we’re all clear on the rules.

Jared: Exactly. So, Veronica wins based on the bonus features which I found extremely helpful. Xavier’s portfolio was good because his prospects worked at notable companies and hospitals, and held interesting titles. But he didn’t give me much else to work with. And Melissa’s portfolio was impressive, but with the capacity ratings and no additional information, I lacked conversation pieces. It’s important that I connect with these prospects on an organic level.

Host: Well folks I think we’ve all learned a great lesson here: make sure your portfolio is original, helpful, and presents an array of information that can help your officer with the conversation and of course his ask.

So now that we have completed our first challenge, Veronica is leading and has set the bar high. I want our competitors to know that these challenges are only going to get harder. Remember to push yourselves and think creatively with your presentation and relevant material.

Join us next time on Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition. At the end there will only be one match.

Research Pride Month 2017!

Thu, 30 Mar 2017 13:58:44 GMT

To celebrate Research Pride month, we reached out to our fellow members to ask them why they are proud to be prospect researchers. (Read about the origin here: https://www.helenbrowngroup.com/this-is-pride/)

See their responses below.

Amelia Aldred, Senior Research Analyst, University of Chicago

As a prospect researcher, I am proud to perform due diligence, uphold data confidentiality, and bring a holistic viewpoint to fundraising strategy. I try hard to perform research in a way that balances my organization’s needs and mission with the needs and wishes of our supporters and I am proud to be part of a research community that supports these goals.

Kate Ingrao, Associate Director of Prospect Management, Rush University Medical Center

I am a proud Apra-IL member because we are a welcoming, engaging, and innovative community that is driven to further the missions of amazing institutions and to better our world.

Erin Gernon, Prospect Research Specialist, Chicago Symphony Orchestra

My job as a researcher is fulfilling because I get to specialize in a certain skill in order to advance an organization I care about. It feels good to an important contributing member of team that can really make a difference. Additionally, I appreciate that working at a small shop allows me to juggle a lot of different duties, from capacity ratings to prospecting to industry analysis to board nominations.

Joan Ogwumike, Founding Principle, Jstrategies

I am proud to be a researcher because over the years I have learned the worth of a researcher, not just in fundraising efforts but for overall productivity. We hold so much power and creativity as we search, analyze and master the functionality of research in our respective positions. So I say with pride- Always keep the search going for whatever your purpose is.

Sabine Schuller, Senior Research Specialist, Rotary International

As the senior research specialist for Rotary, I’ve been called a golden retriever, a stealth reference librarian, and a rock star. However, when people ask me what I do, I usually say I’m a treasure hunter. I point my front-line fundraising co-workers toward those who are most ready, willing, and able to support my organization's programs.

Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates

It gives me immense joy to be able to use my skills to help organizations advance their mission. Funding is important for every nonprofit so they can go out and do the amazing work that they do. I love that I have this skill set that can make the difference for organizations.

Happy Research Pride Month!

Motivations of Leaders: Carrick Davis

Mon, 20 Mar 2017 12:34:26 GMT

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, APRA-IL member and volunteer, interviews Carrick Davis of the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association.

Carrick Davis is a Senior Prospect Development Analyst in the Research & Prospect Management team at the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association. He is responsible for supporting twenty development officers in prospect development, portfolio and pipeline management, and ad hoc analytics projects. His areas of specialty include relationship management, data mining, and applying data visualization techniques. A regular speaker at Apra International and chapter conferences, Carrick also serves on the board of Apra Wisconsin.

Carrick has served as a data analyst in a number of non-profit industries, including economic development and transportation policy. Immediately before coming to WFAA, Carrick was a data and research analyst at Beloit College, his alma mater, where he earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in Sociology and Health Care Economics & Policy. He holds a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan.

APRA-IL: Describe your motivations to build your career in Prospect Development, and what keeps you engaged.

Carrick: I’ve held a number of roles in various industries before I found myself in prospect development. The thread that I can string through all my positions is a focus and commitment to promote social good. I have a strong commitment to reducing inequality, and I believe education is a critical element of that work. I get satisfaction from knowing that my work in prospect management and analytics is improving educational access to a world-class institution through scholarships and student support.

I also like that the field is flexible and continually evolving. There are many opportunities to innovate and try new and entrepreneurial approaches to solve prospect management problems. This is an industry that encourages pushing the boundaries of how data and information are used. I love the idea that I’m working on something that may have never been attempted before.

APRA-IL: Describe your journey into your current position.

Carrick: Seven years ago I got my first job in prospect development after graduate school, when I returned to my undergraduate alma mater to work in the External Affairs office. At that time, my only exposure to the field had been what I’d seen in the job description. My Prospect Researcher role demanded technical literacy (finding, confirming, synthesizing and storing information), communicating that knowledge in a way that development officers can use, and a commitment to using that data in new ways to further the organization’s mission. I was drawn to finding ways to quantify largely abstract qualitative concepts like “engagement” or "affinity”.

I found that there was a limit to the amount of data inferences I could make given the small alumni base. I moved to Madison to take a position at Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association, in part because I would have a larger pool of alumni to work with.

In the last four years at WFAA, I’ve had the privilege to work with top-notch fundraisers and data professionals. I like to think of my niche in the organization as nestled between prospect development, information technology, and development. My tenure at WFAA has been full of learning and contributing to a world-class public institution, for which I am deeply grateful.

APRA-IL: Could you tell us one perception people have about professionals in Prospect Development? What's the truth?

Carrick: I think there’s a misconception in the greater development community that prospect development professionals are shy, introverted and prefer to work in the back office. Prospect development, as a field, used to be focused on qualitative prospect research. Those researchers often came from librarianship – which is perhaps where this perception comes from, feeding off antiquated stereotypes of librarians being shy and introverted.

Over the last twenty years, the industry integrated more sophisticated data warehousing and analytics into the world of prospect development. Prospect Development professionals now spend much of their time communicating about data to influence the actions of their development colleagues. Armed with these skills, prospect development professionals enjoy stronger partnerships with leadership that guide development strategy. While we are not frontline fundraisers, we are now sitting at the highest levels of the development strategy table, data-informed recommendations for our organization’s continued successes.

APRA-IL: Can you share a piece of advice with the readers, on what you've gained during your professional development

Carrick: Cultivate relationships with frontline fundraisers. Ask questions that will help you understand their needs as fundraisers. The better you know how they make choices, work, and feel motivated, the better you’ll be able to support them. A great deal of prospect development is centered on providing information and counsel to help development directors make decisions about which prospects to prioritize. By showing that you are interested in their work and both the art and science of fundraising, development directors will trust that you’re providing recommendations that align with their needs and priorities.

At the end of the day, Prospect Development supports Development Directors with data, information and strategic council. When you can approach a situation knowing how your Development Director thinks, your odds of success for your mission increases dramatically. This will also increase your job satisfaction, knowing your guidance is valued and utilized.

Do you know a leader you want us to profile? Let us know! Email us at info@apraillinois.org

Dear Analyst 11: Prospect Research and Corporate and Foundation Relations

Mon, 06 Mar 2017 15:18:45 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates

Dear Analyst,

We’ve recently started working with the Corporate and Foundation Relations (CFR) office. However, up until this point my focus has been researching individuals, not organizations. I want to be helpful for this office but I’m not even sure where to start doing research or what to provide to my CFR development officers. They mention that they could use some profiles and leads for some projects. Another gift officer mentioned looking into contacts at a local big corporation. How do you suggest I begin tackling this shift in my work?

Thanks,

CFR Confounded

Dear Confounded,

Corporate and foundation research can be very tricky. It’s often a topic not talked about as much as other areas of prospect research. But there’s a lot of potential work that you can do in this area. Plus it’s one of my favorite areas about prospect research that I talk about!

Corporations and foundations are often handled within the same development officer department but the prospect research strategies can be very different based on the information available. A common place to start exploring foundations is with their 990 forms. The 990 form is a required filing with the IRS for all foundations. Helpful information that can be found in these forms are things like board of directors, foundation assets, and a list of that year’s dispersed gifts including the amount and the receiving organization.

There are some great paid websites out there that have searchable information and 990 forms like Foundation Search and Foundation Center. If you’re constrained by your budget and don’t work at a higher education institution, your local library may have a subscription you can use. Luckily, we aren’t limited to subscription services or the hope of access through local libraries. Free options include Guidestar, which provides 3 years of 990 forms and the Charitable Bureau of Statistics which also provides some 990 forms. It is important to note across all of these services that there are lag times in the availability of current 990s forms from the IRS. It is typical to have the most current filing be two years old.

Researching for corporations is a bit more complicated since they do not have 990 filings unless they also have a foundation. In most cases, they won’t have a foundation and so you’ll have to rely on other financial filings to analyze their potential. If the company is publically trade, they will have financial statements that they are legally required to make available. However, if the corporation is held privately, it gets trickier. You’ll have to rely more on personal connections through your fundraisers or donors to glean information on the corporation’s interest and capacity as well as researching the latest news regarding the company’s recent business dealings. If you’re trying to maximize your time, look into websites that help aggregate information like Dun & Bradstreet, Crain’s, etc. to provide you with a summary of relevant news.

Now that you know where you’ll begin to look for information to provide to your CFR development officers, it’s important to consider what information is important to present it to them in a profile. A few key areas that you will want to include are giving (to your organization or to a similar organization), mission statement, and financial position if possible, and key players in the organization. For foundations these critical elements can be found on the 990 forms. Play close attention to the mission statement if they have one. This may help you determine if the foundation would be interested in your work. Spend some time reviewing the gifts over the last three years to get a sense of what nonprofits they support, is the giving consistent, and is their giving geographically specific? For corporations, you will be interested in answering similar questions such as what their funding interests are, their geographic preferences, and the eligibility of your organization for their funding opportunities. Present the information as you would with an individual profile and provide a rating. Ultimately, your assessment should be an integral part of your report to development officers and should help drive their strategy.

So that rating…how do you rate an organization? Like individual ratings, each nonprofit has their own way of handling it. Some nonprofits handle CFR ratings by basing them on the yearly giving to a similar organization while others may base their rating on past giving. If your institution hasn’t come up with a rating for organizations, you may want to work with the CFR team to come up with one that works with your nonprofit’s needs and makes sense to the CFR team.

In addition to creating ratings, the CFR team may also need assistance is developing new prospect leads to support a certain project, institute, or program. This, like finding new major gift donors, is very time consuming but is simple and straight forward. You will need to begin building a list using the same strategies outlined above but on a larger scale. This is where the paid websites are useful. Not only do they have a wealth of data on the giving of foundations and some corporations, but they also provide search functions that help focus and refine your search. Guidestar for example has filters like geography or name searches that can help narrow down the number of organizations to review from their 990 forms. While this is a project that will be have a broad focus it is still important to remember to limit how deep you go into any given foundation or company at this stage since you have a lot of ground to cover. As a way to manage and track your findings, one suggestion would be to keep a spreadsheet containing information about giving guidelines, application requirements and dates, and why they are included on the list for each new foundation/corporation you research. This will help track those you have identified and a potential program or initiative that they could fund.

A key strategy for identifying new leads for CFR is finding connections to an organization through your current board members or donors. As we know, personal connections can be a critical part of fundraising. You are looking for a champion of your cause so start with your current champions and work outwards! The first place I would look is in your own database for business information. This may not be the most up-to-date information but it’s a good starting place. Also review your current board and see if anyone might be at the target company or an affiliated one. There are some services that do the linking between board members and other affiliated person with organizations like Rel Sci or Prospect Visual that makes it easier and saves time but you can still do this without these paid services. Reviewing LinkedIn and company websites for higher education organizations has an advantage since they can filter or search on degree from their institution. Non-higher education organizations may have to be more creative in how to use these search functions to determine who to reach out to.

The challenges for prospect researchers in the corporate and foundation world are significant but hopefully you have been given a starting point to begin tackling them!

NEW SERIES: Match Makers

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 13:18:45 GMT

Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition

Narrator: Welcome to Ordinary University, small town USA! Today we have a unique challenge and frontier to explore! Today we begin the challenge of making the perfect research match for a new major gifts officer for OU’s advancement office. This shop is a bold pioneer in attempting to match the skills and strengths of researchers to their gift officers. With the addition of a new officer, the need to find his perfect match is imperative to the success of building a new portfolio and garnering large new gifts.

Let’s welcome our three competitors Veronica, Xavier, and Melissa to Match Makers: The Prospect Development Edition!

Our three researchers have different levels of experience in prospect development, and have proven track records of cultivating great relationships with their previous gift officers. No one could honestly want better researchers than these three. When we asked why they would allow us to follow them on this match journey, they unanimously agreed that this would be their chance to show the world “Believe it or not, we know potential donors more than they know themselves!”

Over the coming weeks we will be introduced to each competitor and be able to witness the strengths that they would bring to their partnership with our gift officer. Each researcher will be tested by a series of research request challenges to analyze their skills and compatibility with our new major gift officer. Their approach and the final result given to our gift officer will be analyzed for its usability, relevancy, and other preferred skills deemed by our gift officer as optimal for his perfect researcher match.

Now that we have identified our three competitors, let’s switch gears and introduce Jared, our new major gifts officer. Jared what brought you to this position?

“Well, I actually used to oversee grants and the cultivation of relationships with foundations in my previous position. Doing that work made me realize that all those times I sat at the table and pitched a program, or “schmoozed” a program officer- I was a fundraiser capable of going on visits and asking for major gifts.”

We are so glad you have allowed us to accompany you on this unique journey. Now that we know you are well versed in the art of “schmoozing”. Let’s see how well you can schmooze into the hearts of our readers and the three researchers competing to be your perfect research match!

We will follow Jared and the researchers over the course of five research challenges and at the end Jared will decide who will be his perfect researcher match. We hope you will join us next week on Match Markers: The Prospect Development Edition when Jared meets his potential matches for the first time and they begin their first challenge!

To be continued…..

Dear Analyst 10

Mon, 30 Jan 2017 15:33:49 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst at Grenzebach Glier & Associates, and Katie Ingrao, Associate Director of Prospect Management at Rush University Medical Center and President of APRA, IL

Dear Analyst,

Some of our gift officers are super suspicious of our capacity ratings. They keep saying that they know Prospect A has a lot of stock and family inheritance but our ratings are too low! Or they say that they know that Prospect B owns a vacation home in Italy. I check into their suggestions but I often come up with very little information. They complain about how we don’t give them the net worth of their prospects. Sometimes they complain that they are too high as well. I can’t seem to win! What do I do to convince them to trust the ratings that I’m giving them?

Thanks,

Rating Distressed

Dear Rating Distressed,

Capacity ratings are the bread and butter of the prospect researcher’s trade. However, there’s a lot of confusion about what they actually mean and how they are generated. A standard definition is that it’s an estimate of a prospect’s potential giving based on their identified assets. Some shops have a cardinal role of taking 5% of identified assets; others may use a prospect’s past philanthropic giving as a guide. There’s a lot of different ways of calculating capacity ratings but I think the overall theme is that they are conservative estimates. Prospects may hold wealth in a lot of ways that aren’t publically available. Often times the wealthier the prospect, the more likely they hold their wealth in places that aren’t publically available. We don’t have access to bank accounts so there is not a sure way of knowing a prospect’s actual capacity. Sometimes, we find great philanthropic giving but few hard assets, which may explain why some think the ratings are too high. As a result, that’s why we talk about capacity ratings, rather than net worth. This allows us to provide some way for gift officers to plan strategies and prioritize their prospects when doing qualification work. All of that is understandable to those of us who work within prospect research but communicating our limitations to gift officers can be hard.

When confronted with questions of the validity and usefulness of capacity ratings by gift officers, your course of action should be one of education and collaboration. In addition to understanding the logic and feasibility of our work, gift officers need to understand that they also have a role in creating the prospect’s capacity rating. While we know as researchers that a capacity rating is just a jumping off point; sometimes it’s lost that creating a rating is a dynamic process that requires an exchange of information from both the gift officer and the prospect researcher. In that process, you want to build gift officer’s understanding of what you are able to provide for them as well as to set the precedence of bringing back helpful information and sharing it with you to improve the assessment of the prospect. Prospect researchers provide a number based on the information we have, the gift officers are the ones meeting with prospects and the opportunity to glean additional information. They will see the watch that they wear, the places they vacation, the houses they live in, etc. and should use these observations to form their own judgements as to the wealth of the individual.

In the exchange of information with gift officers, you may not find anything concrete but you might still gain useful information that you didn’t have before. For example, you may be able to search property listings in the area of Italy disclosed by the gift officer to see estimated prices of houses.

An extra step that I have found beneficial, if you have the time and support from your fundraising leadership is to run an informational training on capacity ratings and validation theory. These “lunch and learn” sessions provide a constructive format for gift officer’s questions and allows for a conversation on how they can be helpful in creating a capacity rating by sharing information. A good example to use when showing gift officers how the availability of data can affect ratings and our assessment is philanthropic giving. Pick one or two well-known donors to your organization, one with a lot of public giving and one we know has the capacity but does not publicize their gifts. Briefly run through your process of researching these prospects’ giving and compare the search results with them. You should be able to show the difference in your process with someone who has a lot of information available and someone who does not. Building into your presentation instances where information provided by gift officers fueled deeper researcher and resulted in a more accurate rating also drives home your point.

Another approach used by some shops to settle disagreements between prospect researchers and gift officers is to create two distinct ratings for each prospect, one rating from prospect research and one from the gift officer. The thought behind this solution is that each rating allows for a different view or approach to the assessment of a prospect’s capacity. For example, a research rating could look at a prospect’s lifetime capacity and not just over the next five years. While the gift officer’s rating could specific to what they believe that prospect’s next gift could be. Each of these ratings could also take into consideration aspects of inclination such as affinity to your organization. In the end, you have to consider how your shop operates and what would best help move your gift officers forward in making solicitations.

There is no one size fits all but the key is to collaborate with the fundraiser. Remind them that capacity ratings are a great starting place but they aren’t concrete and can change based on their estimation or subsequent meetings with the prospect. Continuing to educate them on how we work and being open to discussion and collaborating will aid you tremendously in building a trusting working relationship with your gift officers.

Motivations of Leaders: Marissa Todd

Mon, 23 Jan 2017 14:00:38 GMT

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, APRA-IL member and volunteer, interviews Marissa Todd of the University of Central Missouri.

Marissa Todd is currently the Director of Prospect Management and Research at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. She has been working in non-profit fundraising for over a decade and has done just about every job in an advancement shop. Marissa has been dabbling in prospect development since 2008 but didn’t join APRA until June 2014 when she attended her first conference that summer. It was at that conference where she really found her passion for all things prospect development!

Marissa earned her BA and JD from the University of Missouri and an MBA from Stephens College. In her free time, Marissa loves to hang out with her husband, Michael, and their two cats, Artie and Faurot; volunteer; and watch football (Go Tigers and Chiefs!), hockey, college basketball – really almost any sport on a screen will occupy her attention.

APRA-IL: What do you feel is the impact of your work on the overall field of Prospect Development? (And could you describe who you believe your audience is for your work)

Todd: Prospect Development has a huge impact on engagement and philanthropy. The specific audience at my organization is all faculty, staff, and volunteers who engage with our constituents in order to create a meaningful relationship with our institution. That could mean anything from speaking to students or making a major gift. Through my work, I can provide insight to this audience to help them identify the right constituents for their particular need (giving, advisory board, etc.) and offer strategic direction to move these relationships forward.

APRA-IL: Describe your motivations in this field, and what keeps you engaged.

Todd: The constant learning in our field really keeps me motivated. I am always learning new process and techniques. The nature of our work - working with people and building relationships - means every day is different and offers new opportunities. I've been fortunate to work at organizations that are building out prospect development programs, which has been really amazing and a great opportunity to learn and grow.

APRA-IL: What is next for you? Is there anything you would like to accomplish or challenge?

Todd: Right now I'm in year two of building out a relationship management and research shop at the University of Central Missouri. I want to finish building this out to include a principal gifts program. We just launched a new strategic plan in July 2016, Transformation 2025, and I'm anxious to see how the prospect development shop helps shape that success.

APRA-IL: What advice would you give a new professional in the field of Prospect Development?

Todd: Join APRA. Going to that first APRA conference in 2014 was life changing for me. This community is so inviting and collaborative. You can learn so much from your colleagues so take advantage of membership and all the awesome things that come with it. Also - don't be afraid to advocate for your shop. Some managers understand the impact of prospect development; others inherit the program or just think they probably should have one, but don't really understand the value. Take every opportunity to prove your value and speak up about your impact.

Do you know a leader you want us to profile? Let us know! Email us at info@apraillinois.org

Dear Analyst 9: Bad Data Blues

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 15:43:37 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates; and Katherine Ingrao, Associate Director of Prospect Management, Rush University Medical Center

Dear Analyst,

As a prospect researcher, I’m expected to put together a bunch of reports on our prospect pool and major gift donors on a regular basis. I work with a lot of data in donor records to help enhance my profiles and other prospect researcher. But the data quality isn’t as good as I was hoping. There’s stuff that’s missing or just plain wrong in contact reports, proposals, and so much more. And the worst part, it’s not even my data. How do I work to get better data into our system without ending up doing it all myself?

Yours,

Bad Data Blues

Dear Bad Data Blues,

You’ve hit upon a major difficulty that anyone who deals with data has faced. We don’t want any data; we want good data. If bad data is put into a system, all you’ll get is bad data from the system. In other words “Garbage in, garbage out” We need to have good data in our database in order to do the great work.

However, what exactly is “good” data? What does “good” data look like in our database? How do we ensure we are entering “good” data into our systems? These are really important and sometimes hard questions to answer but are crucial conversations to have within your office. Ideally, the natural result of these conversations would be the creation of an office guideline for data entry and quality control thus ensuring that everyone has a shared understand and expectation of your data and its quality when retrieved through reporting. During these conversations, it’s important to remember that you’re aiming for prudent policies not perfect ones.

A good starting point when developing policies or reviewing your current ones is, contact reports. What does the content look like and how are people entering it? For some institutions, it’s a decent summary of the encounter with the donor and it is filed in a timely manner. A decent summary could mean 1-3 sentences while another shop could require several paragraphs. A timely manner could mean within a week of the contact or within a month. It all depends on the institution and what your shop can maintain over a long period of time and honestly, what is actually useful in the ability to raise more funds! Whatever you come up with, it’s important that your institution create concrete definitions, document them and stick to them! People need consistency in data and policies for them to be effective!

The next step is disseminating the knowledge. People need to be trained on what is expected of them. Having the documentation is key and can be useful as a takeaway when onboarding new staff. I frequently held trainings with new gift officers and other staff about how to enter data correctly and it was important to remember that some gift officers may outsource their data entry to their administrative staff so don’t forget to include them in any trainings!

One hazard you have to watch for is that you don’t want to be the one who ends up entering people’s data for them. Previously, Dear Analyst 6 discussed this with respect to proposal data. This is very tempting to do. After all, you work with data all day and know how it should be. But this won’t help the situation. People won’t learn how to do it correctly if they aren’t a) required to enter their own data or b) have to correct it when it is wrong. We don’t want gift officers to rely on us to enter data. Some organizations do require their prospect researchers to be responsible for entering proposal data but if it’s not part of your responsibilities already, you probably don’t want to make it one.

While training and documentation are essential, they alone are not enough. Managers must make good data a priority. They must hold people responsible for having their data up to date. Often times contact reports and proposals can be tied to performance metrics so there is an added incentive to have this information up to date in the system. There must also be a way to review the information to see if it is being entered correctly as well. Otherwise, you won’t know if the data is being entered correctly. Reports and audits are useful to check whether data is being entered correctly.

Finally, it is important to be a model of good data in your institution. Prospect Research needs to set an example to others about good data in the system. Make sure any data that your department is directly responsible for is correct. For instance, make sure to upload research profiles in a timely manner. If there are mistakes, fix them. Keep your prospect ratings up to date based on recent research.

These are just a few things to help in obtaining good data. We’d love to hear how your organizations manage this process. Let us know at Dear Analyst.

Thankful Researchers and Prospect Managers

Mon, 21 Nov 2016 14:55:32 GMT

As the season turn to winter, Thanksgiving is nearly upon us! This year, we asked APRA IL members what they are most thankful for in the profession. See the myriad things they are thankful for below:

Karla Y. Davis

As my term as board secretary comes to a close, I’m thankful for the other members of APRA-Illinois that I’ve been privileged to work with.

John P. Gough

I’m thankful for database admins that just get it, enthusiastic student interns, advancement executives that understand the power of strategically applied data analysis, and MGO’s that appreciate the value of accurate and timely data entry

Katie Ingrao

This year I am thankful, as I am every year, for the amazing work done by the APRA-IL volunteers! Our chapter has amazing members willing to put forth the extra effort to bring great programming, resources, and collegiality to our professional field.

Christina Lanzona

I am thankful for a healthy operating budget and the day off to watch the Cubs victory parade!

Joan Ogwumike

As a development professional who conducts research for prospective individuals and foundations, I am very thankful for current annual reports and 990 forms.

Elisa Shoenberger

I am also thankful for the availability of IRS 990 Forms. There’s so much information on those documents that can tell you so much about the organization, especially when there is not a lot on their website.

I’m also thankful for all the support staff that make our work possible. Our support staff updates records based on our work with obituaries; they help with the formatting of our research products. They provide us data and so much more. Thanks to you all!

From all the members of APRA IL, have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

Dear Analyst 8: Eager!

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 15:02:25 GMT

Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates, and colleagues

Dear Analyst,

I’m having some difficulty with some of the gift officers I’m supposed to support. Some of the gift officers are outsourcing their research to their administrative assistants and secretaries. If it’s a simple bio request, I’m okay with them reaching out to their admins. However if it’s more complicated, like a rating capacity or an analysis of their philanthropic giving, they should be talking to me. When I ask why they are doing this, I’m told that they needed it quickly and couldn’t wait for our research department turnaround time. What do I do? I have skills and tools cultivated for this purpose. It’s true that I do ask for some lead times. How do I explain to them that they should direct these requests to me?

Thanks,

Eager Researcher

Dear Eager,

That is a tricky issue. We want to strike a balance between simple searches and the intensive, specialized work we do as researchers. As noted in Dear Analyst 1, we have the challenge of explaining to people that our work is more than just Googling information. We have access to a series of specialized tools that help augment our research, often not available to the public. We can judge data to be reliable or more importantly, know when we don’t know if it is reliable. For instance, we have the judgment to know if we have the right Jane Smith in Omaha, Nebraska or know when our knowledge is going to be limited about her. We compare sources to ensure that our data is good, or as good as we can make it. These are not skills to be taken lightly.

When research is outsourced to other departments, the chances of mistakes or misunderstandings can rise. We have to be careful not to point fingers when mistakes are made (that’s not how you foster healthy and positive relationships with colleagues) but errors can have big consequences for an organization. The last thing we want is a gift officer to have bad information at a prospect meeting! But it’s also important that we as researchers have time to do our work. Many of us work with several gift officers; some of us are sole researchers. Lead times are important to help us with time management so we can produce timely and accurate work. It’s again a tricky balance. So how do we communicate all this to our gift officers?

There’s a couple of ways of handling the situation. It may be worthwhile to listen to gift officers to understand why they feel the need to obtain research help outside of the research department. Hear them out. You can then gently use the opportunity to explain that doing research outside of the research department has an impact on the organization as whole. In other words, there is a duplication of efforts, which ultimately is a waste of resources. Not to mention, that issue of quality control is paramount. Explain how they benefit from your work and the specialized tools and skills to help them obtain the best information about their prospects. This may be tricky and it’s important not to point fingers since that may sour relations between the department and the gift officers.

If timing is an issue, encourage them to reach out to you and explain that you may be able to negotiate when you can get them in their time frame. Do they really need a full profile? Compromise. Explain what you can get them in their time frame. Perhaps a short look at the prospect’s philanthropic giving is what they need to get going. Encourage them to follow up with you for more research after their visit. Of course, it may depend on the research request and situation. You may want to move research on capacity to the top of the queue if the gift officer is going to make an ask.

Another possibility is helping to train gift officers and/or their admins on very straightforward tasks. You can show people how to set up Google alerts on their prospects. Or talk about reliable research methods that aren’t too complicated. You could even review the research quickly for quality control. At one organization, the research and prospect management department had Research 101 to help with the easy asks. You can talk about how to judge data quality and sources and when it’s time to bring in the big guns (ahem... research). However, this will require follow up with individuals to ensure that best practices are maintained but may pay off in the long run in your working relationship with the gift officers and their staff.

Unfortunately, you may not be able to persuade your colleagues to stop asking for research outside of your department. In this case, you may want to document incidents and note any repercussions. Be clear in what steps you took to try to resolve issues that came out of extra-departmental research.

You may want to consider approaching the head of fundraising to explain the issue and how it impacts the organization as a whole. Explain your proposed solutions to ensure that there is buy-in from the top. Explain the possible strategies you’ve come up with to help resolve the issue.

Best of luck!

Motivations of Leaders: Brock Silvey

Mon, 17 Oct 2016 12:26:11 GMT

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, APRA-IL member and volunteer, interviews Brock Silvey of Northwestern University

Brock Silvey is Director of Prospect Research and Management at Northwestern University. He is a past APRA-IL board member and a current APRA International board member.

APRA-IL: Describe your journey into your current position.

Silvey: I received my Bachelors and Masters degrees in English from Northern Illinois University. I entered the professional world without a clear career path in mind, but I felt like I had many translatable skills. Though my first job out of college was not one that turned into a career, I learned many soft skills that taught me how to function in a professional environment. Then I saw an open Assistant Director of Research job at Northwestern and applied, without an understanding of what development research even was and with little expectation that I would be hired for it. However, I got the position and have been at NU ever since, finding ways to grow within the organization to my present role. Now the world of development feels like the career I was always meant to be in.

APRA-IL: Describe your motivations in this field, and what keeps you engaged.

Silvey: I am always improving processes that I think can be better. I have to make sure that I’m not getting complacent. I’m excited by the idea of prospect development teams becoming more integrated into the fundraising strategy development process. Though I am not a fundraiser, there is no reason why I can’t think like one and let that perspective inform how I manage my team.

APRA-IL: What advice would you give a new professional in the field of prospect development?

Silvey: I thought about this question from the perspective of a hiring manager, and the qualities that I think set people up for success in the work place. I believe these qualities have particular relevance for people in our field: be flexible, be comfortable with an element of ambiguity, let yourself be okay with not always knowing the answer, but have the curiosity to seek out the answer.

APRA-IL: Could you tell us one perception people have about professionals in prospect development? What’s the truth?

Silvey: Many people in our field would probably define themselves as introverts, but I think there’s a misperception outside of our field about what that term means. People sometimes assume that introverts are uncomfortable with interpersonal communication and therefore have limited potential to grow into leadership positions. I would describe myself as an introvert, but what that means for me is that I simply need some alone time in order to recharge. I still thrive on collaborating and strategizing, and I want a seat at the table.

Do you know a leader you want us to profile? Let us know! Email us at info@apraillinois.org

Event Review -APRA-IL 2016 Fall Conference: Networking Event

Mon, 10 Oct 2016 12:33:13 GMT

By Joan Ogwumike

On the afternoon of Friday, September 30^th, 2016 APRA-IL members, new members, and guests gathered at Northwestern University’s John Evans Center for this year’s APRA-IL Fall Conference. Significantly, this conference was formatted as a networking event, and consisted of a discussion panel and track sessions.

The day began with a social hour as people trickled into the building. Conversations buzzed through the air as professionals connected with one another about their positions, APRA, prospecting ideas, and more.

Following APRA-IL’s President, Katie Ingrao’s welcoming statements, the Vice President, Jessica Szadziewicz hosted development officers panel that allowed Prospect Development professionals insight on what these officers, and perhaps gift officers in general, value from researchers. Attendees learned that to make an ask it was helpful to know the prospect’s interests, other places prospects have given to, and relevant relationships, in addition to of course wealth capacities. This panel was an educational piece of the event, and added transparency and comfort to ask questions.

Track sessions in Prospect Research, Prospect Management, and Data Analytics had preconceived topics, and there was time allotted to switching topics within a session. The round table set up for the Prospect Research room was an amazing touch to the intimacy and ability to freely exchange ideas. Professionals really wanted to learn from eachother, and hear one another’s research and management stories.

After the conference, many attendees walked over in groups to enjoy Happy Hour at the local beer tavern, World of Beer.

Overall, the conference encouraged me to re-evaluate first what development and gift officers were receiving from researchers, how I communicated Prospect research to internal and external professionals, and finally how important it was to attend events like this because I needed to hear the exchange of new vendors that people were considering or using. I believe events like this truly allow you to surround yourself with fresh ideas.

Thank you APRA-IL for the space, time to learn, and opportunity to meet new people with common interests. Congratulations on another successful event!

Dear Analyst 7: Overwhelmed!

Mon, 03 Oct 2016 13:41:53 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Product Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates, and Katie Ingrao, APRA IL President and Associate Director of Prospect Management at Rush University Medical Center

Dear Analyst,

Gift officers in my office keep asking me to do comprehensive profiles on their prospects. Half the time, they’ve never even met them! I want to provide them with information they need to meet with their prospects but each profile takes up to 8 hours to produce. There’s many of them and only one of me! How do I convince them that they don’t need all available information about a prospect for an initial visit? Or even the first few visits?

Thanks,

Overwhelmed

Dear Overwhelmed,

It’s a tricky situation to be in. As professionals, we want to provide gift officers with the best information so they qualify and engage prospects. However, researchers usually have a limited amount of time to do so. Eight hour profiles aren’t simply feasible if you are going to do any other work! Gift officers vary in the amount of detail they require. Some are fine with basic information; they want to be able to discover information in the first visit. Others want to know everything under the sun. How do you reconcile those two views?

Like anything in Prospect Management and Research, you need to manage the expectations of the gift officer. A good first step would be to try and explain what is feasible in the amount of time and the situation. As I said, it’s our main goal to help gift officers do their job effectively. When having these types of conversations with gift officers, you want to avoid saying no but instead suggest what work is possible within a given period of time. Sometimes having that conversation and consistent dialogue with the officer can lower their anxiety and your stress, but not always.

If you’ve tried having open and honest conversations with gift officers about making reasonable requests and they’ve fallen flat; one thing you can do is to create a shorter research product. Many researchers have developed research products that are quick snapshots of the prospect with just the essential information. It could contain brief info on real estate, securities, philanthropic giving, political giving, and business information but only takes about 1-2 hours of work. The point of the product is to give the gift officer’s a rating and some overall information on their assets. Only in the rare case should there be more in-depth information included. I often found that what I found in 1-2 hours of work was as useful as that I found in 8 hours. Usually this was enough to help a gift officer on their way!

Another strategy to take is to implement a policy change. This requires buy-In from upper management. In some shops, a prospect has to be in a particular stage or rating for a comprehensive profile can be done for them. Usually it’s a stage close to asking for a gift or a really high rating like $500,000 and above. This can help prioritize a researcher’s time looking at really important prospects. We want to be strategic about how we use our time. This also helps us do what we do best: give the best rating at the right time for the gift officer.

One of my favorite tasks doing research on a person or organization is just before an ask. The gift officer is asking for my best idea of what the gift ask should be. This means a deeper dive into the prospect’s assets and background. We don’t want to give people heart attacks by the size of the ask and we don’t want to leave money on the table. I love this! Often times, I can determine that we can ask for a higher amount and it was even better when the prospect agreed!

Those are just a few ways to help you work more effectively with your gift officers and mediate their research requests. I’d love to hear how other shops have dealt with these issues. Let us know at APRAIL@gmail.com!

Motivations of Leaders: Thomas Turner

Mon, 26 Sep 2016 13:51:13 GMT

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

For this month's piece, Joan Ogwumike, APRA-IL member and volunteer, interviews Thomas Turner of the International Justice Mission.

Thomas Turner is the Director, Research and Prospect Management at International Justice Mission (IJM), an international human rights organization focused on ending slavery and everyday violence. Prior to launching prospect research at IJM in 2012, Turner was a Compliance Manager at KPMG, where he worked on SEC independence and compliance issues.

Mr. Turner is a member of APRA International and serves on the APRA DC board. He has presented previously at APRA DC, APRA Maryland, MARC and APRA International.

Some of Mr. Turner's answers have been paraphrased.

APRA-IL: What impact does your work, and the overall field of Prospect Development have? (And could you describe who you believe your audience is?)

Turner: My audience would be a general APRA audience. Research, Data Analytics, Advancement Services and Relationship Management.

I like to describe Prospect Development as the nucleus of a department. Prospect development can serve as a centralized resource that helps the disparate units that make up advancement run effectively when it is set up well for success by leadership and given the opportunity to work with the many teams of the advancement division., This happens through excellent research, pragmatic and data-driven relationship management, and, increasingly, data analytics that tests, validates, and implements successful insights into your business. In my own work, I try to follow a personal motto that, when confronted with a problem, it is an opportunity to be “just another thing we can make better.” I think that a few prospect development shops have made to move into a consulting role is definitely the right call. It gives the prospect development shop the level of appreciation it deserves.

APRA-IL: Describe your motivations in this field, and what keeps you engaged.

Turner: I am always motivated by success stories. For me, my success is directly tied to success for my colleagues in the field and the clients we serve. As much as I love to solve puzzles --- and really, Prospect Development is a game when you think of it --- and finding that needle in a haystack, that is a motivation that can get me from task to task. My motivation is give 100% to my work, and to remember that when I can do as much as possible to grow my organization’s donor base- literal lives are being changed- widows who will have their property given back to them, children removed from abusive situations, people like you and me freed from modern day slavery.

The people in the Prospect Development industry keep me engaged. When I transitioned from the corporate world to the non-profit world, I was astonished by the lack of competition in the research industry. The comradery and helpfulness of professionals in prospect development is unparalleled. I would not have had opportunities to speak, to grow, to build my shop at IJM if I was not part of a prospect development community that is so willing to share best practices. It is an honor to be part of the community and it motivates me to give back, since so much was given to me.

APRA-IL: What advice would give a new professional in the field of Prospect Development?

Turner: I think the best thing you can do is join your local APRA chapter. You will join a community of people that will help you grow and who will respond to questions you have. It is an invaluable source to have colleagues in the industry you can reach out to when you are stuck or have a question or need advice on your career growth.

I really encourage analysts to know their primary sources. When you land your first research or relationship management job, you are handed a subset of data and a few proprietary tools that filter external data and match it with your subset. Learn how your entire database is constructed so that you know how to interact with it beyond what you have been instructed to do in your new position. Along those same lines, I think it is really important to know what is behind your proprietary tools. Knowing how to read a 10-K, a form 990, a FEC filing, a real estate deed, and a business registration will build your critical thinking skills far faster than just taking the summary or snapshot a tool gives you. When I started in prospect development, my skepticism and critical thinking advanced because I learned the weak spots in the tools we had. I figured out how to discern the quality of information since certain primary sources can be poorly interpreted by those tools. Go learn how to use EDGAR and the FEC database. It will be fun and help you grow!

Do you know a leader you want us to profile? Let us know! Email us at info@apraillinois.org

APRA-IL Fall 2016 Networking Conference September 30, 2016

Tue, 06 Sep 2016 13:44:55 GMT

By Katherine Ingrao, Assistant Director of Prospect Management, Rush University Medical Center, and APRA-IL Chapter President

Are you ever curious how a peer institution handles their portfolio reviews? What about their metrics? How do they manage research requests and how in-depth do they go? These questions are natural and one of the main drivers of people to attend large professional conferences and connect with their colleagues. APRA-IL wants to help you connect with your institutional peers and answer your burning questions!!

On September 30, 2016, APRA-IL is celebrating our 20^th anniversary during our fall conference on Northwestern University’s Evanston campus. The concept of our conference this year is collaboration, building networks, and partnerships with your fellow APRA-IL members. As a Board, we wanted to provide a different kind of program that challenged our members to build support systems beyond their organizations. I know some of us get institutional tunnel vision and forget that we have colleagues beyond our office and those can be some of the most helpful and beneficial colleagues to ask for ideas, opinions, and inspiration. I also know that our members are some of the most innovative, generous, and experienced prospect development professionals.

At each APRA International conference I attend, I’m continually impressed and proud at the contributions that our chapter members provide to our profession and that they are our best representation of who and what APRA-IL stands for. While I’m lucky enough to be a witness to this collaboration at the International level, I feel that we lack that dedicated space, time, and network on the chapter level. Not every member of APRA-IL can attend and benefit from an annual large conference and so it is our goal this year to dedicate our fall conference to creating that same sense of community and collaboration time for our chapter.

The program itself will start at 1 p.m. and will be split in three tracks, Prospect Research, Prospect Management, and Data Analytics. Each track will be facilitated by an APRA-IL Board member or volunteer, who will help curate the conversation. We are asking that attendees submit topics, questions, and suggestions on what they would like to discuss with their peers. We want these conversations to be directly beneficial to your current work and allow you the opportunity to share or inquire about the work of your institutional peers within APRA-IL. In order to be prepared for the day, please email your topics, questions, and suggestions to apraillinois@gmail.com. We will include these in your respective tracks and build them into the round table discussions. In addition to submitting your questions, we also ask that you bring materials that you’d like to share i.e. (reports, profiles, charts, etc.). This will increase the depth and quality of our conversations.

Since the conference is in a different format this year, we have reduced it to a half day but we have added a celebratory happy hour following, compliments of the APRA-IL Board. Come, collaborate, and then celebrate!

Dear Analyst 6: Data Dilemma!

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:07:03 GMT

DEAR ANALYST

By Elisa Shoenberger
Benchmarking Product Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates

Dear Analyst,

There are a couple of people at work who keep relying on me to help them with data. Some gift officers keep asking me to make data requests for them. They keep telling me that I do such a good job getting the data they want for their trips, mailings, and more. But it causes a lot of back and forth between our data team and the gift officers. I hate being the middlewoman! And then there are the folks who constantly ask me to add proposals and contact reports into the system. That’s really frustrating since it’s not my data. What do I do?

Thanks,
Tricky Data Situation

Dear Tricky Data,

That is a difficult situation. As prospect researchers, prospect managers, and analysts, we are positioned uniquely in our departments. We analyze data on a daily basis and we work with gift officers to help them be successful in their work. We may not know the data as well as the Information Systems folks, but we do understand how gift officers will want to use it. We are a bridge between departments. We also can help the gift officers figure out what data they need if they are lost. We probably know how to fix data points, like proposals, in the system. We speak data and reports.

But with great power comes great responsibility. The downside is that gift officers may start to rely on us as their sole translator of data as you experienced. We end up getting asked to do data requests for them. Sometimes they start to lean on us instead of learning or figuring it out how to do it themselves. Or they stop talking to the department actually doing the work. They may even ask us to help them add data to the system, specifically proposals and contact reports?

So how do we combat this? How do we walk that tightrope of being a resource but not doing their work for them? It takes a combination of finesse, assertiveness, and manager buy-in. I would gently encourage them to submit their own data requests. If they ask for assistance, be open to them. Meet with them. But at the end of the day, they need to be the one to submit the data. This makes the gift officer take ownership of the request. You get cut out as the middlewoman. They may still go to you for questions even after they get their data but they should be receiving the data from the data team. Now, there are some gift officers, notably at the vice president level, where you probably will have to facilitate the data requests at a more granular level but those are special situations.

With respect to data entry for proposals, it’s even trickier situation. Proposals are critical to an organization; it helps forecast revenue to your organizations. But there are so many aspects to proposals where data can be entered wrong. We may know how to enter a proposal correctly but the data is not ours. It’s the gift officer’s. We don’t know the donors; we don’t know how much we will ask them for money and for what. So we need to put the ball in the gift officer’s court.

There are a couple ways to help gift officers learn how to fix the data. You can offer to retrain them (and their admins) about proposal entry as often as they need. When people started at my organization, I would do a Prospect Management and Research 101 and then did a follow up one or two months later that focused on proposals. It helped to break up the training like that because new hires may be inundated in the first few weeks with data. Having documentation is also critical to this process! You could suggest an “Office Hours” where gift officers could come and ask questions about proposals. When we did it at my organization, it was helpful to have many gift officers (and their admins) in the room to answer questions that everyone was wondering. It really shows that you are a resource to them. These are not surefire ways to get perfect proposal entry but it helps remind gift officers that these are their responsibilities. It also helps to have a manager or director who buys into the notion that gift officers are responsible for their own data. They can be a resource to gently remind gift officers to handle their own data.

Like anything in fundraising, there’s no hard and fast rule. These are some strategies to help but it’s going to be a case by case situation.

Best of luck to you!

Motivations of Leaders: Jessica Balsam

Thu, 25 Aug 2016 16:07:13 GMT

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

For this piece in the series, Joan Ogwumike, Development Coordinator at Mikva Challenge and APRA-IL member and volunteer, interviews Jessica Balsam of Washington University.

Jessica Balsam is an exciting leader for us to profile in our series. Beyond her work at the University of Washington, she is the former president and membership director of APRA NW. Currently; she serves as a member on both the APRA Advocacy Committee and APRA Chapters Committee. In recognition of her work in the APRA community and in Prospect Development, she was awarded the APRA Distinguished Service Award at the 2016 Prospect Development Conference in Nashville, TN. We are grateful to Jessica for taking the time to be a part of our blog series and are inspired by her level of dedication to the field of prospect development.

Some of Ms. Balsam's answers have been paraphrased.

APRA- IL: Can you share a piece of advice with the readers, on what you have gained or learned during your professional development?

Jessica Balsam: From my experience being a part of APRA Northwest, I was able to pick up tremendous wisdom from the board, and my fellow chapter members. I would advise readers to network with their local APRA chapter members because they will provide amazing tips and help you reflect on your role within your organization. I would also encourage you to give presentations at your chapter conferences and gatherings – it’s so valuable to get feedback on your work.

APRA-IL: Describe your motivations in Prospect Development, and what keeps you engaged.

Jessica Balsam: Getting managers and donors comfortable using data, finding new insights within the data, helping fundraisers to direct their focus on the best prospects and become more efficient- all motivate me to stay in the field. It is gratifying to help.

And thanks to APRA, I have been able to build a network and community that has kept me going in Prospect Development. Right now I am working on my first big comprehensive campaign-- new opportunities like this keep me motivated after tenyears in this field.

APRA-IL: Describe your journey into your current position.

Jessica Balsam: I began as a Development generalist at a small museum, but I got to the point that I really wanted to focus in one area. It also seemed like the perfect time for a change when I learned of a job in Prospect Development, and I took it. I didn't really know much about APRA either at that time, but it seemed like an opportunity to be more focused, and develop my skills.

By joining my local APRA chapter I received great professional development and support, they increased my motivation to do great work, and now I'm in my current position, which is also thanks to the network I created through APRA.

Do you know a leader you want us to profile? Let us know! Email us at info@apraillinois.org

Prospect Development 2016 29th Annual International Conference Review

Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:16:04 GMT

By Joan Ogwumike, Development Coordinator, Mikva Challenge

My first APRA International Conference was hosted in Nashville from July 28^th -30^th. The experience was more than I could ask for because it developed my professional and personal growth in unexplainable ways. I also believe my sessions selection allowed for this exposure and impact.

My first session began Thursday morning with “So You Think You Want to Be a Director: Creating a Career Ladder in Prospect Development” presented by Briana Cons from ASU Foundation Temple, Arizona and Mandy Heath from St. Joseph’s Foundation & Barrow. This was my opportunity to learn and reflect on how I wanted to build my career ladder by reimagining and customizing it. I needed to consider how to put new actions in my everyday life for networking, setting up checklists for professional pros and cons, prioritizing, considering mobility, and more.

Next session was “The Power of Data Visualization, Prospect Management & Fundraisers” presented by Chrissy Premeaux and Trish McPeek from Oklahoma State University. The presenters from Oklahoma State University gave insight on how they set up their prospect portfolio trends, valuations, proposal trends, and used Tableau as a source for visualization. It was a great reminder on how to visualize portfolios so development officers and leadership can read and grab necessary facts.

Friday’s first session began with “Streamlining Materials with the Audience in Mind” presented by Patricia Brunson and Elise Speck from Duke University. This session revolved around knowing who your audience was, and how to deliver necessary details. Streamline, streamline, streamline! Don’t over-deliver and make things time-consuming for yourself.

Next session was “Got Interest? Improving the Utilization of Donor Interest Codes” presented by Abbey Myskza and Mallory Lass from UC Berkeley. UC Berkeley presenters gave an informative look into the use of Donor Satisfaction Surveying, and its impact on tailoring donor communication based on the donors’ interests. It was also a great reminder that prospects are always needed for new initiatives and projects. Therefore knowing your donors’ interests and having a concrete coding system helps with meeting goals.

Saturday’s early session began with “More than Just News: How a Newsletter Can Help Your Team, Measure Impact, Maximize Partnerships, and Inspire Collaboration” presented by Lindsey Royer, Amelia Aldred, and Marcus Smith from University of Chicago. It was great to see a prospect development team use a newsletter as a tool to increase their visibility, connect data to stories, measure impacts and position researchers as partners in the area of development. It was also interesting to see the layout, and how researchers were spotlighted.

My next and final session Saturday was “Prospect Research is a Cause” presented by Armando Zumaya, Consultant. This session spoke to professionals who worked in the nonprofit space, and the necessity for prospect researchers in nonprofits. It advocated for a call-to-action, (1) promote prospect researchers and (2) join nonprofit boards and discuss the work of researchers.

In all, I appreciated these sessions and I want to thank the presenters at this 2016 APRA International Conference for educating me on new and familiar subjects. This was my chance to reevaluate how prospects are presented, when to synthesize and create data, and how to bridge the gap between professionals in development. I would also like to thank the attendees I met at the conference for their advice, and additional exposure to prospect development.

Big Ten Development Conference

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 13:41:12 GMT

By Jessica Szadziewicz, Prospect Information Analyst, Northwestern University

This year’s Big Ten Development Conference was held at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana from July 26^th through July 28^th, overlapping with APRA International. Although much smaller than International, the Big Ten conference offered some valuable sessions for prospect research and management.

The conference itself is not solely focused on prospect research and management, but on development as a whole. Sessions also targeted major gifts, campaigns, annual giving, donor relations, talent management, and marketing and communications. As someone who only works in research, it was a nice change getting to network and speak with other development professionals. It was also very helpful getting an outside perspective on research, and how research departments are viewed in wider development. Research was definitely respected in most institutions, and those outside the department understood what we do every day.

If someone from a Big Ten school is considering going to this conference in the future, I would encourage it for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it offered fantastic networking opportunities. Even though the institutions represented are large, the conference itself is small with under 300 registrants. This provided me with an excellent opportunity to speak with executive directors and those in charge of research. Furthermore, it was great speaking with and learning from other research professionals in large shops. Being part of a prospect research and management team consisting of 16 people, it was educational and interesting to see presentations from other large teams. Purdue for instance has a team of 15 that is very similar to Northwestern’s. A major difference was that they have a data analyst on the team, while Data Analytics is separate at NU. They also use the vendor EverTrue, a donor management software that was described in-depth.

Finally, I would encourage attending for the Roundtable Sessions. Being a smaller conference, the schedule included two roundtable sessions where all attendees discuss a topic. The roundtable “Tracking ROI: Making the Case for Research” was very informative and interactive. Questions were presented, but the discussion was allowed to flow as the participants saw fit.

In 2017, the Big Ten Development Conference will be held at Michigan State in East Lansing, Michigan. Hope to see you there!

Members' Talks at APRA International 2016

Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:37:54 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Product Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates

APRA International is coming up next week! We have several members of APRA-IL who will be presenting at this year’s conference. Here are a few sessions for you to check out by local members and development professionals in Illinois:

Industry Corner II: Venture Capital and Private Equity

Thursday, July 28, 2016 (10:30 AM - 12:00 PM)

Amelia Aldred and John McBride (University of Chicago) will present a classic, “How the heck to rate these people” session on venture capital and private equity. What’s not so classic? Amelia and John actually interviewed professionals in the field to get their perspective on philanthropy, industry trends, and how to best approach VC and PE pros! This session is appropriate for both new researchers needing a crash course on rating VC and PE prospects as well as veteran researchers who want to get some insider info on the industries.

More than Just News: How a Newsletter Can Help Your Team Measure Impact, Maximize Partnerships, and Inspire Collaboration

Saturday, Jul 30, 2016 (08:30 AM - 10:00 AM)

Yes, yes, yes, we know that researchers need to measure our impact, build relationships, and communicate at our organizations. But how does that translate into specific actions? One prospect research team found that they could do all three things via a quarterly newsletter. Lindsey Royer, Marcus Smith, and Amelia Aldred (University of Chicago) will focus on how they connected impact, relationship-building, and communication to the process of building and distributing a newsletter. The session is appropriate for shops of all sizes.

Other sessions by researchers, prospect managers, and analysts in Illinois include:

prspct.py - Python Programming for Prospect Researchers

Thursday, Jul 28, 2016 (10:30 AM - 12:00 PM)

John Connelly, Northwestern University

Leveraging Campaign Volunteers to Maximize Outcomes

Thursday, Jul 28, 2016 (2:05 PM - 2:45PM)

by Katie Nowak, Northwestern University

Go check out these amazing sessions at APRA International 2016!

Motivations of Leaders: Dave Chase

Mon, 27 Jun 2016 13:54:28 GMT

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

APRA-IL: Describe your motivations in this field and what keeps you engaged.

Dave Chase*: The clients and their missions. My first three clients were in healthcare, a community hospital … followed by two major teaching hospitals, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Joslin Diabetes Center. Over the past twenty one years, I have had the good fortune of working with local, national and international organizations who help wounded veterans, support brain tumor and CTE research, fight for animal welfare and environmental protection, and, the closest to my heart, supporting at risk youth and children in crisis throughout the world. Helping these good folks identify and engage their best prospects to land a transformational gift is, simply, awesome. Learning – and then sharing -- new ways to make this happen from the early days of wealth screening to sophisticated analytics and predictive modeling has kept me fully engaged. Mentoring colleagues entering the field, or trying to solve a tough problem, has been very rewarding.

APRA-IL: Describe your journey into your current position.

D.C.:I spent a decade-and-a-half in commercial real estate, most of that time owning my own brokerage and consulting business. My attorney, and very close friend, asked me to help the local hospital on Cape Cod identify folks who own $1M waterfront homes for an $8 million capital campaign. I developed a database of 1,500 prospects (which took many months, compared to seconds today!). The nineteenth person that I identified, gave a $2 million naming gift. 21 years later, it still gives me a very warm feeling whenever I pull into the parking lot and see the “O’Keefe Pavilion” at the hospital where I was born. After completing that assignment, I asked the chief development officer what group she belonged to. She told me it was the New England Association for Healthcare Philanthropy. I joined NEAHP, went to their annual conference, and knew this was what I wanted to do. These people were doing great things for our world and were simply the nicest and most compassionate people around. I volunteered to build a website for the group (way back in the dark ages) and the board president immediately put me on the board. I spent twelve years on the NEAHP board, resigning every year for the last six before my resignation was finally accepted. The relationships and networking within NEAHP is how I built my prospect research business.

APRA-IL: What is next for you? Is there anything you would like to accomplish or challenge?

D.C.: Making the powerful prospecting tools, that have evolved over the past twenty+ years, available and affordable to the thousands of “small shop” philanthropic organizations is a critical mission. I’ve been an informal advisor to WealthEngine on product development since 2001 and a partner for the past eleven years. I’ve advocated passionately for features and affordable options for smaller clients, as well as more sophisticated options for larger organizations. The advances in this field, particularly in past five years, have been astounding. I love being a part of the solution and sharing what I have learned along the way. In the early days, most of my time was spent doing in-depth prospect research for clients. I made a decision, about ten years ago, to bring in freelance prospect researchers and push most of this research off to them. I am very proud of what the terrific group of professionals in my Freelance Prospect Research network have accomplished. It has been an honor to be associated with this team. Pushing most of the day-to-day research off to this group has allowed me to concentrate more on solving problems for clients, advising them on strategies, developing prospect research plans, helping them find and hire prospect research professionals, and working with my partners at WealthEngine in developing and sharing powerful new tools for philanthropy. My goal over the next year is to develop ways to help the really small shops take advantage of the tools that the larger shops are using. There is a wall out there that needs to be torn down and a bridge that need to be built. I’m on it.

*Some aspects of Dave’s answers have been paraphrased.

Dear Analyst 5: Speaking at Conferences

Mon, 20 Jun 2016 13:45:05 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates

Dear Analyst,

I went to APRA ARC and had a blast. I learned so much from my colleagues in the field. It’s amazing to see what people are doing! I’m thinking about next year’s conferences. I’d love to present what I have done in my research shop but I’m not sure if I should. What do you recommend? What did you do to get ready for the conferences you’ve spoken at?

Thanks,

Potential Speaker?

Dear Potential,

That’s wonderful! I’m so pleased to hear that you had a great time at ARC. I’m even happier to hear that you are thinking about speaking next year at ARC or another conference. I think that is great. I’ve spoken at several conferences and I’ve enjoyed every single one of them. It’s always fun to share what you have learned and to continue discovering new things from other people.

I know that speaking at a conference can seem very scary. When I first thought about it, I was not sure what I would say. What could I talk about? Or more importantly: What was I qualified to talk about? The answer was simple: my job. What did I do every day? What had I learned as a researcher and/or prospect manager? What processes did we build at my job? Because once you start going to conferences and talking to people in the field, you realize that everyone does things differently. So there’s your starting point. What do you do that is different? My first conference talk was a panel on planned giving, which is a really tricky part of fundraising for me. But I had spent years learning about it and spent a lot of time figuring out to translate my knowledge of planned giving (with lots of help from my boss and others in my organization) into conducting better research and management for my organization. And the presentation went well!

Another idea is to look at an area that you find so fascinating within the field. Maybe you know something about it but you want to learn more. That’s totally a legitimate thing to talk about! I’m personally fascinated by corporations and foundations and decided to focus on this area for the past three talks. Now, it’s okay not to know all the answers. You can learn more about the topic in order to present. It’s more than likely that you’ll want to do some more research for your presentation. I spent time interviewing people and reviewing aspects about foundations that I did not know a lot about. And it’s half the fun of presenting!

There’s also the possibility of co-presenting. I know several colleagues who present with other researchers in their offices. Sometimes they even present with gift officers and other non-researchers at their organization. Or you can present on a panel. As I mentioned before, my first presentation was a panel on planned giving where my co-presenters were from all over the US. A panel can be a great way to start presenting. You have fellow presenters to help you out (particularly with questions) and you learn new things from what they are doing.

Okay, so you’ve gotten your speech figured out and you’ve been accepted by a conference, the next step is putting together the presentation. You do not want to put too much information on any slide. Too much information can overwhelm the viewer and make it hard to read the talking points. You can put the highlights to help people later on when they review the slides. I view my presentation slides as a guide in my presentation.

One of the trickiest parts of presenting is the Q&A at the end. You’ve spent a lot of time preparing your speech but the questions can be about anything! (Well, hopefully about your speech and related topics). It’s okay not to know the answer. You may have questions that you really won’t be able to answer. Take it as an opportunity for new research and new learning. The questions may help to clarify a point about your work. Try to see the Q&A as a continuation of the learning process. That’s what conferences are all about.

Finally, remember to bring lots of business cards. People will likely want to follow up with you or even send you documents about how they do their work on the topic to help you in your own work. As mentioned in previous Dear Analyst posts, conferences are a place to meet people and learn about new techniques, strategies in our field.

So go forth and submit your presentation ideas! It’s well worth it!

APRA ARC Recap

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 13:44:21 GMT

By Katherine Ingrao, Assistant Director of Prospect Management at Rush University Medical Center

It was a true honor to be the first host and chair of APRA International’s first ARC Conference. The conference kicked off on Monday June 6^th at the Marriott Chicago O’Hare and was a great success. The purpose of this event was to create a conference that would cultivate and support networks of prospect development professionals on a regional level who could then continue to collaborate and learn from each other all year round. The choice of Chicago as the first location for ARC was symbolic of APRA International’s history, having been founded in the region almost 30 years ago. The conference will be moved each year to a new region and hopes to grow in its attendance, programming, and impact.

When planning this conference, we wanted to think outside of the box and create more dynamic programming and opportunities for networking for professionals within the host region. We targeted those within the Midwest region because we thought that it was a more affordable conference and close for people to drive to. Surprisingly, APRA members flocked to Chicago from all across the US and Canada! When speaking with attendees, they mentioned that the whole experience of the conference was great because of the smaller format, manageable session options, and higher probability of repeat networking opportunities with attendees From my experiences at PD conferences, I would agree that ARC allowed people to really get to know someone sitting next to them in a session because you’ll probably run into them again at lunch. These connections were my main goal when organizing this conference. While I had thought initially I would be helping to cultivate regional connections and collaborations, it was actually on a much larger scale.

In addition to meeting people from across the country, attendees were treated to a new session format called Open Space Conversations led by Claudia St. John. Claudia helps to facilitates large conference groups such as ours to hold unstructured audience generated discussions. It was a new idea chosen by the ARC planning committee to shake up the conference offerings and allow attendees to choose the topics that they were most interested in. It was an interesting concept and worked fairly well. In the future, I can see this being used in a more structured way since out profession can be very broad in job responsibility and interest.

The real highlight for the conference came on Tuesday from our keynote speaker Andrew Means. Andrew is the co-founder of The Impact Lab and is a local data analytics expert to the Chicago area. He has previously held leadership positions at The University of Chicago’s Center for Data Science & Public Policy, Groupon, and the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago. Andrew focused his keynote on the importance of how an organization uses and promotes its data to tell their story, purpose, and mission. He noted that these stories are often unintentionally misleading and that there needs to be more transparency and collaboration with other nonprofits to efficiently use data for the social good. His speech really resonated with attendees and spurred great conversation regarding our own internal reporting and transparency within offices in addition to our donor relations.

The overall experience of ARC for me was significant. I was able to do so much more than host a conference for my colleagues. I was able to form great connections with the wonderful prospect development professionals that call the Midwest home.

Special thank yous go out to my entire ARC planning committee:

Karla Davis- IL

Michael Pawlus- MI

Katie Linder- MI

Marissa Todd- MO

Henry Lau-MI

Kathryn Thomas-WI

Susan Hunt-PA

Jessica Szadziewicz- IL

This group has been amazing and I hope to work with you all again!

ARC Talks by Local Experts

Tue, 24 May 2016 15:42:10 GMT

There's still time to register for ARC!

Take a look at these talks by local presenters:

Sarah Brandywine Johnson, Research Analyst at the University of Chicago will be talking on “Shoperations: Research Shop Administration for Researchers” on June 7 at 3:30pm – 4:45pm.

Description

Shoperations: Research Shop Administration for Researchers is an overview of organizational and administrative tips and tricks for running the "office" side of a Prospect Research office: budget, information and project management, cat-herding, and communication for shops big and small, presented by a current research analyst and former project manager. Attendees will learn how to organize and manage office operations, come to understand the unsung value of post-it notes, and explore various software applications to assist in tracking tasks, communicating with fellow researchers, and storing information that just does not quite fit in a database.

Klara Mueggenburg, PhD, Business Systems Analyst at Northwestern University, will be giving her presentation entitled: "Exploring the Relationship between Engagement and Giving" on June 8th from 9am to 10:15am.

Description

Engagement leads to giving. This statement makes intuitive sense to most alumni relations and development professionals. Yet when asked to quantitatively show the relationship, we struggle initially with even defining engagement. Should it just include events and volunteering activity, or should it also include alumni club membership and online alumni community activity? This session will provide steps for examining engagement and its relationship to giving. It will discuss how to define and measure engagement, how to improve data quality to support reporting, how to use graphs to explore trends in data, how to construct an engagement or affinity score, and finally, how to effectively present this information. Understanding how engagement and giving relate to each other can empower organizations to evaluate event and volunteering programs, and can strengthen the collaboration between the alumni relations and fundraising team.

Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst at Grenzenbach Glier and Associates, will be presenting “Everything You Wanted to Know about Foundations but Were Too Afraid to Ask” on June 7 at 2:00pm to 3:15pm.

Description

Ever wanted to understand the difference between a family foundation and a private operating foundation? Confused when reading 990 forms? This session is all foundations, all the time. We’ll look at how foundations are formed and important considerations for new foundations. We’ll explore the different foundation types. We’ll explore the wonders of the 990 forms and talk about research products that I’d developed and used in my role as Senior Prospect Management and Research analyst in the past. We’ll also talk about interviews made with people who work and run small foundations about their work and their views on the grand world of foundations.

Stay tuned for more sessions from APRA-IL members and legacy members and click here for more information from APRA International about ARC!

Dear Analyst 4

Wed, 18 May 2016 13:36:23 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Benchmarking Analyst, Grenzebach Glier and Associates, and Katie Ingrao, Assistant Director of Prospect Management, Rush University Medical Center

Dear Analyst,

APRA ARC and APRA International are coming up. I’m not sure if I should go to either. I’ve been told professional development is important but I don’t know what I’ll really get out of sitting in a conference room all day. What’s the value in going to these conferences and things like them?

Thanks,

Professionally Questioning

Dear Questioning,

Professional development is really essential in our line of work. There are so many developments in fundraising and data happening every day! Conferences and other events are a few ways to keep prospect researchers and prospect managers up to date about new trends and processes in our field. At conferences and events, you get to learn what other people in other shops have struggled with and the solutions that they have created. You’d be surprised at the amount of times you’ll find a shop facing similar issues as your organization! Their approach to the same problem can bring new perspective or a cautionary tale but either way its great information to have. You also can learn about new resources, new models of research and management, or even new strategies to deal with thorny issues in our field. You can take these ideas and apply them your organization. Or you can tell your boss and other people about things that worked and didn’t work. Even managers and directors can benefit from conferences; there can be tracks to help them strategize with moving the department forward or better manage their employees.

But even more important than the conference sessions themselves, you have the opportunity to network with people in the field. At these events, you’ll meet people from all over the country and even the world who are there to learn and share. You can learn a lot from one another. Your tenure in the profession doesn’t matter. I went to my first conference only three months on the job and I was able to share things I had learned and thought about with other people. I learned a lot too. These connections are really important for the future as well. You’ll meet people who you can talk to later on if you are having issues and need outside support. I once called colleagues I met through APRA International and APRA IL to ask them about their programs to see how they compared to ours. You can ask them about their fundraising databases, vendors they’ve used or rejected, and so much more. Plus, they can be potential points of contact in the advancement of your career. You can also learn about new products and services from the various vendors.

Conferences are largely what you make of them. If you are willing to learn a lot and share, they are a great way to enhance your skillset and network. Going to conferences were one of the best things I’ve done as a researcher. So if your work place permits it, I definitely recommend checking out a conference.

Have a burning question for Dear Analyst? Send your questions and queries to APRAIL@gmail.com.

Motivations of Leaders: Part 1

Wed, 11 May 2016 12:13:40 GMT

By Joan Ogwumike, Development Coordinator, Mikva Challenge

What makes Prospect Development a great career?

APRA-IL is asking local and national industry leaders what the field means to

them and why and how they have pursued success in Prospect Development.

Is our commitment to the field because of the impact we can have on the world

through our work? Is it the fact that for many of us, Prospect Development careers

are a “perfect fit” with our skill sets? There are countless reasons to build a career in

Prospect Development: through this blog series we will explore what drives

industry leaders to propel their careers and Prospect Development forward.

Our first interview in this blog series features APRA-IL president, Katie Ingrao

speaking on why she does this work.

Stay tuned for upcoming feature profiles in this series each month!

APRA-IL: Describe your motivations to build your career in Prospect Development, and what keeps you engaged.

Katie Ingrao*: I, like many people, fell into Prospect Development, and there are several reasons that keep me in it. One of the more prevalent reasons is that I feel this field truly utilizes and values my natural talents and skills. My background is in education and library and information science, and I consistently rely on that experience in my work with database trainings, data management, and general research. This [experience] allows me to feel more versatile in my work and not restricted in the future opportunities available to me. I know that I can continue working in prospect management or branch off into data analytics and still be within the same field and maybe even the same organization.

The people that I meet in Prospect Development have kept me engaged in the field. I have always enjoyed connecting with the different people who make up the fundraising industry. They all have different experiences, educational backgrounds, and skills. It’s really rewarding to me to hear how and why they got into fundraising because it shows how truly diverse our industry is. This diversity, I think, makes my work experiences so great.

APRA-IL: Can you share a piece of advice with the readers, on what

you've gained by professional development?

K.I.: I have gained quite a bit from professional development through APRA-IL. Most importantly, I’ve been able to build my skills of networking and understanding the importance of connecting with professionals beyond my office and even beyond my specific field. I started out in a single-person shop and it was very intimidating as a new Prospect Development professional to be completely independent with no structured support. Joining APRA-IL and attending conferences has forced me to be more engaged and confident. My involvement has taught me confidence and how to be more assertive in my daily interactions with colleagues and being a better advocate for my work.

APRA-IL: What is next for you? Is there anything you would like to

accomplish or challenge?

K.I.: I’m not entirely sure what’s next for me professionally. I think a great aspect of Prospect Development is that there are lots of options and always new opportunities to consider. Going forward, I hope to learn more about data modeling and implementing those data analytics skills to prepare for my organization’s next campaign. I have never prepared for or gone through a campaign so that’s an exciting upcoming endeavor. As for new things at APRA-IL, I hope to increase volunteer engagement among our members. I have found the experience extremely rewarding and want to encourage more chapter members to participate.

*Some aspects of Katie’s answers have been paraphrased.

Dear Analyst 3

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:01:49 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Senior Prospect Management and Research Analyst, Loyola University Chicago

Dear Analyst,

I’ve been living the prospect researcher’s dream. I’ve been doing a lot of proactive research and finding a lot of great new leads for my organization. But none of the gift officers seem to be as excited as me. How do I get them interested in these new people?

Thanks,

Excited but Frustrated Researcher

Dear Excited,

That’s super great that you are finding great leads to feed into your organization’s pipeline. But as you are finding out, that’s only half the battle. As researchers and prospect managers, we have to help convince gift officers that new leads are as great as we think they are. We have to market the leads so they go out and see them. That process can be very frustrating.

There’s a lot of different ways that you can do that. First, there’s the evaluation itself. What information are you including? How are you communicating what is awesome about a prospect in your written work? Does the person have a lot of securities, or a snazzy house with a giant mosaic covered pool? Is that in there? Does the person give a lot of money to their other alma maters? Or do they live in a coop in NYC or own a plane? These details can help explain why the person is so great. Make sure you write down what’s in your brain so there’s a record of it.

The next step is delivering the information. There’s a couple of ways of doing it but the effectiveness depends on the gift officer. For instance, I’ve heard over and over that giving a list of prospect leads on a spreadsheet is the kiss of death. A long list of people in a spreadsheet can be daunting but a small one might be okay. It really depends on the comfort level of the gift officer. If they like spreadsheets and are comfortable with data, then I think it can work. But I’d make sure that list is short. And maybe include a sentence on why they were included.

Another option is to send one off emails. You can make a case for why the lead is awesome in an email. It’s a direct way of marketing the person to a gift officer. However, it’s extra work to write one email for every person you find. You could try 2-3 but it’s still another email. Plus emails can get lost in the quagmire of one’s mailbox.

Recently we implemented a new report called the “New Prospect Report” that helps spread the word on leads. This report records all new research analysis in a time frame who are not assigned to a gift officer. It includes the name of the person, city, state, degrees, the research note, and their rating. It’s like a semi-monthly email that goes out to all the gift officers. Then gift officers can see all the wonderful work you’ve been doing. And then, they can let you know who they want assigned!

However, I think the best thing you can do to market your new finds are meetings. Yes, I believe that is the solution for a lot of problems but that’s because face to face communication is really effective. I think it would be great to meet the gift officer with a list of a few individuals that you think they should take a look at. Or if you have a pre-existing meeting, just add it the agenda. That way, you can tell the gift officer why you think someone is great. Hopefully, that’ll result in some new additions to their portfolio!

These are just a few suggestions. If you have more, please let us know at APRAIL@gmail.com

Have a burning question for Dear Analyst? Send your questions and queries to APRAIL@gmail.com

Collaboration and Webinar Beginnings!

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 20:09:14 GMT

APRA-IL member Carolyn Hersch shared a piece she wrote for C.A.L.L.’s (Chicago Association of Law Librarians) newsletter regarding her work with APRA-IL and bridging gaps between development professionals and librarians. APRA-IL President Katie Ingrao also provides her thoughts on APRA-IL’s first webinar and the positive impact of partnering with Carolyn and outside organizations like C.A.L.L.

Carolyn:

Last fall, I attended a daylong conference hosted by APRA-IL, which focused on hot topics in prospect research. APRA-IL is an organization for prospect development professionals in the Chicagoland area. Prospect research involves researching, managing, and analyzing data with the goal of gaining donors for non-profit organizations. Librarians are getting hired in this field, as the skill set matches neatly with the profession. The majority of prospect development positions can be found with universities and hospitals, although the field is growing.

According to APRA, Prospect Development has evolved to include the following roles and responsibilities:

· Prospect identification and research: discovering and evaluating prospective donors, and their interests, relationships, inclination to give and philanthropic capacity to inform and support an organization’s fundraising strategies and outreach efforts

· Relationship management: managing, tracking, and reporting on an organization’s activity with its constituent and prospect pools, and making recommendations to positively influence fundraiser and campaign activity

· Data analytics: supporting an information-driven decision culture by deriving conclusions and identifying trends through the statistical analysis of internal and external data

The skills that our prospect research counterparts have are important for librarians to be aware of, regardless of the work setting. Future attorneys and law firms need to know how to research whether prospective or existing clients have the means to pay them. Law schools have fundraising arms. Law firms like to understand what strategic advantages they can get.

One of the connections I made was with APRA-IL President, Katie Ingrao. Katie is the Assistant Director of Prospect Management at Rush University Medical Center. From our meeting came CALL’s first collaborative webinar. On February 17th, CALL, APRA-IL, and APRA-MN presented a webinar comparing and contrasting competitive intelligence with prospect research. Over 50 participants from the three organizations listened in. Jerry Burch, from Latham Watkins and Darren Cooper from the Mayo Clinic discussed competitive intelligence and its non-profit sibling, prospect research. Jerry and Darren each presented on their respective fields and then held a panel discussion comparing the type of research they do, ethical questions, skills, tools, intricacies of both professions, and the divide of nonprofit vs. for profit organizations.

Katie:

APRA-IL hosted its first webinar on February 17^th and we partnered with APRA-MN and C.A.L.L. (Chicago Association of Law Librarians). Our topic focused on the fields of prospect research and competitive intelligence. My goal with this webinar was to explore professional fields beyond development that are relatable to prospect researchers and can be sources of inspiration, motivation, and collaboration for us. This was a goal easily met since competitive intelligence professionals are so relatable in their methods, techniques, and general purpose within their organization. Besides starting to build a network beyond development, I took away two important lessons from the process of putting this webinar together.

I found this webinar to be extremely helpful to prospect development professionals in making connections to positions in the corporate world. It’s always smart to be aware of what you are qualified to do and who values your skills beyond your current situation. The competitive intelligence field is our corporate sibling and has great potential for prospect researchers looking to break out of the nonprofit bubble.

The second lesson that I took away from the webinar and entire experience of collaborating with outside professionals was there are big rewards when I think outside of my little prospect development box. Talking to a professional from a related field can be great for your critical thinking skills. Competitive intelligence professionals approach their job from a corporate mentality but share technics and a common purpose with prospect researchers. Their ultimate goal is to gather, analyze, and advise on data for their organization’s leadership. Listening to CIs talk shop helped me think about how I approach my work and can use different tools or technics to improve my results.

I thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with APRA_MN and C.A.L.L. on this webinar and look forward to more like it! Be sure to register for our next webinar by Namrata Padhi on Researching Start Up Companies on April 26^th at 12 p.m. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5553718267221333249

Dear Analyst

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 15:48:55 GMT

Elisa Shoenberger, Senior Prospect Management and Research Analyst, Loyola University Chicago and Katherine Ingrao, Assistant Director of Prospect Management at Rush University Medical Center

Dear Analyst,

When I’m meeting with gift officers and leadership, I’m often told just to go google information for them. People at work seem to think that I just use Google all day and cut and paste information. Sometimes I get really weird requests about finding information on movie stars and stuff. People don’t seem to realize that prospect research isn’t a research desk! How do I explain to them that there is so much more that I do and could be doing for them?

Thanks,

Not a Professional Googler

Dear NPG,

Prospect Research is more than putting someone’s name in Google. It’s a common misconception of the field. It’s true that part of the role is finding information. But it’s more than just a Google search. We find a lot of our wealth information on specialized websites and reports like county assessor’s offices, real estate websites, and much more. Information on those sites aren’t easily found via Google. It requires knowledge of what resources to use. We spend a lot of time at conferences, etc. exchanging ideas for new place to find information and that’s just a small part of the story. We have to take our training and expertise, and our intuition to understand the information that we find. Is it accurate? What does it really mean about the prospect? And then we unite that knowledge with the information we know as an institution by looking at old research, contact reports and even giving. It’s so much more complicated than a Google search. We assist in determining strategy for the gift officers. We help them figure out what motivates the prospect. We can even help with ask amounts!

But there’s even more that Prospect Research can do! We have to find leads for the organization, to build the prospect pool. That takes a lot of discernment and cleverness to find people who may be interested in your mission. Schools have the natural pool of their alumni as possible prospects but researchers still have to find them out. We spend hours looking at SEC documents, news articles, reviewing top business lists, LinkedIn, and so much more. Again, new prospects aren’t something you can just Google.

And finally, we can help overall strategy for a school or program. We can look at the entire data set and help gift officers make decisions about their donors. Where events should be held? How should we split up the US between gift officers? There’s so much that prospect research can do since we are in the data all the time.

Now, you are probably thinking: That’s great, Dear Analyst. I know we do so much. How do I communicate that to my colleagues and leadership? That’s the tricky part. Often times, we as researchers have to continually make the case about what prospect research can do. In many shops, it has been helpful for a research team to hold Prospect Research 101 trainings for all staff to start the education process and to reinforce it. It also helps if you have a good advocate at the leadership level who understands what your department can do. They can appeal to other members in the leadership team about what research can do for your institution.

Regular meetings with gift officers can also be a strategy. Maintaining a regular rapport helps gift officers and researchers stay connected and working together to find ways to collaborate. These conversations and meetings allow for the opportunity of researchers to offer gift officers different ways in which they can help them in their fundraising goals. Do they need assistance prioritizing their suspects? Do they want to know where their alumni live? These meetings demonstrate the depth and breadth of what a prospect researcher can do. Of course, it’s also important to remember that you don’t want to overpromise and get overwhelmed with side projects. Your main objective is to educate and inform the gift officers who you work with not entertain every demand. A good balance is always key.

And finally, you can advocate for research by identifying opportunities your gift officers may be missing. We are the hunters, gatherers, and disseminators of our organization’s information and many times are in the best position to point out a strategy, prospect, or opportunity being overlooked. Does the person seem to like giving to health organizations and scholarships? Maybe they might be interested in supporting scholarships at a medical school?

These are just a few ways that prospect researchers can make a case for their department. Dear Analyst would love to hear the different ways you and your department have helped make the case too. We’ll post responses in the next Dear Analyst column!

Research Pride

Fri, 04 Mar 2016 15:43:21 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Senior Prospect Management and Research Analyst, Loyola University Chicago

When I first started as a prospect researcher and attended my first APRA conference, a few people I met described their work as “professional stalker.” That description felt very wrong to me from the beginning. I like to avoid using the word “stalker” in any context, especially professional one. I was determined to come up with a better short description of the field that had a more positive ring to it. Or make people laugh without all the self-deprecation. I settled on “Treasure Hunter” since everyone loves pirates, right? It felt a lot better to say.

When I talk to people who don’t know about fundraising, I have to explain that prospect research and management is its own niche field. I try to explain that fundraising is its own industry as well with its big competitors and startups. I try to emphasize how much prospect research and management is a field. An impressive one at that. I’ve been fortunate to have gone to several local and international APRA conferences and seen the beauty and organization of our industry. I think it is incredible that researchers present their work to us all, write articles about the profession on many blogs, and even advise newcomers and fellow researchers in the field. At my first APRA conference, so many people were willing to lend a hand to one another. Even as a newcomer, I was able to help other people I’ve met who were even newer to the field. That commitment to sharing and helping each other succeed is amazing. What a passionate, thoughtful industry we are in!

And in the past few years, it’s been incredible to see the rise of analytics within our field. We’ve been attending lectures and workshops about how we could use Big Data for several years. And then it seems that everyone (outside of research) was talking about it! It’s been incredible to see how our field continues to grow and keeps up with the changes in the world.

But the biggest point of pride for me has been the work itself. We help drive the strategy of fundraising at our institutions. I love that my research takes me to new and interesting places each day. One day, I’ll be working on evaluating the value of an art collection and the next day, I’ll be researching a foundation’s work in fostering democracy. I get to be a mini-expert on lots of little areas. Moreover, I’m extremely proud that research I’ve done has helped align donors with a particular field of interest for them! And even better, I’ve been able to help to increase the size of the gifts. Those moments are precious to me. Helping my organization grow is what it is all about. So I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m more than a treasure hunter. I don’t just find the treasure, I help give gift officers with the shovel? Okay, that metaphor is getting a bit tortured.

So what am I? I’m a researcher. #researchpride

Now it’s your turn! Tell us why you are proud to be a researcher! Email us at apraillinois@gmail.com or tweet at us at @APRAIllinois

Review: Prospect Research Perspectives on Social Media

Fri, 26 Feb 2016 15:07:21 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Senior Prospect Management and Research Analyst, Loyola University Chicago

The issue of social media is paramount in our field. Pew Research Studies reported that 74% of online adults use social networking. People use social media for both professional and social purposes. Online people reveal so much about their lives, their preferences, and sometimes even their philanthropic inclination. Social media provides prospect researchers with new opportunities and new challenges! In 2013, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture on LinkedIn at APRA International in Baltimore, MD. The session was really critical in talking about the ethics of using LinkedIn in a professional capacity and also to understand how other shops were using the tool. The issue arose again back in May 2015 over the ethics of using LinkedIn for prospect research on PROSPECT_L – a listhost for prospect research, management and analytics--and resulted in APRA International issuing a formal statement on LinkedIn. Read about APRA’s LinkedIn guidelines here: http://www.aprahome.org/d/do/3217 Last summer, one of our vendors offered social media as a new option for research with our prospects.

Earlier this month I was asked to review Jennifer Filla and Sarah Bernstein’s Prospect Research Perspectives on Social Media and I have found it be essential reading about social media and the prospect research/management field. The book explores how do prospect researchers and managers handle the wealth of information and deal with the ethics of using that information. Aimed at prospect researchers, prospect managers, and data analysts (and maybe even gift officers), this publication provides thoughtful and sometimes provocative analysis about social media in our field. It tackles social media from a lot of diverse angles from an effective Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis for using social media in fundraising and research to analyzing the ALS Ice Bucket challenge.

The publication helped me think about social media in a broad sense from the ethics of using social media to how to use the information as a researcher. The publication includes a series of articles by Filla and Bernstein who have interviewed several people throughout the field. Their articles contain information from people at three Milwaukee based charities and Justin Ware, Vice President of Digital Fundraising Strategy at ScaleFunder. I really appreciated the article of the three Wisconsin based charities that explored how these three charities with different structures and missions each used social media to aid in their fundraising. For instance, Lawrence University “Lawrence has been tracking every social media comment for several years now, tallying the comments by fiscal year in their database (Banner). As Ziegler describes it, Lawrence was then able to “use this existing data to identify volunteers, and send them a private Facebook message with a link to the social media toolkit for Giving Day” (p18). Justin Ware of ScaleFunder pointed out, “enthusiastic online advocates often include at least a few of your major donors” (p11).

One of the surprising suggestions was for prospect researchers to look for social media influencers. In our field, the focus has long been major gift prospects. And there’s definitely potential with social media to aid in that mission. Jen Filla and Sarah Bernstein talk about how social media can help researchers understand the interests and affinity of major gift prospects…or even find new major gift donors, like young tech millionaires, that traditional wealth screenings don’t find. But they added this idea of identifying folks who are influencers. They can help champion your organization’s message, maybe even with a gift attached! They write: “Social media influencers offer us this same opportunity. If we can identify who among our large group of annual appeal donors has influence, we can ask them to give more of their influence to our organization and its mission” (p33). This is something I’ve never thought about doing. I’m already dreaming up schemes to capture that information! But in addition to this incredible insight, there’s some really important suggestions to how to make use of it, like the data collection and other partnerships needed to be able to affectively accomplish this. I also valued their comments about the importance of data tracking and possibilities with analytics.

I also appreciated that their publication talked about how we can use social media in the advancement of our careers as well. One provocative thought was the idea of mastering one or two social networks. How many social networks have you looked at today? How many do you actively use? Filla also states the importance of being active and not overexerting yourself. Work it into your daily routine.

So I highly recommend this publication for those of you who contemplate the ramifications of this plethora of social media in the prospect research and prospect management field.

Photo link: Jason Howe. http://tinyurl.com/jaa3n2z

Corporate and Foundation Salon Review

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 15:59:57 GMT

By Joan Ogwumike, Development Coordinator, Mikva Challenge

We had the First Salon of the year and it was amazing! As a new member of APRA-IL, I joined for the exposure, networking opportunities, and the plethora of knowledge. And at this event, I was not disappointed!

The setting was in a lounge area adjacent Café Cito, and seated on a long L-shaped couch was our three Corporate and Foundation relations panelists- Lindsey Rogers, University of Chicago, Kara Moore, Northwestern University, and Meredith Dorneker,Northwestern University.

It was an informal Q&A with stimulating questions from the panelists to the attendants; we all wanted to learn from each other! Conversations stemmed from sponsorship relations with corporations, marking-up a prospect strategy for engagement, systems for prioritizing prospects, ratings for corporate and foundations, giving strategies in terms of ratings, the variety of databases used, and more.

From the event, I noticed the designated presence of prospect researchers within higher education institutions, and the necessary position of research in other areas within the public sector. Another takeaway was the reliance on different search engines, and the ways in which each one could lead to different outcomes.

This event was a glimpse of prospect research as an independent profession, and the different backgrounds that can lead one into becoming a researcher. I believe there needs to be continuous dialogue within every organization regarding research and its presence. Knowing its presence means a reliance on new funding possibilities.

Dear Analyst

Fri, 12 Feb 2016 17:51:19 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Senior Prospect Management and Research Analyst, Loyola University Chicago

Happy Valentine’s Day from APRA-IL!

This is the perfect season to introduce you all to our new blog series that we are calling “Dear Analyst”. This series of blogs is to pay homage to our secular sister “Dear Abby” but also will be an advocate, therapist, and coach to our prospect development members. We want you to write in with your issues and questions regarding prospect development work and we will post our thoughts and suggestions but we also will encourage members to provide their own perspective and ideas. This is meant to generate dialogue and collaboration among our members and also just a fun way to expand the topics and content of our blog, so enjoy!

Dear Analyst,

I’m a shiny new prospect researcher at my organization. I’ve been asked to find new prospects for the organization but I don’t know where to turn. Could you please help me?

Thanks,

Lost in Prospect Land

Dear Lost,

Finding new prospects is a vital part of the job for prospect research! There’s a lot of different ways of going about it, which makes it great but also scary. Don’t worry. Remember that prospects come from a lot of new places. I’m going to talk about a few places but there are many more.

One place that I like to start is the people who already have given to my organization. Are there people who have given a lot but haven’t been contacted and/or researched? Those might be gems for your organization. It might be a good practice to review all incoming gifts each week to pick up on those larger gifts like $1,000 gifts and up.

With cooperation from your senior staff, your organization could talk to board members about possible prospects that might be inclined towards your organization. It’s great to use these networks. Maybe they’ll offer to introduce us to the prospect.

Another option is to conduct a wealth screening with a company like Blackbaud or Wealth Engine. These can be pricey so it’s a big step but you can find lots of new people this way. These screenings can help you identify people with a lot of assets who may be major gift prospects.

Another place to look might be your own constituency. If your organization is a school, a hospital or a museum, you might have people who have an affinity to your organization already like alumni, grateful patients or members! You can look at business titles of people if you have the information or use news sources to look for your school. Google Alerts can be set up for keywords like “College University” that can help identify alumni who have moved jobs in press releases. Also, you can look at SEC documents too for your alumni.

If you don’t fall under one of those categories, don’t fret! You can buy a mailing list from several organizations that can give you information on people who might be interested in your area of expertise, like the environment or poverty issues.

Are you looking for new foundation or corporate leads? You can use Foundation Center and Foundation Search and look by keywords or even by grants. Both are paid subscriptions but public libraries may have licenses to both of them for your use! Also, it can also try looking at news articles about donations to organizations similar to yours!

These are just a few places to find new prospects. I hope it helps!

The best,

Have a question about prospect relationships, research or anything else in the prospect realm? Feel free to email Dear Analyst at aprail@gmail.comwith the subject line Dear Analyst

Corporate and Foundation Research Salon

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 15:01:02 GMT

By Jessica Szadziewicz, Prospect Information Analyst at Northwestern University

Are you a corporate or foundation researcher? Or are you interested in learning more about corporate and foundation research? Then come to the first APRA-IL Salon of 2016! Our topic is all things corporate and foundation research. We will have special attendees from the C&F teams at both Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. They will be discussing how their organizations operate and manage its C&F research, in addition to answering any questions you may have.

The reading materials for this salon are a little different. Instead of traditional articles, participants are encouraged to review Elisa Shoenberger’s Corporate and Foundation Relations Survey, which appeared as a post on the APRA-IL blog in August 2015. In it, she asks shops from across the country a series of questions concerning corporate and foundation relations. We hope to ask corporate and foundation researchers some of these questions at the salon, and gain a better understanding of how different organizations operate.

We hope to see you at 6:00pm on Wednesday, February 10^th at Café Cito at 26 E Congress Parkway in Chicago.

New Year's Greetings from APRA IL President

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 19:08:32 GMT

By Katie Ingrao, APRA-IL President and Associate Director of Prospect Management at Rush University Medical Center

New Year, new APRA-IL!

This year is all about revamping and refreshing our chapter and your career. We have an exciting year ahead of us with new events, a regional conference, and expanding partnerships in Chicago and beyond.

This will be my second year as President and the last year in my term. From the beginning, I’ve been committed to engaging a larger segment of our membership in volunteering on our committees and expanding the variety of programming we provide. This coming year, I believe the hard work invested by the Board of Directors and current volunteers will pay off big. In an effort to find ways to increase the accessibility of our programming beyond the Chicagoland area, we have acquired software in a partnership with APRA-MN to host and record webinars. This is an exciting development for us and will allow members to participate in events both in person and online. In addition to increasing accessibility to our members, the webinars will allow us to collaborate with professionals from other chapters and professions. Our first collaboration will be a webinar on competitive intelligence that we will run with APRA-MN and the Chicago Area Law Librarians during APRA International’s Share the Knowledge Week in February.

We are also thrilled to host the first ARC (APRA Regional Conference) this June in Chicago. This event will allow our members access to a multi-day conference that will not break the professional development budget. The call for speakers has been extended until the 18^th and I encourage you to consider submitting a presentation. We at APRA-IL have impressive members and institutions and this is a perfect platform to showcase that.

As we revamp our programming we also are preparing for a refresh of our website and social media accounts. If you don’t follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, be sure to do that so you won’t miss the roll out. We will be updating our website content, improving the resources available to members, providing a more streamlined schedule of messaging to our members, and finally increasing our presence on social media to keep our members up to date on the latest events and news.

I am very proud of our chapter and its members and I hope to meet you at our next event. The calendar for the year is now available on our website. The first event of the year is a field trip to The Adler Planetarium for their January “Adler After Dark” series. More information can be found on the event page. Tickets should be purchased through the planetarium, but be sure to RSVP through our site so we have a head count. I am looking forward to the changes coming in 2016 and I hope you are too!

Best Wishes and a Happy New Year,

Katie Ingrao

APRA-IL President

The Other World of Research: Cat Visits the Realm of Philanthropic Studies!

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 16:54:02 GMT

By Catherine Cefalu, Lead Prospect Research Analyst at The University of Chicago

Hi Nerds!

As some of you may know, I am currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. I mention this partly to explain why I didn’t run for re-election as APRA-IL vice president, but also to enthuse about the field of philanthropic studies.

My friends, there is a whole other world of research out there, and it is amazing.

I did not have any classes this semester, so I took the opportunity to attend some conferences. In addition to the fantastic APRA-IL Fall Conference, I also attended the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy’s Annual Symposium in Indianapolis and the Association of Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action’s Annual Conference in Chicago. Some things were the same as any APRA conference I’ve attended (swag and tote bags FTW); the main difference was the emphasis on theory over practice. The majority of attendees and presenters were academics who conducted research and studies on the field of philanthropy. Each session consisted of three speakers who each spent 10-15 minutes discussing their work (usually on a related topic), followed by questions and discussion with the audience. It’s a fascinating format, and it might be cool to try out at APRA.

I learned about some incredible work that is currently going on. While it’s too much to go into extensively, I did notice some common trends under discussion at both conferences:

Women and Philanthropy: The Lilly Family School of Philanthropy is also home to the Women’s Philanthropy Institute, which recently released its 2015 “WomenGive” study. I found it a fascinating counterpart to Jennifer Filla and Preeti Gill’s presentation at the APRA-IL Fall Conference. Much of the current academic research being done on gender and philanthropy is now focusing on inter-family dynamics: how do married couples negotiate household giving? Does education or income disparity influence who makes philanthropic decisions? How does the presence of children impact the giving preferences of mothers and/or fathers (and are there different effects for single-parent households)?
International Philanthropy: One of the aspects of academic philanthropic studies that I would love to see more of in APRA is the inclusion of more international perspectives. I don’t mean Americans talking about research in other countries, I mean people who are actually living and working in those countries. ARNOVA’s membership is incredibly diverse, with researchers attending from every part of the world (except Antarctica, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time…). I had a great discussion with some Dutch researchers at ARNOVA about our countries’ different attitudes toward naming gifts. I attended a session where the presenter, from Israel, talked about the ways in which mass media discusses philanthropy; in Israel, elite philanthropists are often framed as agents of one side or another in social issue conflicts, which seems worlds away from the way that American media talks about its high-profile philanthropists.
Corporate Giving and Transparency: Corporate giving, particularly outside the United States, varies widely in terms of the level of transparency provided by the organizations. One study by researchers from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and the University of Maryland, looked at what factors impact the level of public disclosure by foundations in China, where transparency laws are largely absent or unenforced. Another study by a researcher at Centro de Investigación y Estudios sobre Sociedad Civil examined the state of corporate philanthropy in Mexico and how it aligned with a company’s corporate social responsibility practices; in many ways, the corporate foundations in Mexico seemed to be much more closely tied to the company’s private activities than corporate foundations in the U.S.
Giving Days and Other Non-Traditional Fundraising: At the Lilly Family Symposium, I attended a session that included a presentation by Barbara Newhouse, executive director of the ALS Association, who discussed the impact of the Ice Bucket Challenge on the Association’s policies and practices; she particularly stressed the need to share donor data within the different chapters of the ALS Association. Una Osili (director of research at the Lilly Family School and the 2014 keynote speaker at APRA International!) gave a presentation on her team’s research on Giving Tuesday and other giving days; one fascinating result from the study was that donations made on Giving Tuesday did not reduce a donor’s other gifts to the organization that year: if they made a gift on Giving Tuesday, they would likely also make their usual year-end gift, and at a similar amount as previous years.
Putting Research Into Practice: As I said at the beginning of this post, the field of philanthropic studies is largely academic and includes very few practitioners. A major focus of both conferences was how to bridge that gap between theory and practice. I think prospect research is uniquely positioned to be one of those possible bridges, given our love of knowledge and love of sharing it with others.

Other highlights:

They mentioned prospect research!
Beth Breeze from the University of Kent is conducting research on the social characteristics of fundraisers. What makes a good fundraiser? One interesting tidbit from her presentation: of the UK gift officers surveyed, she found that 10% of them sing in a choir, compared to 1% of the general population!
Elizabeth Dale at Seattle University is conducting some fascinating research on the philanthropic practices of LGBT individuals and households. (She is also a former Chicagoan—she was director of development at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center before pursuing her PhD in Philanthropic Studies).
Russell James from Texas Tech University is working on motivations for planned giving (you can look at the slides from his presentation for the Lilly Family Symposium here). Unlike many of the other studies on donor motivation I encountered, Dr. James is coming at it from a different direction: he’s putting people in fMRI machines, asking them questions about death and bequests, and seeing what parts of the brain light up. I really encourage you to take a look at the paper for this research if you can:

James, R. N., III & O’Boyle, M. W. (2014). Charitable estate planning as visualized autobiography: An fMRI study of its neural correlates. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43(2), 355- 373. (A previous version of the paper can be found on the Social Science Research Network here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2000345)

Recaps of the sessions at the Lilly Family Symposium can be found here. You can also see video of the keynote here (featuring Hasbro chairman Alan Hassenfeld) and the luncheon address on “Breaking 2%” by Schwab Charitable executive director Kim Laughton here.

If you want to hear more or want to nerd out about philanthropic studies, find me on Twitter or send me an e-mail!

Christina Pulawski, Prospect Research Leader. Great Chicagoan.

Fri, 06 Nov 2015 14:44:14 GMT

By Preeti Gill, A Few Good Women: https://diversitydrivendata.wordpress.com/

Her poise and sophistication aligns closely with the backdrop of our meeting place on a crisp, sunny Sunday morning in the City of Big Shoulders. She is Christina Pulawski, a prospect research leader, who has kindly offered to tour me through the Art Institute of Chicago’s latest exhibit of Indian art, Gates of the Lord: The Tradition of Krishna Paintings.

How did we get here? Well, I’ve admired Christina’s career from afar for a while now. Read her impressive biography here as I can’t do her varied accomplishments justice in this restrictive space. She led the prospect research team at Northwestern University – when they earned a “top research shop” distinction – and went on to lead Loyola University-Chicago’s Advancement Services before embarking on a successful consulting career that she continues to juggle, alongside developing a multi-team-led prospect development strategy at the AIC.

A trained lawyer and highly-rated speaker, Christina is also known for her volunteer leadership of both APRA-Illinois and big APRA. She served as chapter president for two years and earned APRA’s distinguished service award in 2005. She is also a co-founder of AASP.

Born and raised in Chicago, Christina told me about her early memories visiting the AIC. Her mother would show her a few paintings she liked and share what she knew about them, interspersed with other, more unusual, holdings of the museum, such as its miniature rooms or arms and armor. Their visits were short, yet rich learning experiences, much like the time she and I spent walking through Krishna paintings and textiles, and gawking at the ornate Renaissance pendant jewels of the Alsdorf Collection. (I did most of the gawking, really).

Later, we climbed an airy staircase over to Modern Art and sat down for a thoughtful discussion about hiring high-performers; learning to lead; and why prospect research continues to fascinate and captivate her. I sent her a few questions in advance so she had a chance to think them through and noticed that she had written down many of her thoughts before meeting me that morning. She took issue (tactfully) with some of my questions.

What Makes Researchers Great and Great Researchers?

Christina has hired and developed research teams for a number of organizations, both in-house and in a consulting capacity, so I asked her what traits or characteristics she hires for:

“It depends on where you are [kind of organization], she said. “At Northwestern, we deliberately hired for no previous experience to help train them for our specific needs. Someone who is curious; who writes well; and is well-spoken. “

She stressed curiosity, tenacity and “an interest in a lot of different things.”

“At AIC, we just hired an analyst a few weeks ago who has experience since we cannot spend as much time training and overseeing. When hiring experienced researchers, we look at how they prioritize their work.”

Since many researchers don’t operate solo shops, I asked her about a winning formula for a dynamic and high-performing team:

“In my opinion, when everyone knows what the group's goal is and understands her or his role within it. We have shared professional values like accuracy, thoroughness, timeliness, empathy towards others who use our work.”

Christina plans annual retreats for her staff where often they start with: “What are our values? What's the manifestation of those values? Values conflict sometimes like urgent requests. We work it out through scenarios before having to actually deal with issues.”

“We all need to know where we're going.”

Learning to Lead

We talked extensively about leading and mentoring and how we need mentors throughout the courses of our respective careers.

“I had a couple of bosses – not in research – who modelled excellent behavior. They were cool, calm, collected - perfectly unflappable. They were empathetic.”

Christina spoke eloquently about being an effective leader.

“In times of change, over-communicate and over-prepare. Stick with what you said." She's honest with people on her team. She micro-manages new staff initially until they’re fine on their own.

"Help grow people in their career. Where do they want to go? Find opportunities for them to grow and publicly given them credit for succeeding at those opportunities. Encourage staff to mentor people at other organizations. Present at conferences. Connect them with other people. Nurture people who want to grow. And then do the same for yourself."

"It’s my duty to help them [staff] get to where they want to be."

Christina says that leadership and management require a slew of different skills and abilities, separate and apart from research – i.e. technical – proficiencies. She says, “Intentionally develop both.”

Not being the same as leadership skills, technical skills manifest differently in every profession. “For example, most of us have seen brilliant fundraisers who do not transition to being as brilliant in managing other fundraisers.”

“We love to research 'cuz it's cool!” she said with a large grin. “But sometimes leading means doing less of what you love to do.”

So, how to develop soft skills, I recall asking her?

“Reading a lot, coaching, in-house management training that offers good common-sense advice like how to run a meeting and working with other people,” she listed.

Research is Cool. Consulting? Even Cooler

“With research, you get to be an expert in a little bit of everything. I know what it feels like to be a venture capitalist because I've researched 17,000 of them,” she said with a smile.

“Consulting is awesome. Taking fundamental principles and applying them in different permutations in different places to get the same result, meeting financial goals.

“Consulting is more about structure and resourcing. Should you hire a full-time researcher? [As a consultant], your focus is on different types of giving and fundraising. What's your goal? Staff experience and size, campaign focus and timing, all need to be taken into account and affect research.

“It’s not about re-creating what you've already done,” stressed Christina.

To wrap up, I also asked her a few cheeky questions for which she had smart responses:

Every prospect researcher should bookmark this site: ______

She took this question literally and calls her answer “snarky.”

“Dreaming of sending the link in answer to some questions researchers get, check out lmgtfy.com.

It's a stress release! And kitten/puppy video sources.”

Given her native Chicagoan status, I also asked Christina: If I have just one day in this great city, what is an absolute must-see that they don’t share in tourism guides?

“The guide books are pretty great for general info. For things that everybody might like. I'd have to know what someone's into to guide them to things that the guide books don't.”

(Classic researcher response = evaluating the information tool!)

“Get into the neighbourhoods. Use a Divvy bike [to get around]. It's the best $10 you'll spend in 24 hours” she said.

Do you want to learn more about what Christina Pulawski had to say about women leaders and the way data analytics is changing the way we view donors? Check out the second part of my interview with this prospect research leader at A Few Great Women here

APRA IL Fall Conference: Sneak Peak

Fri, 28 Aug 2015 21:42:30 GMT

By Jennifer Filla, President of Aspire Research Group LLC and CEO of Prospect Research Institute

Preeti Gill and I are excited about visiting Chicago to speak about wealthy and philanthropic women. A topic dear to our hearts and to our gender, I thought I’d do a little digging around to find some perspective on Chicago and Illinois.

Instead of writing about it, I thought I'd show you in this short video. I hope you enjoy it!

And sign up for the conference, why don’t you? Click to register!

http://sproutvideo.com/videos/e89bdcb11c18e5c960

Corporate and Foundation Relations Survey

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 20:28:41 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Senior Prospect Management and Research Analyst, Loyola University Chicago

Several months ago, I was trying to figure out how to structure prospect management with our Corporate and Foundation Relations (CFR) team. There was not a whole lot of literature out there so I reached out to two local institutions to find out how they handle CFR. It turned out that both institutions handled their CFR research and prospect management in completely different ways.

Then I decided to broaden my sample pool and conduct a survey of organizations across the US so I could gain a better picture of C&F teams nationally. My new survey contained a 10 question survey about research and prospect management in regards to C&F activity. I posted it on Prospect_L, a great resource for researchers and prospect managers, and got about 92 responses. It’s not a scientific survey but I think it gave me a little bit more insight into the topic. Most questions had several answers marked “Other” where the responses didn’t fit the question. They were excluded at this time. Click the links to see charts of the data.

1. Do you have gift officers who manage only corporations and other officers who manage foundations only? Or do they manage both corporations and foundations together?

Over 65% of organizations have their gift officers manage both corporations and foundations together. Almost 30% have separate teams to handle corporations and another to handle foundations.

q1.GIF

2. Do gift officers manage organizations and individuals at your organization?

Over 45% respondents reported that their gift officers manage both individual and organization prospects. About 42% reported that some gift officers managed individuals and others supported individuals only.

Q2.GIF

3. What is the average portfolio size for CFR officers?

About 33% of respondents reported that the average portfolio size was between 50 to 100. About 27% said they had between 25 and 49 prospects. Over 15% reported that their gift officers had over 100 prospects while over 5% reported less than 25. Over 15% had more complicated situations such as gift officers who see both organizations and individuals or no dedicated gift officers.

Q3.GIF

4. Does your institution use ratings for its Foundations and Corporations?

This was the most surprising of them all. The vast majority (over 70%) do not have ratings. We use ratings at Loyola so i was not expecting this result!

q4.GIF

5. Of the 20 who responded yes, we asked: If you have ratings, how do you determine a rating?

People explained that they used market value, past gift amounts, and had a formula. Other organizations look at the linkage, ability, and interest. Others use one rating for maximum grant and some rely on gift officer rating. Others use past gifts or a four point ranking system.

6. Are there stages for organizations? Common terms for stages are: suspect, cultivation, stewardship.

This question also surprised me especially after the rating question. Over 80% reported that they had stages for their corporations. Only about 15% did not!

q6.GIF

7. Does your CFR office have a dedicated researcher?

Almost 60% of respondents reported that they did not while over 30% said that they did.

Q7.GIF

8. How many researchers exist at your organization?

Almost 60% have only 0-2 researchers while about 30% have only 2-5 researchers. Less than 5% had over 10.

q8.GIF

9. How many gift officers exist at your organization?

Over 50% reported that they had 3 to 10 gift officers while over 20% reported 31 to 50!

q9.GIF

10. What type of organization are you?

Almost 70% of participants came from higher education. The next largest group at about 8% came from Health- Focused organizations. It would be interesting to see how the information would differ if we excluded higher education!

q10.GIF

I’m hoping that this serves to instigate more discussion about prospect management and research for Corporate and Foundations teams. This survey is a start. Please share your ideas! Share your techniques! I think there’s a lot of room for discussion. I can’t wait to hear from you all.

APRA International 2015 Roundup

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 19:36:20 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Senior Prospect Management and Research Analyst, Loyola University Chicago

What an APRA International for the record books! Over four days, researchers, prospect managers, analysts came from all over the US and the world to New Orleans to learn, converse, and network. APRA IL Chapter had a particularly strong showing. We had fifteen members present at the conference this year from topics including dynamic portfolios, international research, corporate and foundation research and prospect management, and much more!

Below are a few of my takeaways from this year’s conference.

The regular conference started off with a Keynote Speech from the incredible Dan Pollatta. His talk focused on the problematic ways society thinks about philanthropy. He talked about the problem with compensation for nonprofits. We are okay with CEOs of for-profits getting paid a lot of money, but there are investigative reporters going undercover to reveal the salaries of nonprofit CEOs. US society is just not comfortable with paying a lot of money in salary for nonprofits. However, if you want to attract the best and brightest and retain them, this perception is hurting nonprofits and their work.

There’s a similar discomfort with marketing and advertising. Corporations can spend millions of dollars but charities that spend a lot of money talking about their cause are perceived as wasteful. Overall, the obsession with overhead costs only hurts charities and their causes. Instead of looking at how much a charity spends on operating costs, organizations and people should look at what the charity is doing and how many people it is helping. That’s just a small part of his speech. Check out his TED talk here: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong?language=en

I attended “All the Right Prospects: Dynamic Portfolio Reviews” given by David B. Nacol, Executive Director, Schools and Programs, and Rebekah D. O’Brien, Assistant Director, at Northwestern University. What an incredible talk! The room was bursting with people! The speakers talked about the case of Northwestern’s portfolio review process, a part of their larger Prospect Management system. At Northwestern, they have mostly transitioned to smaller portfolios, generally 25 to 35 prospects in solicitation or cultivation. Typically, gift officers only manage prospects that they have personally qualified. When gift officers join Northwestern’s central fundraising teams, they start with zero people in their portfolio and gradually add people as they get to know prospects. That’s just a tiny nugget of information from their talk.

I also attended “Corporate and Foundation Relations: Creating Impact” given by Michelle Heyn, University of Minnesota Foundation. Her talk focused on Corporate and Foundation Principal Prospects, rather than Corporations and Foundations as a whole. She talked about the various products that they create to help advance those relationships. One thing that blew my mind was that they use the Risk Factors section in a company’s 10k and orient their strategy to help the company meet those challenges. What a brilliant idea.

At the CASE Conference for Corporate and Foundation Gift Officers that I attended in June, a representative of a tech company advised that universities and colleges should understand what problems a corporation is trying to solve when they approach them. This will help deepen the relationship. When asked how to find this information, the representative suggested talking to C-level individuals. This new idea of looking at “Risk Factors” is another way of tackling it. While not all companies have this information available, namely private companies, it’s an important resource if we have it.

There was another round of APRA Talks, styled like TED talks. Presenters had about 5 minutes for their talk. The first was Greg Lambousy of the Louisiana State Museum talking about Hurricane Katrina. He explained that it took two years after the Hurricane to rehabilitate the buildings and collections damaged in the storm. They were fortunate since they already had a year’s worth of operating budget in the bank; not all nonprofits did and many had to shut down. Nonprofits with connections with federal government or branches in other cities fared better than those that did not.

Jennifer McCormack, Associate Director of Advancement Analytics at University of Washington, talked about innovation and analytics. She explained that the greatest challenge to change was experience. Moreover, people make the mistake of forgetting that change is emotional. Will this hurt or help me? She explained that communication was key. Speaking their language is a must to get people onboard. She also explained that better storytelling of successes will help to get other onboard and eager to participate.

The final speaker was David Robertson, Director of Operations Research at Syracuse University, who sang us two songs! Here is “Prospect Gold” for your viewing pleasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=5urx104-PkA&app=desktop

He talked about how we have to be creative experts and look beyond our industry. He suggested looking at how the for-profit sector is doing in terms of forecasting, etc. Great advice!

We had a lovely time at the APRA IL breakfast at the Ruby Slipper. Grits, hash, and gravy were had by all! That’s just a taste of APRA International 2015. I can’t wait for APRA International 2016 in Nashville!

Members' Talks at APRA International 2015

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 13:40:21 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Senior Prospect Management and Research Analyst, Loyola University Chicago

The Annual International APRA Conference is coming up. We here at APRA IL are pleased to see so many of our members presenting at the conference. Below are some members’ descriptions of their sessions. We hope to see you there!

Guarding the High-Capacity Galaxy: Prospect Research & Prospect Management as Protectors of Institutional Capacity

Thursday, July 23 at 1:15 to 2:45

Through best practices and successful working partnerships, Prospect Research and Prospect Management can serve as the guardians of an organization’s highest capacity prospects, ensuring that these prospects are identified, appropriately placed in fundraiser portfolios, and effectively moved through the fundraising cycle. While this of course includes typical prospect research and management processes, it also incorporates a sense of prospect ownership and oversight, a partnership with management and fundraisers to make sure that these best prospects aren’t inadvertently underdeveloped. The institutional – and professional – rewards can be galactic! Erin Doyle Liss (DePaul University) and Robin Schneider( DePaul University) will present.

All the Right Prospects: Dynamic Portfolio Reviews

Thursday, July 23^rd at 1:15 to 2:45

At Northwestern University, fruitful relationship management relies upon the partnership between front-line officers and Prospect Management. David B. Nacol, Executive Director, Schools and Programs, and Rebekah D. O’Brien, Assistant Director, Prospect Management at Northwestern University, will provide a front-line officer and prospect management perspective on relationship management – keeping the right prospects in focus. Their talk will unpack fundamental relationship management objectives, outline Northwestern’s approach to relationship management, explore its portfolio review evolution and materials, and provide insight into how Northwestern processes may be adapted for other development operations

Opening Doors in International Research

Friday, July 24^th at 1:15 to 2:45

John Connelly (Northwestern University) and Amelia Aldred (University of Chicago) will present our tips and tricks for collecting data in international markets, with a focus and on Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany, Chile, India, and Brazil. The talk will focus on strategy and technique rather than specific sites—but all attendees will receive the Great 2015 Northwestern/UChicago International Bookmarks Spreadsheet of Awesome as well.

Integrating Corporate and Foundation Relationship into Prospect Management and Research

Friday, July 24^th at 1:15 to 2:45

Elisa Shoenberger (Loyola University Chicago) will discuss how Loyola integrated prospect management and research with corporate and foundation relations. She’ll also present her findings on a short survey about prospect management and research shops and corporate and foundation work. She’ll also review research techniques, including a review of 990 forms, and other tools to enhance both research and prospect management skills.

Tracking Prospect Identification

Saturday, July 25 at 8:30 to 10:00

Viviana Ramirez (Rush University Medical Center) and Katherine Ingrao (Rush University Medical Center) are first time presenters at APRA International. We are presenting on the work we have done over the last couple of years to develop efficient prospect management policies and procedures when identifying prospects in a grateful patient fundraising office. The ultimate goal being, we build a process that will effectively supply and support our portfolios for our next upcoming campaign.

And many more!

APRA IL will also have a chapter breakfast on 7:30 at July 23rd at APRA International.

We hope to see you there!

APRA IL Salon - Evanston Edition

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:24:45 GMT

By Jessica Szadziewicz, Prospect Information Analyst, Northwestern University

Our second salon of the year is around the corner. We had a great discussion at our first salon, and hope to do the same again in Evanston on Wednesday, August 26th.

The topic of our second salon will focus on interactions between prospect researchers and gift officers, specifically reactions to research not found and misleading or incorrect information. Jen Filla has mentioned these topics in her blog, so we will be discussing two of her 2012 blog posts to get the discussion going. Both posts are accessible through the salon event description on the APRA-IL website. The first post from May 8, 2012, “Are You Making These 5 Donor Research Mistakes?” addresses finding accurate information about donors and five pitfalls researchers need to be aware of. The second post from May 29, 2012, “How Safe Are You at Your Donor Prospect Meetings?” discusses further research pitfalls, and communication with frontline fundraisers and gift officers. This post specifically focuses on on-line research and interactions with both the donor and the gift officer. It also mentions some great advice on exploring the motive for the gift officer’s visit and research request.

Again, these posts are simply to act as starting points for a larger discussion. Some additional questions to consider for the salon may concern your individual interactions with gift officers and their reactions to your research. Have you ever done extensive research on a prospect, only to realize the gift officer really wanted something completely different? Has a gift officer ever insisted on finding private information, such as an exact salary? Have you found seemingly reliable information on a prospect, only to later realize it was not completely accurate? What steps did you take to remedy the situation? How do you avoid making these mistakes in the future? The possible questions and scenarios are endless!

We will be discussing these questions and more at our next salon. Again, please feel free to bring any additional reading materials or questions.

We hope to see you at 6:00pm on Wednesday, August 26^th at Panera at 1700 Sherman in Evanston, Illinois.

Basic Skills Workshop in Practice

Tue, 09 Jun 2015 16:20:09 GMT

By Melissa Collins, Associate Director of Advancement at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Prospect Research. Wait. What?

For the past 13 years, I have worked in the development offices of two impressive regional theaters in Chicago. Despite a devastating recession, the theater community has sustained a hugely devoted pool of patrons, donors and board members many of them are involved at other cultural institutions all over the city. And the pool grows every year. As the theaters’ development departments grow to meet the need of the growing patron pool our solicitation processes need to grow and evolve.

We face a few challenges in prospect research in theaters. Like many smaller shops, we simply cannot hire a dedicated researcher and must rely on our volunteers, theater leadership, gift officers and support staff to do the leg work. Can you feel the burn out? To make matters more challenging, many important and interesting tid-bits about prospects tend to live in one person’s head. We are forced to be an army of one in research and everyone is in it for themselves.

Lucky for me, Chicago Shakespeare Theater has an incredibly talented advancement team. We are surrounded by supportive leadership who encourage ingenuity and collaboration amongst staff, peers and our networks. We are also fortunate to be on the Tessitura CRM database with a relatively new development function called “Plans” which has proved helpful for prospect management. As our theater watches the number of donors and prospects grow at high volume in a short amount of time, we had to take a pause to dig deeper and make sure we were finding the right information about the right people.

Hey there, APRA-IL BSW.

So, I took stock of our human resources. Our solicitation team simply did not have the time to do meaningful prospect research and analytics. That meant I needed to take on a bigger role in research, managing their prospects and the overall analytics. After a recommendation from Campbell & Company, I attended the annual APRA-IL conference which is where I learned more about the organization as a whole and, as if the skies had opened up above me, all the resources which were available to me came pouring down! If it weren’t for APRA-IL, now lead by Kate Ingrao, who by the way recruited me to volunteer for the programming committee (thank you, Kate) I would never have learned about the Basic Skills Workshop (BSW).

Last month at the BSW, Lindsey Humphrey and Karla Davis successfully guided 30-ish new and not-so-new researchers through the basics in profile searches and how to build our own event brief using the workbook written by Jennifer Filla, “Introduction to Prospect Profiles.” We walked away with invaluable lessons and techniques from Humphrey and Davis such as streamlining profile templates. Chicago Shakespeare Theater now has three templates we all use: Solicitation Profiles, Event Briefs and Briefings/Call Sheets all of which I eagerly implemented the Monday following the BSW.

I have with a whole new library of resources and tips and strategies for the “deep research,” too. By the way, have you signed up for PRSPCT_L listserve yet? No? Do it. Now. While not everything pertains to the work I am doing in the moment, the questions are almost as helpful as the answers.

Part of the BSW revolved around ethics with the help of panelist discussions from Heather Ruggio, Kirstin Leiby and Grace Vigilante. I am only beginning to understand the complexity and sensitivity of ethics surrounding prospect research. Currently, the Advancement team at Chicago Shakespeare Theater takes great care in who is seeing our event profiles and how we disseminate the information to our volunteers and leadership.

Prospect Research, Theater…and Hockey.

Given the timing here in Chicago as the Blackhawks play for the Stanley Cup, it only seemed appropriate to look at the future of prospect research in the theater community through a hockey lens. A quote from Wayne Gretzy sums it up pretty succinctly, “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” As one of the leading cultural institutions in the city of Chicago, it is in our best interest to take into consideration the value and need for prospect research and for that matter, the management of prospects and data analytics. We are growing at a rapid rate. Being thoughtful about who we approach, when, and how will only grow and enhance our institution in a strategic way. I’m excited to continue to implement all that I learned at the BSW into the daily routine at Chicago Shakespeare Theater and I look forward to learning more at the October APRA-IL Fall conference.

Photo credit: Brian

The Numbers Game: Do Good Data Conference 2015

Thu, 14 May 2015 14:58:51 GMT

By Sabine Schuller, Sr. Research Specialist, The Rotary Foundation @s_schuller

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, from the Sherlock Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia (1891)

Even though this quote is from more than 100 years ago, I think the attendees of the recent Do Good Data conference would have been proud to put it on a T-shirt. The conference’s aim is to help learn how data can and is changing nonprofit work. You might have heard stories about big box retailers and credit card companies using customer information to sell more products. Walmart shipping pop-tarts to Florida just as a hurricane hits comes to mind. However, there are some who see a different purpose for using data analytics. Instead of selling more iPhones, they want to pinpoint which rural South African farmers would benefit from having cell phones to track the weather. Rather than target which demographic will click on a banner ad, they want to identify which youth are at most risk for dropping out of school.

Here are the highlights of conference presentations that caught my attention most.

Peer to Peer Fundraising

Traditional fundraising is usually seen as a one-on-one relationship between the NGO (non-governmental organization) and the donor. The NGO gratefully receives the donor’s contribution supporting their work; the donor feels satisfied their resources are now being used for the greater good. A peer to peer scenario is different. Some examples are the “fun runs” raising money for a cause from the athlete’s friends and family. Girl Scout cookies and the ALS Ice bucket challenge are other examples. In those cases, the support depends more on the relationship between the participant and their donor, rather than the NGO or its cause. In this fundraising paradigm, you would focus on the connectors to leverage their network rather than one large donor.

What if: You were a disease fighting charity that used “fun runs” and individual volunteer fundraising pages as your main way to build support? One runner, Mr. W.E. Coyote, secured one large $200 donation from The Acme Corporation. Another participant Ms. Roadrunner, had 20 of her friends donate US$20. In this scenario, cultivating a relationship with Ms. Roadrunner might bear more fruit. That’s because her larger network could potentially grow exponentially in support of your charity, compared to Mr. Coyote’s one connection. But in order to do that, which tools would you need to identify your “best” prospects and what information would you need? Would knowing Ms. Roadrunner’s personal financial situation be less important than understanding the strength of her network?

One Well Presented Graph is Worth a 1,000 Word Report

There’s only so much data the human eyes and brain can absorb without exploding. Pictorial representations of data, like graphs, are one way to tell a compelling story still based on facts. One presenter at the Do Good Data Conference used her program evaluation, data analytics, and graphic design skills to explain how to best present hard earned findings in ways non-expert decisions makers could easily digest.

What if: You presented a donor’s giving history in a pie chart instead of a table? It would probably make it easier for someone to understand their primary philanthropic interests.

What if: You organized donor information using hierarchical text for a front line fundraiser:

1. Philanthropist Sells Kansas Farm: Donates US$7.5 Million

2. Money will save the lions, tigers, and bears in Oz.

3. Her favorite color is Ruby Red.

Rise of the Machine

If you’ve ever watched Netflix make their niche entertainment recommendations, you’ve seen an example of machine learning. How do they do that? The short answer is that clever data analysts create a mathematical formula by putting individual words associated with a movie into buckets. By analyzing how many words go in each bucket (aka category), it predicts a result. Let’s say you streamed Spiderman, Superman, and The Hulk all in a row. It should come as no surprise Netflix recommends the newest Avengers movie. The algorithm has picked up on keywords in the movie’s description or reviews like “super hero”, “villain”, “darkest hour” and predicted you’d like something similar. In another example, this YouTube video shows an algorithm that “learned” the words “sweet” and “pleasant” are predictors of a “good” review.

What if: You could use machine learning to identify fundraising developments by analyzing Twitter, social, or traditional media? If there’s a steady, growing mention of “#FabulousNewFundraisingTrend” maybe that’s a technique you should invest in.

If this piqued your interest, look ahead to the next Do Good Data Conference next year April 27-29, 2016. I would like to thank my sponsors, the Strategy, Research, and Enterprise area at Rotary which paid my conference registration even though I work in a different department. That’s how important they think building data knowledge is! May many follow their example.

Basic Skills Workshop Overview

Mon, 04 May 2015 14:57:07 GMT

By Katherine Ingrao, Assistant Director of Prospect Management and Research at Rush University Medical Center

What a beautiful day at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier! We had 35 attendees who joined us as we broke down the basics of a profile. Our workshop this year was organized around a new format and we thought it went really well. The workshop utilized materials from the Prospect Research Institute.

The first half of the day consisted of a lecture by our Co-Director of Programming Lindsey Humphrey and our APRA-IL Secretary Karla Davis. They focused their discussion to the “Building Blocks of a Profile” section in the workshop workbook. They broke down each section with clarity and efficiency, finding the right balance for the beginner and advanced audience member. Lindsey and Karla provided a considerable amount of tips and tricks during each section. I know I took away a few new websites to add to my research resource tab! One especially good find came from Karla regarding salary information for careers that are more on the creative side, such as blogger. The site Roberthalf.com provides a list of these less traditional career salaries annually with pretty unique names like Moolah Palooza. Definitely worth checking out!

Following the morning lecture, our presenters broke everyone up into small groups of four to work on creating an event brief from the information provided during the lecture. This was a great activity in that it allowed for the dialogue among the attendees about the materials and research in general. The results were shared with the larger group at the end of the day.

After lunch we welcomed Grace Vigilante (JDRF), Kirstin Leiby (NorthShore HealthSystem Foundation), and Heather Ruggio (Northwestern University) as our ethics panelists. All panelists came from different types of organization; social services, healthcare, and higher education but could still relate on similar challenges. We had a very engaging discussion regarding researchers’ role in data security, privacy, and advocacy.

It was a very successful and informative day. APRA-IL greatly enjoyed being in a new venue and trying out a new format for our spring workshop. We are looking forward to hosting Jen Filla the author of the materials from the Prospect Research Institute along with Preeti Gill of the Vancouver Foundation at our fall conference.

What is a Prospect Researcher?

Mon, 06 Apr 2015 16:48:57 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger, Senior Prospect Management and Research Analyst at Loyola University Chicago

Recently, I had an individual reach out to me for an informational interview about prospect research. We were asked about what we do, what we love and dislike, etc. We thought it was a great idea for the APRA-IL blog post.

1) What do you like most about working in prospect research?

What I love best about prospect research is how you are constantly learning. Every day, you could end up in an unusual space for a prospect. One day I was trying to determine the average sale price for a cemetery while the next I was looking at a company that sells light fixtures. No two prospects are the same. Moreover, there is that moment when you find an amazing lead that really brightens your day. Plus I’m a huge fan of corporate and foundation research. I love reading 990 forms (Foundation tax forms).

2) What do you like least about working in prospect research?

I’m not fond of politics but you’ll find them no matter where you work—in or out of the nonprofit world. Another challenge is that we have to explain what we do a lot to people within our organization. We are a niche field and not a lot of people know about it. We also spend time trying to define what we do and do not do. We are often seen as gatekeepers to data even though we are not its stewards. It can be an awkward place.

3) What is your average day like?

I usually start off with a queue that has requested research from our gift officers and other departments. I first determine what the most important projects are in the queue for the day. Then I begin working on those pressing projects. Throughout the day, gift officers and other staff will ask me questions via email, phone and in person. Occasionally, I’ll have questions myself for the gift officers about projects. Sometimes I get a priority project that makes me shift gears into another direction. When I’m not working on essential tasks, I’ll work on proactive research, prospect management, and other projects.

4) Can you describe the balance of individual and team work in your position?

In our shop, we were built as a team. We may work individually on projects but we help each other out. We have a client based model, so I am the point person for specific gift officers while my team members work with others. If I have a priority project that I’m working on and I cannot get to another project, I’ll ask for help from a team member. We often collaborate on how to approach projects and people. There is also a thriving community outside of the office. We belong to APRA-IL of course, which is a great resource for us. There’s also Prospect_L, a list host, where you can ask questions and people do respond.

5) How does data analytics play a role in your job?

It’s the big trend in the field. We have a lot of people, and it’s hard to know where to start to find new prospects. Modeling projects can really help Prospect Management and Research and the gift officers know how to prioritize. For instance, a common modeling idea is: “This major gift prospect looks like this. Who looks like this person in our database but not currently a major gift prospect?” While analytics cannot guarantee that everyone who models well is a winner, it helps to narrow it down. Data visualizations are also key for Prospect Research and fundraising. Dashboards are amazing to understanding your data and realistically your constituency. Seeing data in a new way can really help drive strategy.

6) Are there any specific skills that are particularly important for a position in prospect research?

You need to be detail oriented. There’s a lot of data out there, but it’s not all good data. If you are looking at a prospect, you have to be careful not to confuse that person with someone else. You also have to be alert to possible trends. You have to be curious in this job. You have to be willing to go down the rabbit hole. Sometimes a research project is not cut and dry and you have to dig deeper.

Project management is also key. Budgeting time and segmenting tasks is essential. You’ll get some complicated projects that you’ll have to figure out how to do. Also, research can fill up all the time you have so you have to know when to stop. Sometimes it’s not worth that extra 5 hours to confirm a tiny detail.

7) What advice would you give someone looking to break into prospect research?

I’d read some of the books out there on the field. I started with Cecilia Hogan’s Prospect Research. For analytics, check out Josh Birkholz’s Fundraising Analytics, Peter Wylie’s Data Mining for Fund Raisers, and Kevin MacDonell and Peter Wyle’s Score! There’s also a lot of great blogs out there too like Helen Brown Group’s blog.

Moreover, I’d talk to people who work in the field. Informational interviews are great. Ask them more questions about what they do. Make sure it’s what you want to do. Also, it really helps to know what you are talking about when you go to interviews!

Finally, go to APRA IL events, like the Basic Skills Workshop on May 1st!

Photo credit: Janneke Staaks

APRA-IL Salon

Wed, 04 Mar 2015 14:50:10 GMT

By Jessica Szadziewicz, Prospect Information Specialist, Northwestern University

On March 25, 2015, APRA Illinois will be hosting its first Salon, with the theme of ethics and social media. Historically, a salon was a gathering to exchange ideas during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries in Europe. The host, often a woman, facilitated discussion concerning society, literature, politics, etc. The salon encouraged thought and discussion, while mixing members of the aristocracy and the bourgeois. In England, salons were held in coffee houses where new tea and coffee (containing caffeine) from the colonies stimulated conversation and ideas. Therefore, we will be meeting in a café in the Loop.

APRA Illinois hopes to re-create this environment of learning and idea exchange between professionals by discussing a different topic a few times a year. Although prospect researchers and development professionals across institutions do many of the same things, they do not always do it in the same way. The salon is the perfect setting to explore not only differences in process, but also tricky situations that do not necessarily have a clear answer.

Our first theme will be the ethics of using social media for prospect research. The two articles we will discuss are currently posted with the event description on the APRA-IL website. The first, “Is it Ethical to Gather Social Data for Prospect Research?” by Sarah Bernstein, examines social media research in conjunction with APRA’s social media ethics statement. The second, “Researcher Sued for Scraping!” by Jen Filla, further discusses the issue of scraping LinkedIn and questions the legality and ethics of data scraping from social media sites. This is a very timely article that refers to the recent conversation that occurred on the PRSPCT-L listserv.

We will begin our discussion with these two articles and see where the conversation takes us. Please feel free to bring any additional reading materials, articles, or questions. A benefit of the salon is its fluidity and flexibility; where we end the conversation might be far from where we began it.

We hope to see you on March 25th at Panera at 2 N. Michigan Avenue!

An Overview of Prospecting in Latin America

Fri, 27 Feb 2015 19:03:43 GMT

By Amelia Aldred, Research Analyst, University of Chicago

Once upon a time, before I entered the wonderful world of prospect research, I was an anthropologist’s intern in Morelos, Mexico, interviewing women about their lives as community leaders. I also worked as a search engine consultant, a Spanish teacher, a museum guide, and a translator at an immigration advocacy center. One of the things I adore about being a prospect researcher is that I get to bring all of these work experiences to my job. During APRA Education Week, I felt like I hit the Things Amelia Loves Jackpot—I got to give a webinar about prospect research in Latin America. Culture! History! Non-profits! Research in Spanish!

Out of everything that I said in the webinar, there are three points I hope attendees took to heart.

First, international prospect research is about giving context, not pigeonholing. Latin America, like all regions of the world, is incredibly complex and diverse. Trends and traditions help us understand the context in which a person’s philanthropy take place but doesn’t mean that all people follow the same trend in the same way.

Second, we may not be able to provide as much information as we can with US-based prospects, but we can still help our organizations gain more context so they can make informed decisions when interacting with prospects. The question I ask myself when researching international prospects isn’t, “how can I know everything about Prospect X?” but “what do I need to know so that my organization can move forward with this prospect?”

Finally, since there are not the same data aggregators available in Latin America as the U.S., we must rely on primary sources such as newspapers and stock markets as well as other research organizations, such as universities, professional associations, and government agencies. I demonstrated how to use several useful sites including the multi-nation stock exchange site called MILA (Mercado Integrado Latinoamericano).

One of the difficulties of using primary sources for such a large and diverse area is figuring out how to access and sift through all that data, including data not available in English. I’ve been grateful for the resources and help in navigating the sea of international information shared by colleagues like Sabine Schuller and Beth Bandy; I encourage anyone starting out check out Sabine’s resource list and Beth Bandy’s site, especially her newsletter. Their generosity in compiling and sharing information inspired me to start a free, crowd-sourced glossary for prospect researchers who handle non-English data. It is full of prospect research focused keywords, vetted by people who speak and write the language, and makes doing keyword searches in newspapers, databases, foreign search engines, and documents more efficient. Feel free to direct any polyglot colleagues or friends to the site, I’m always looking for more contributions!

If you attended the webinar and would like to learn more about international research, I will be presenting with John Connelly of Northwestern University at the upcoming 2015 APRA International Annual Conference in New Orleans. I hope to see you there, and at future APRA IL events.

Photo Credit: Douglas Fernandes

Happy 2015!

Sat, 07 Feb 2015 22:22:28 GMT

Happy 2015! It’s the beginning of another new year and we at APRA-IL are energized to elevate our organization and your career! With the New Year comes new opportunities and our President-Elect has landed a big one! I’m happy to say Leigh Petersen Visaya has accepted a position as Director of Prospect Development at Harvard Business School. With this new position she will be unable to continue on in her role at APRA-IL as President. In matters of vacancy, the APRA-IL Executive Board held a vote for a replacement to finish out Leigh’s 2 year term. In a unanimous vote, I was selected to take on the office and I am truly honored to be serving my chapter in this capacity. I have spent three years working with the programming committee with the last year as Co-Director.

My involvement through APRA-IL has done so much for me as a development professional. Beyond the educational resources, APRA-IL has allowed me to meet so many outstanding colleagues across our diverse membership. These connections have been a wonderful resource for me as a young professional and have been the best aspect of my engagement with APRA-IL.

As your new chapter President, I would like to encourage you all to take the next step in your involvement with APRA-IL and consider volunteering with one of our four committees. To continue to provide our membership with quality programming and opportunities for enrichment we need members to be involved. If you are interested in volunteering and would like more information about the work of the programming committee, social media & marketing, membership committee, or the new finance and governance committee please email apraillinois@gmail.com for more information.

Our calendar for 2015 is quickly filling up and I hope to meet you all at one of our events. Your first opportunity is February 12^th for the Meet Your APRA-IL Board Happy Hour following the online Education Week webinar presented by Amelia Aldred on researching prospects in Latin America. Come and enjoy beer, brats, and ice curling in the beer garden at Kaiser Tiger (1415 W Randolph St, Chicago, IL) at 5:30 pm. Your board members will be in attendance and I hope you all come and meet your fellow APRA-IL members. APRA-IL is also taking a “Field” trip to The Field Museum to take advantage of Free Days for Illinois residents on February 28^th. This is a great opportunity to explore a local institution and network with your fellow members. RSVP for all upcoming events on our website and keep in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Tis the Season (to Map Relationships)

Fri, 12 Dec 2014 20:34:09 GMT

By Catherine Cefalu, Lead Prospect Research Analyst at University of Chicago

The holidays are a time for coming together and deepening the connections with your family and friends. With that in mind, I'd like to talk a little about relationships: specifically, relationships between prospective donors.

Side note: I was interviewed recently for an article on the topic for The Chronicle of Philanthropy ("Nonprofits Find New Donors With Databases That Track Connections"; 11/16/2014 [subscription only]).

In fundraising, we tend to focus a lot on a prospect's relationship with our organization, but there are other relationships at play, too. While building a relationship with a prospect, it is also important to acknowledge and leverage the relationships that the prospect already has with other individuals connected with your organization. These friends and colleagues can deepen a prospect's engagement, provide opportunities for giving (nothing says "friendship" quite like naming a building in someone's honor!), and generally enhance the positive things that a prospect feels about your organization.

Additionally, leveraging a donor's relationships can be a great tool for proactive identification of new donors. The anxiety that some gift officers feel about "cold-calling" a prospect is averted: you already have someone who can make an introduction. As a bonus, the donor making the introduction has a greater level of involvement with your organization.

So now we have the "why"; let's look at the "how".

First, as technology has evolved, there are now many more vendor options for relationship discovery and mapping than there were even five years ago. Mostly consisting of large databases of names with connections between individuals, several of these companies are now making the leap into customized searches, news alerts, and even automated reports. While these services aren't cheap, you get some serious bang for your buck. Many of these vendors have extensive trial periods where you can upload a list of top individuals connected to your organization so that you can test out the kinds of results you would get.

If you decide to go that route, here are some things to consider when choosing a service: the price (obviously); the size of the database; how accurate, robust, and transparent the data is; the available search options and functionality; the quality of reports and how well they mesh with your own internal data; and what kinds of training and assistance are available.

Another way to gather relationship information is through good old-fashioned research legwork. This can involve clipping lists of board memberships and employee lists, sorting through news items, and mining data from your own database (for example, we had a number of major donors who all lived in the same high-rise building). While this can be time consuming, it's a good way to confirm that you have the most up-to-date and relevant data.

A third way to get relationship information is through your organization's gift officers. Talk to them, read through contact reports, look at event attendee lists. One great way to collaborate with your gift officers is to work together on a peer screening project for your top donors. Put together a list of people your organization wants to connect with, and put that list in front of your most involved volunteers and donors. Ask who they would be willing to introduce you to (and if you want to get them really involved, ask for their help in soliciting!). This kind of first-hand information can yield connections and details that you would not have been able to find otherwise.

Now, once you get all of this great information, what do you do with it? The first thing to remember is: if it isn't in the database, it didn't happen! Have a way to code these relationships and refer back to them in the future.

Additionally, have a way to display these connections. All of this data is useless if no one looks at it. There are lots of great data visualization tools that can help you illustrate relationships. There's a reason why it's called relationship mapping: visuals are important!

Finally, go back to the "why": remember your end goal. You're doing all of this work for a reason! Having a plan and a goal will inform your deliverables, the resources you put into gathering the information, and will help you plan your next steps in the upcoming year (introductions, solicitations, event invitations, etc.)

From all of us at APRA-IL, we wish you (and your prospects!) a happy holiday season.

The Truth about Obituaries

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 13:41:12 GMT

By Elisa Shoenberger

No one reads the obituaries except maybe Prospect Management and Research. It’s an interesting world in our field especially since people are always talking about “big data” and “analytics.” Obituaries seem the definition of antiquated, old-fashioned, and dull. It’s not a lot of fun reading through the obituaries day in and day out. My colleagues and I believe that the next billion-dollar idea is for someone to create a reliable obituary reading system.

I digress. Obituaries, I’ll admit, have their place. They are probably one of the more reliable sources for family connections. From my experience with writing and editing an obituary for my family, I learned that the families or a representative of the family have to review the obituary. Mistakes are the result of family error or proofing errors. For me, this makes me feel pretty confident of obituaries as a source for family connections. Finding an obituary for someone in a family has solved so many mysteries of people’s relationships to each other. It is actually disappointing when I cannot find one when researching someone when a question comes up about their family.

Obituaries can help accomplish your organization’s mission. This is the heart of why Prospect Management and Research go over the obituaries every day. We want to acknowledge the passing of alumni, friends and their loved ones. Plus it is unfortunate when an institution keeps mailing to people who have passed away. No need to accidentally salt a wound. Moreover, Loyola has priests on staff that can reach out to the families to provide pastoral care. Some of the priests even preside over funerals. So it’s essential for us to continue in fulfilling our mission.

In addition to aiding in cause of mission, obituaries surprisingly can be a wealth indicator. Obituaries are not cheap; the longer the obituary, the pricier they get. We are talking about a couple hundred dollars if not thousands of dollars. Moreover, if someone is in the New York Times, it is really a big deal. At least a thousand dollars for a short death notice. For many newspapers, the picture is extra too. Curiously, the Chicago Tribune will give you a deal, if you run the obituary for multiple days. Of course, you have to be careful about the way you promote a lead when there has been a death in the family.

While obituaries mark sad and serious occasions, they can definitely reveal quirky and sometimes humorous aspects about the deceased and/or their family. Several obituaries have referred to “granddoggers,” a term to refer to the deceased’s beloved dogs. Sometimes you find interesting hobbies about the deceased from obituaries. One obituary mentions a person’s love of raising chickens in the city nonetheless and acupuncture. Independently, these activities would be mildly unusual but not special. Together, they are unique. Some euphemisms for death are curious, such as suggesting that the deceased had been promoted to the heavenly baker of the sky.

Sometimes you get a window into the family dynamics. For instance, in one obituary, one of the children was referred to as “the favorite son.” And yes, there were multiple children listed. One obituary made mention about how one child and her husband took such loving care of their parents and then proceeded to mention the other children. Another obituary got a little more scandalous than is common. It used the phrase “Her shimmering hips led to” and then named the couple’s children. Another obituary mentioned how the living spouse survived the marriage. That’s one way to put it.

One obituary noted how the deceased and her husband eloped and got married in Las Vegas. It is neat to see that some people have actually done this; it is not just something you see in Hollywood movies. And there was the recent obituary written by the deceased that has gone viral. You have to read it to fully appreciate it.

Obituaries have their place in our big data world. They are great for family relationships. Moreover, they can help your organization fulfill its mission. The costs related to obituaries make them a bit of an unexpected wealth indicator. Finally, there can be some interesting and quirky aspects to obituaries.

APRA IL Fall Conference Datapalooza!

Tue, 07 Oct 2014 14:51:20 GMT

Written by Elisa Shoenberger

What a datapalooza! The APRA IL Fall Conference was a blast. We had the three rock star data analytics gurus, Josh Birkholz, Peter Wylie, and Kevin McDonnell instruct and inspire us in the wonderful world of data analytics. We had attendees from all over the US and even a few from Canada! We here at APRA IL are so pleased at the quality of attendees and speeches of the event.

To give a brief recap, we began with networking roundtables over breakfast. I hosted one table roundtable where we brainstormed about new ways to find prospects and how to implement data analytics into our everyday jobs. This gave us a chance to learn from our peers about their challenges and successes. Upstairs, we had a photographer taking professional headshots so we could spruce up our profiles.

Our first speaker, Josh Birkholz, a principal at Bentz Whaley Flessner (BWF), gave a wonderful talk on the state of data analytics in the business and the nonprofit worlds. Big companies like Target and UPS have made extensive use of analytics to segment their customers or to predict future engine failures. Target has even put microchips in some shopping carts to see how people move them around the store! Fundraising shops can benefit significantly from employing data analytics in their operations. Josh Birkholz outlined five ways that analytics can be used to gain business insight. First, you can profile your constituents to get a descriptive analysis of your constituents. This would be traditional market research. Second, you can conduct a descriptive analysis at the program level. Third, you can make your data accessible through data visualizations. After all, we have to sell the data. Fourth, you can conduct predictive modeling to predict constituents and process outcomes. Fifth, you can forecast or simulate future business outcomes like future cash in or campaigns. That’s powerful for any organization. From BWF research of organizations that have implemented analytics, 91% of established programs have observed positive results while the rest have not had enough time to see the benefits. Very compelling argument for the power of analytics! Josh Birkholz ended with the apt quotation from Hal Varian: “I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians. And I’m not kidding.”

In the afternoon, Peter Wylie and Kevin McDonnell, coauthors of Score!, walked us through a model that they created. They worked with Rush University Medical Center to model patients and alumni for this presentation. In order to create a predictive model, three things are needed: a data file, statistics software, and something to predict. It’s important to have a solid question before you go into the data. They began by walking us through a simple scoring model to predict lifetime giving on the data set from Rush University Medical Center. They walked us through some easy data transformations where we changed data to 1s and 0s to indicate if we had data or not. We then looked the various variables in statistical software and created a score based on our findings. It was a great opportunity to see “behind the curtain” of modeling. Too often we get caught up on how complex things can be, so it was nice to see how a model was done.

The dynamic data duo pointed out some useful tips for individuals who want to start implementing data analytics. First, do not let messy data get in the way of modeling. Clean data is obviously better but you do not want to wait for the perfect conditions to learn how to make your own models. No time like the present to start. Second, never get rid of data; old data is useful! Third, it may be useful to look back at old models. Kevin McDonnell talked about how he’ll revisit past models in six months to a year to see how effective it was and build on that knowledge. The more you do it, the better (hopefully) you get. Fourth, no matter what you do, research should look at the individuals before they get rolled out to gift officers. We’ve all learned hard lessons about sending spreadsheets to gift officers. We have look at the individuals that score well and determine the next steps with them. Do not blindly push people out, at least at the Major Gift Level.

That’s just a taste of the magic at the conference! I can’t wait for our next conference! Hope to see you there!

(Photo Credits: Rodney Young)

Why Should Prospect Researchers Care about Data Analytics?

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 19:46:28 GMT

Written by Elisa Shoenberger

The temperatures are falling. The trees are exploding in rainbows. It’s that special time of year. Yes, it’s APRA IL’s Data Analytics Conference! We are eagerly crossing off the days in anticipation of this event with renowned speakers: Josh Birkholz of BWF and Peter Wylie and Kevin McDonnell, authors of Score!

But the big question is why analytics? Why is it important for researchers like you and me? As you may know, Big Data is the buzzword of the year, if not the decade. With the monumental increases in technology, we live in an age where an unprecedented amount of data can be collected and analyzed. Now, this might seem very scary to some people, especially with recent revelations about the NSA or scarily accurate predictive modeling by Target.

Despite these challenges, this new world order of data presents a lot of opportunities for researchers in the fundraising world. Analytics can help us make smarter decisions as a research department, as a fundraising department, and ultimately as an organization. In Josh Birkholz’s Fundraising Analytics, he writes: “Analytics is a suite of metrical tools and techniques for understanding the past and projecting the future. We can use analytics to understand our fundraising programs.” Faön M. Mahunik, Director of Research Analytics, writes that analytics can help you spot patterns in your data. He uses the example of a museum that tracks its members and people who attend events. Is there any relationship between people who attend events and people who become members? Data mining can help figure it out.

Analytics can help us figure out if we are spending the right money on the right donors. In a recent article about donor retention, Helen Brown talked about how analytics can help identify new donors that are the most likely to renew and make sure that those people are effectively stewarded. Think of how much money could be raised and saved on direct mail if you only mailed to donors that are likely to renew!

While analytics is particularly helpful for annual giving, there are important applications at the major gift level. Birkholz continues on and says, “We can use analytics of pave our road for the future. Which prospects will be our top donors 10 years from now?” Analytics can be used to determine: What do our major donors look like as a whole? Maybe they all live in Oak Brook or live in the Gold Coast of Chicago. But most importantly, analytics can help you figure out who else in your database also looks like a major gift donor. Maybe that’s the next person I should research. I know that I’ve used Major Gift Scores from modeling projects to help me prioritize my work. These modeling scores are critical to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of our researcher work. This is just another example of the power of analytics. All in all, data analytics, to paraphrase from Josh Birkholz, can inform the fundraising strategy, which is the core of our research work.

So, come on, come all to APRA IL’s Data Analytics Conference and find out how you can join the data effort!

Josh Birkholz, Fundraising Analytics, John Wiley * Sons, Inc, 2008, 2.

Faön M. Mahunik, “How Analytics Impacts Fundraising,” CCS Philanthropy 360, 5/17/11, accessed 9/22/14, http://ccsfundraising.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/how-analytics-impacts-fundraising/

Helen Brown, “Prospect identification: 4 ways to help retain new donors,” Helen Brown Group, 9/18/14, accessed 9/22/14, http://www.helenbrowngroup.com/prospect-identification-4-ways-help-retain-new-donors/.

Josh Birkholz, Fundraising Analytics, John Wiley * Sons, Inc, 2008, 2.

The Big Shift towards Fundraising Analytics: a conversation with Joshua Birkholz

Wed, 17 Sep 2014 01:48:17 GMT

Written by Rodney Young

www.rodneypyoung.com

Joshua Birkholz is a national leader in fundraising data consulting and analytics. He is a principal at Bentz Whaley Flessner and author of the widely acclaimed book, “Fundraising Analytics: Using Data to Guide Strategy.” Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Joshua about some of the material from his book. Joshua will be one of our main session speakers at our 2014 Data Analytics Fall Conference on October 3^rd, 2014! Read our interview to get a sneak peek at what he’ll be sharing with us!

Rodney: Your book, Fundraising Analytics: Using Data to Guide Strategy, has made waves in the nonprofit fundraising world! What has been some of the feedback, especially from higher education institutions, on the book and its impact on higher education fundraising strategy overall?

Joshua: The reception has been surprising positive for what seemed to be a very niche topic in 2008. Today, data science is everywhere including our beloved world of nonprofit fundraising. The book was a matter of being at the right place at the right time. I was fortunate to have had several years conducting analytics for fundraising before it became a “thing.” Certainly, there are many people who know so much more than I do about statistics. But, I had an odd balance of statistics and fundraising. This seemed to strike a chord that resonated in the community. I’ve had professors use the text in their classroom, chief development officers buy copies for all of their employees, and countless contacts from researchers saying my little book helped advance their career. It is a great honor.

Rodney: In the book, you mentioned how donors are approaching philanthropy differently and more thoughtfully, and that it makes the case for shifting to using data to guide fundraising strategy. Tell me about how and when you noticed this shift in organizations?

Joshua: In this generation, we are seeing the transition from the establishment of fundraising programs to the transition into truly professional organizations. Of course we should say fundraising is really just relationships. How can you argue with that? The challenge is scaling relationship building for multi-billion dollar campaigns. In reality, we need to build integrated organizations actively producing and prioritizing relationship building. Analytics describes both a toolkit and a mindset for building a big fundraising machine.

In the prospecting world, this is most apparent in the shift from primarily liaison-based research as a service programs to distributed prospect development structures. Now some people filter the lists, manage macro level data extraction and acquisition, and produce pools while others vet these pools and feed smart-allocation systems of assignments. Some people manage the inventory of portfolios and study metrics from a production (rather than benchmarking) perspective and others have moved beyond collecting facts to analyzing the economics of our industry and the industries of prospects. They are able to forecast asset growth and liquidity.

There really is no specific when. All of these changes are simply natural evolution tied to the accessibility of new technologies. We embrace data because we can and it works.

Rodney: Why do you feel some organizations resist the idea of data-driven fundraising strategy? What are things you've seen that help to convince them of the value of it?

Joshua: Self-preservation by the path of least resistance. Many people simply want to survive. Others want to be amazing. As Peter Drucker said, “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” Resistance to something that so universally disrupted all major industries for the better can only be explained by fear. In these cases, I focus on:

1. We can really do this! It is within our reach! And…
2. We will be extraordinary!

I deliver these messages in an inside-outside approach. Here are a few ideas:

1. Do a small project on your own time on your own dime. It’s cheaper than looking for a new job. And your mission is worth your generosity.
2. Find internal champions. There is strength in numbers.
3. Find external examples. Ignore the “we are nothing like x” or “Y has so many more donors, etc.” Just keep flooding with examples. Size doesn’t matter nearly as much as everyone says it does. What does matter is people who care enough about their organizations to make them better. You can be that person.

Rodney: We're looking forward to you speaking at the APRA-IL Data Analytics Fall Conference! What are just a few things we can look forward to learning in your session?

Joshua: You will leave excited about analytics. More importantly, you will see that all of this great data science is perfect for our industry and our industry is worth it.

Rodney: Thanks so much Joshua - we look forward to seeing you here in Chicago on October 3rd, 2014 at the conference!

Follow Joshua’s blog at www.joshbirkholz.com and be sure to see him at the upcoming APRA-IL 2014 Data Analytics Conference on October 3^rd, 2014! Register TODAY at www.apraillinois.org!

Score! Data Driven Success for Your Advancement by Kevin MacDonell and Peter Wylie

Sat, 06 Sep 2014 18:44:16 GMT

Written by Sabine Schuller, Sr. Research Specialist, Rotary International

There must be a million resources about data analytics and statistics ranging from high school textbooks to blog posts commenting on the “big data” trend. By comparison, advice on non-profit oriented data analytics, never mind fundraising, is few and far between. For that reason alone Kevin MacDonell and Peter Wylie’s book Score! Data-Driven Success for Your Advancement is a welcome addition.

I see this book as a blueprint and encouragement for non-profits to use their data more effectively as they strive to improve their fundraising efforts. I appreciate the book’s emphasis on how to best introduce or increase data-driven fundraising decisions in a culture that might be new to data analytics and predictive models. What sets it apart from a statistics textbook is that in addition to providing mathematical background and case studies, it is also a primer on managing change. Best of all, it’s written in an engaging and absorbing way.

Score! paints a vibrant picture of fundraising office dynamics and its potential challenges, based both on Peter Wylie’s long consulting career and Kevin MacDonell’s personal experience growing into a full time data analytics position. While Peter Wylie has some strong opinions about the non-profit sector’s pace of adopting data analytics, the authors give credit where credit is due. They hold up the frontline fundraisers as master storytellers while spotlighting those who play with their nonprofit organization data like it was their personal sandbox. Score! discusses several ways to communicate a potentially new and disruptive idea to people who may not be data oriented. The authors want the technically skilled data evangelists to be successful and wisely highlight using interpersonal and communication skills in addition to facts. They also recommend evolutionary, not revolutionary steps.

Another of the book’s strengths is that it doesn’t just preach to the choir drinking the Kool-Aid. It also addresses the managers – those responsible for the big fundraising picture. The accessible writing style and content organized by area of responsibility helps busy managers absorb the content. Score! is also very good at anticipating and addressing counter arguments, and a manager might have several. For example, it discusses the pros and cons of options such as hiring a data analyst from the outside the organization, “growing your own”, or using an outside vendor.

The last part of the book focuses on case studies to explore potential data analysis projects for alumni as well as annual, major, and planned gifts. In this section, you may wish to pace yourself as there are many figures, tables, and graphs to absorb. The authors build their chapters carefully and clearly. They start with fundamental statistical concepts, build a simple example, follow with more advanced ideas, and only at the end talk about exceptions. Try limiting yourself to one chapter per day (or week) to make sure you can absorb it all and explain the concepts to others. You should also be aware that all of the nonprofit examples are from higher education. Their choice is understandable. Colleges and universities have the most resources and data available for this kind of work and the book is published by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). While that can make it challenging for those in other non-profit sectors, here are several workarounds. One possible solution is to mentally substitute the name of your industry whenever you see “higher ed” and “donor” instead of “alumni”. Another possibility is to be open minded and learn about how a different kind of non-profit operates.

With its combination of a strong writing style and unique content, Score! is a book well worth reading, even if you have to do it on your time off. A current or hopeful non-profit data analyst, would enjoy and learn from all parts of the book. Fundraising directors and other decision makers in upper management would also profit, though they may choose to read the chapters which most pertain to their areas of responsibility. It’s even good for “experts” as a reminder that not all have their depth of knowledge and that everyone benefits when they stretch to bridge their organizations’ and co-workers’ gaps. Most importantly it provides encouragement and strategies for those who want to grow their nonprofits using data oriented strategies.

Want to learn more? Come to APRA Illinois’ Fall Conference October 3^rd and learn from the authors how to put data analytics in practice for your organization!

http://www.apraillinois.org/event-890645?CalendarViewType=0&SelectedDate=7/26/2014

Other reviews of the book:

· Jen Filla, President, Aspire Research Group http://www.jenniferfilla.com/score-takes-edge-analytics/
· Susan Bridgers, Director of CFR Prospect Research UNC-Chapel Hill http://apracarolinas.wildapricot.org/page-1852016/2992359

APRA International Recap!

Fri, 22 Aug 2014 20:34:02 GMT

Written by Elisa Shoenberger, Prospect Management and Research Analyst at Loyola University Chicago

What a wonderful 26^th annual APRA International Conference! It was a fantastic four days of conference learning and getting to know our peers at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. People came from all over the US and even the world to attend the fifty-four education sessions in six different tracks, from Prospect Research to Campaigns.

While I attended many fascinating and insightful presentations, my favorite session was “Venturing into High-Tech Research” by Christopher Haight from Cornell University. Mr. Haight talked about the high tech industry focusing on both individual players and companies themselves. He outlined five groups of individuals that researchers should think about for prospecting: Investors, Founders, Early Employees, Bankers, and Lawyers. With respect to founders, he pointed out that they are often quite young when they get their big payout and exit the company. These founders may be disinclined to give a gift. Moreover, they may have sold many shares of their own company to get the financing for it to expand or go public. Mr. Haight suggested that organizations change the way they ask for gifts or imagine a gift’s structure. Instead of asking for outright gifts, organizations can ask for shares in a company. Imagine if your institution had asked for 1% or even 0.50% of Facebook! I believe his session was recorded so you may be able to check it out for yourself in the near future.

We also participated in great roundtable discussions in conjunction with APRA talks, our version of TED talks. Before the roundtable discussion, we heard three short talks on leadership. Josh Birkholz from Bentz Whaley Flessner presented his research about the power of leadership with character for companies’ bottom lines. Sandra Campero of Arizona State University talked about trusting your own instincts and helping other people become leaders in their own right. John McBride from the University of Chicago talked about having the confidence in oneself to succeed. After these insightful presentations, we had the opportunity to discuss leadership in general and in our specific shops with our fellow researchers. One fellow researcher mentioned that he brought his dog to work! He said that bringing his dog to meetings helped to reduce the overall anxiety of his fellow colleagues. What a fantastic idea!

In addition to attending these fabulous sessions, this was a special APRA conference for me personally. Not only was it my third conference, but I was also fortunate to be asked to speak on a pre-conference panel called “Managing Planned Giving Relationships,” which promoted a dialogue between gift officers and researchers to facilitate and expand planned giving programs in our respective organizations. My fellow panelists were Lawrence Henze, Principle Consultant at Target Analytics, Camille Licklider, Executive Director of Gift Planning at Northwestern University, and Tina Pugh of Nature Conservancy. Our panel suggested that organizations steward planned giving prospects when they give an annual gift, not when they are identified as a planned giving prospect. The message of the moment: stewardship, stewardship, stewardship! It was also fascinating to learn how some factors correlate with certain planned giving types. For instance, people who tend to give political contributions tend to elect for annuities while people with stronger giving to religious organizations more often choose bequests.

The conference wasn’t only mind-blowing ideas; we also had opportunity to get to know our fellow researchers. APRA IL hosted a happy hour on Thursday after sessions at the Cosmopolitan’s fancy Chandelier Bar, where we had the opportunity to meet many of the colleagues we’ve talked to via phone for APRA IL meetings.

During our happy hour, we each shared our favorite parts of conference so far. Catherine Cefalu, Lead Prospect Research Analyst at University of Chicago, noted that her favorite part was geeking out over keynote speaker Una Osili, Director of Research at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Amelia Aldred, Prospect Research Analyst at University of Chicago, fondly recalled following the APRA 2014 Twitter feed. She said, “I liked hearing people’s thoughts about different sessions and I introduced myself to several prospect researchers simply because I liked their Twitter feed so much.” She also noted how much fun she had following #APRAhooligans, a “fun joke Twitter feed about APRA, full of pirates and ninjas and even Carmen Sandiego. So much geeky fun.” She also had a blast “walking the Las Vegas Strip with my colleague Sarah Johnson. She is an organized crime history enthusiast, so we went to a bunch of sites where famous mobsters worked and cut dealsundefinedvery fun!”

APRA International Conference is the only way to do Vegas!

Until next year!

APRA International Memories!

Sun, 20 Jul 2014 17:16:16 GMT

Written by Elisa Shoenberger, Prospect Management & Research Analyst, Loyola University Chicago

We’re counting down the days to the 27^th International APRA Convention in Las Vegas. We here at APRA-IL are very excited about the upcoming conference. It’s four glorious days of lectures, workshops, networking, and socializing. In order to prepare for the conference, we have asked our fellow APRA-IL members to reflect on their memories of and lessons from conferences past.

Rodney Young, Prospect Data Project Coordinator at DePaul University, wrote, “I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the APRA International Conference 2012 in Minneapolis! It was a great time to connect with Prospect Research & Management professionals across the nation. I learned about best practices, innovative ideas, and challenges in different types of institutions. The connections made at APRA International led me to join the APRA-IL chapter and get involved. I highly recommend APRA International for anyone who wants to take their career to the next level!”

Elisa Shoenberger, Prospect Management and Research Analyst for Loyola University Chicago and presenter at this year’s conference, wrote about her memories of her first conference in 2012: “At APRA International Conference 2012 in Minneapolis, I was really gratified to meet other people in my field. I met people whose experience varied widely. Some people had been in their roles for years while others just started. The environment was so positive and collaborative. At ‘The New Researchers Symposium’, I remember asking for help on international research. One of the session leaders was willing to help; she shared a PDF of international resources, such as websites and tips! It was really useful! While I was getting wonderful advice and insight, I remember explaining what a donor pipeline was to a researcher I met on the bus. Even I had something to share with my follower APRA conference goers. But it’s not all about work either! There are a lot of great social opportunities. I remember taking a 6:00am walking tour of Minneapolis with my fellow researchers. We wandered over to the Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Center to see the giant spoon and cherry sculpture. I can’t wait to go this year!”

Amelia Aldred, Research Analyst at University of Chicago, wrote about her best memories of APRA International 2013 in Baltimore, Maryland. She had a great time “meeting lots of new researchers at the New Researcher Symposium and comparing notes on how we got into prospect research.” She reflected on one session in particular: I went to “a session about family trees at the time, I thought, ‘This is interesting, but when will I use it?’ Then the week after APRA, I was assigned to create a family tree of one of our main donor families!” She also had a blast eating Baltimore crabs with her team and generally "geeking out."

Catherine Cefalu, Lead Prospect Research Analyst at the University of Chicago and presenter at this year’s conference, made some helpful recommendations to first time conference goers:

“This year is going to be my fifth time attending the APRA conference, and my second time presenting at a session. Here are some of the things I've learned over the years:

Do your research on the sessions and speakers, interesting places to eat near the hotel, and things to do in your spare time.
Bring your business cards: both for networking with colleagues, and for the WealthEngine Money Ball!
Dress in layers in the session rooms; the A/C tends to be pretty chilly.
It’s okay to spend time by yourself; I nearly ran myself ragged trying to Meet Everyone and Do Everything my first year.
Don’t be afraid to ask people to lunch or dinner, or to visit local APRA chapter happy hours. Last year, I had a great time hanging out with RIF UK.
You’ll probably lose your conference program at some point. Keep an extra one handy.
Plan carefully what you bring with you when you head down to the conference for the day the elevators are often mobbed after each session.
Not every session you sign up for has to be relevant to your current job or organization. I work in higher education, but like to attend at least one member/cause-related session per year.
It’s okay to leave a session if you think you might get more out of another one going on at the same time (unless it’s completely full -check at the registration desk if you’re unsure). I wouldn't recommend walking out of the New Researcher Symposium, though…
Take good notes so you can debrief with colleagues when you get home!
There is a sad tendency for some sessions to devolve into complaining about gift officers. Venting can be tempting, but don’t let yourself get sucked into a toxic conversation. Remember: partners in fundraising!
Visit the vendors and snag some swag! And pens. Get as many pens as you possibly can.
Plan adventures!”

We can’t wait to see you all there and hear about your experiences. See you soon!

Basic Skills Workshop: A Recap

Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:41:23 GMT

Written by Amelia Aldred, Research Analyst, University of Chicago

On June 6, 2014 at the Rotary International's World Headquarters in Evanston, APRA Illinois held their annual Basic Skills Workshop, a day-long seminar series designed for new and aspiring researchers, as well as NGO professionals who wear multiple hats. The program included three lectures on prospect research basics, a panel discussion with seasoned researchers, and a networking lunch. Attendees also received a copy of the book Prospect Research is a Verb by Meredith Hancks. A happy hour at a nearby restaurant followed.

The first session, "Wealth Screening," was given by Jennifer Fry, Director of Prospect Discovery and Information at Northwestern University. Ms. Fry emphasized that wealth screening is a complicated endeavor that requires researchers to create a clear plan that defines their deliverables and outlines each step of the project. In addition, researchers must communicate clearly to stakeholders both the value of the project and the working conditions necessary for the project to succeed. Wealth screenings are often costly, in terms of both money and staff time but can allow a research team to discover and deliver a plethora of high quality prospects. "Any opportunity that you have to do it, you want to do it as well as you can to show its value," Ms. Fry concluded.

The second session, "Prospect Management vs. Prospect Research," was taught by Viviana Ramirez, Director of Prospect Management at Rush University Medical Center. The session detailed Ms. Ramirez's process of creating a prospect management policy from the ground up. Like a good researcher, she started by asking questions and documenting how prospects were already cycling through gift officers, and then created a policy based on the gaps and pain points in this current system. Ms. Ramirez stressed the importance of training gift officers and meeting regularly with all the stakeholders. Throughout the session, she used the image of the Rube Goldberg machine as a metaphor for prospect management policy often cobbled together from multiple sources and stakeholders, but all working together to move a prospect through the development cycle.

The third session, "The Hierarchy of Wealth," was presented by Rebekah O'Brien, Senior Prospect Management and Research Analyst at Loyola University Chicago. Ms. O'Brien started with a brief overview of wealth and philanthropy in the United States and explained how general wealth and giving trends inform prospect research. For example, while middle income donors tend to give away a larger proportion of their wealth than high income donors, the size of the high income prospects' gifts are still larger than those of middle income donors. For that reason, prospect researchers will want to focus their efforts on the very wealthy, but still send any middle income donors to an annual giving team, in order to build a well-rounded portfolio of donors. Ms. O'Brien also reviewed the difference between wealth and income, and the methods for finding publicly available information about wealth. Several seasoned researchers chimed in with additional recommendations on information resources.

The afternoon panel fielded several interesting questions, including how to best prioritize time, calculate capacity ratings, and what they enjoy most about prospect research.

After the sessions, participants went to Pete Miller's bar and restaurant, a local favorite, and swapped researching stories and tips over drinks and appetizers and was a wonderful way to end a full day of learning and sharing.

Many thanks to Amelia for writing this post! If you would like to contribute or volunteer with APRA Illinois, give us a shout.

Research Panel at recent Basic Skills Workshop

Prospect Management & Research in Health Care

Wed, 28 May 2014 02:28:39 GMT

Chat with Viviana Ramirez about Prospect Management & Research in Health Care Institutions

Written by Rodney Young | Prospect Data Project Coordinator, DePaul University

Recently, I had the pleasure of chatting with Viviana Ramirez, Director of Prospect Management at Rush University Medical Center. Viviana will be one of the presenters at the upcoming APRA-IL Basic Skills Workshop on Friday June 6, 2014 (click HERE to register). Viviana has over 15 years of experience in Data Records Management, Prospect Research and Prospect Management, and has been instrumental in developing a robust, progressive Prospect Management system at Rush. We had a great conversation talking about the unique challenges and opportunities in Prospect Management in the health care industry. Here's an excerpt from our discussion - enjoy!

Rodney: Tell me about some of the differences in the environment at a health care organization that contrast with a college or university fundraising office.

Viviana: Well, since we are also an academic medical institution, we still do alumni fundraising. Scholarships are still a big initiative, too. However, with grateful patient fundraising, it's tougher. An alum has a connection to the institution; but a patient has an experience... and that experience can be good or it can be bad. Furthermore, we are not supposed to know about that experience because of HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Those regulations can create restrictions concerning what we can or cannot say, or what we are allowed to know about a patient's experience.

We utilize our physicians; our fundraisers are partnering with key physicians so they can obtain relevant information. We work with a physician as a partner to help with that qualification process.

Rodney: Wow, very interesting! What do you enjoy about working in health care that's different than in higher education?

Viviana: Unlike fundraisers, I don't get to sit in on meetings where there are physicians talking about cutting edge research...there are some really mind-blowing things going on in health care today. There are such great stories; for me, I sit and look at the hospital across the street and thinking, "Right now, there are miracles going on over there. Right now, somebody's life is being saved." Whenever you have "one of those days", you can still say "I work at a pretty cool place." The compelling stories are what make it worthwhile.

Rodney: Tell me a little about the relationship between your Prospect Management & Research team and the fundraising staff.

Viviana: Well, it's based on the state of a fundraiser's portfolio. If their portfolios are properly updated, they don't hear too much from us.

Rodney: What if their portfolios are not looking the right way?

Viviana: We have more meetings to determine what strategies are being utilized, what haven't we looked at, and consider what other sources we should look at to improve the portfolio.

Rodney: What's difficult when it comes to fundraiser relationships?

Viviana: It’s very similar to other institutions. When you're doing the work to add names to someone's portfolio, and they're not moving on them, that’s always the challenge!

HIPPA is the other challenge. Just because we see patient information doesn't mean we're privileged to it. We have to be mindful of the information we put into our centralized database so we are not violating HIPPA regulations.

Rodney: Is Rush currently in a campaign?

Viviana: Not now, but we are in year 4 of a 5-year strategic plan. At the end of our campaign, we needed goals, so we developed a 5-year plan. The goal is to be an office that can regularly raise $40 million per year.

Rodney: What is the "post campaign" environment like for you guys?

Viviana: It's interesting because we're getting close to the end of stewarding gifts that went towards the last campaign. I think it's toughest on the fundraisers. There is a transition that occurs because their pitch for raising dollars goes away. So now they have to rethink how to engage and excite donors when we're no longer working towards a campaign. There are different initiatives, but some areas don't have an initiative.

Rodney: So you're getting people ready for the next campaign as well, right?

Viviana: Yes, we're thinking about our donors, especially the ones who give at a major gift level annually. You also want to look for those people as they will be key in the next campaign.

Rodney: What are some other post-campaign initiatives your team is working on?

Viviana: Data collection is very important. One of our initiatives is to develop a standard way for development officers to rate prospects beyond the wealth screenings and what research is doing. As we start to build these gift tables, we want to make sure that there is some level of "truth", and people feel confident that those ratings make sense.

Rodney: When it comes to tools for analytics, is that something your organization has not invested in yet?

Viviana: After some investigation, I have decided to go with Tableau. What I like about it is that there are different levels in which you can use it. I am also interested in the other services that Tableau provides which allow other people in our office to use it; we really need that collaborative piece. We have a couple of people in annual giving that are data heavy; they need a tool where they can segment and look at trends to forecast.

Rodney: On a closing note, if there are people who are in higher education who want to transition into healthcare Prospect Research & Management, what would you suggest to them?

Viviana: Learn about HIPPA regulations, that's very important. Also learn about "grateful patient" strategies--there are so many out there. Also, the world of research is changing; when I went to the APRA conference, I paid attention every time they talked about analytics. Fundraisers and executives are always expecting somebody to do data analytics; that is business intelligence work. It requires a certain amount of database skills. You have to go beyond the Excel spreadsheet and learn how data tables relate to each other. Don't be afraid of Microsoft Access...make the leap!

Rodney: Yes, I totally agree! It was a huge leap for me!

Viviana: Also, for researchers, learn how to write great, concise briefs for when your executive people go on visits. Know what THEY need to know; figure out what types of information is most helpful for each development officer. Every fundraiser has their own way of connecting.

Rodney: Well, thank you so much Viviana, for this great information! I look forward to your presentation at the upcoming APRA-IL Basic Skills Workshop.

Don't forget to register for the APRA-IL Basic Skills Workshop on Friday June 6, 2014! Click HERE to register!

Spring Webinar: Financial Industry

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 13:01:42 GMT

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!

Conversations with an Expert: Copyright Law

(Past member) — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 18:53:26 GMT

Written by Elisa Shoenberger, Loyola University Chicago

When Prospect Management and Research encounter complex situations of wealth at work, my colleagues and I constantly comment, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could sit down with someone who’s an expert and ask them?” It happens in discussions of patents, compensation at big law firms, royalties from books and other media, and more. In this series, I will do just that: I am going to seek out and talk to people or attend lectures on these topics and report back to you my findings as they are related to Prospect Management and Research. For this edition, I attended a February 2014 lecture on copyright law at Harold Washington College by Michael Graham, IP Attorney and Adjunct Professor at DePaul University.

Before we delve into the particulars of copyright law and what it means for Prospect Research, a copyright should be distinguished from other intellectual property protections: patents and trademarks. According to the US Patent and Trademark office, patents are “a limited duration property right relating to an invention, granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in exchange for public disclosure of the invention.”[i] On the other hand, a trademark is “a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.”[ii]A copyright “protects works of original authorship, such as writings, music, and works of art that have been expressed in a tangible medium.”[iii] In other words, copyright protects the ways in which ideas are expressed, not the ideas themselves.

Protecting authorship through copyright originates in the U.S. Constitution: “The Congress shall have Power...To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”[iv] Copyright is about the promotion of the progress of arts and sciences. The Constitution explicitly provides that copyright is limited in duration. However, during that period of time, the right is exclusive for its owner, creating a kind of monopoly. Additionally, as Professor Graham notes, there is no mention of profits in the Constitution with respect to a copyright. Which begs the question again, of how copyright rights impact one’s wealth?

So what exactly can be copyrighted and what does it mean to hold a copyright? According to Professor Graham, copyright covers “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” The following are some types of works subject to copyright protection: non-dramatic literary works, musical works (words and music), pictorial, graphical and sculptural work, computer program, dramatic works, and architectural works. Some items that are excluded from copyright are: ideas, historical facts, names, titles, short phrases and slogans, blank forms, and clothing.

A copyright is actually not a single right, but a bundle of rights. A copyright owner has the right to:

1. Reproduce the work

2. Create derivative works (like allowing a book to become a movie)

3. Perform the work publicly

4. Display the work publicly

5. License or transfer ownership (with a written agreement signed by the owner)

6. “[C]laim paternity and prevent mutilation of visual arts.”[v]

Over the past half century, the duration that copyright is held has been extended, thanks in part to certain corporate interests including Disney. Originally, copyrights lasted 42 years with renewal. However, now for works created after January 1, 1978, “copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. For an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first.”[vi] If the work was created prior to 1978, it gets much more complicated. As a consequence of these copyright extensions, older, previously public domain material has suddenly become covered by copyright.

For creators of potentially copyrightable material, registration of the copyright may be worth consideration. Prior to the 1976, registration of the copyright was required or the material was considered in the public domain. After 1976, registration was not required. Registration is fairly easy and inexpensive. You can register a copyright online for $45 with the US Copyright office.

Though registration of the copyright is no longer required, there are special rights granted to the copyright owner if they register it before an infringement occurs. If you register before infringement and successfully win a case against infringement, the Copyright Act provides that a court may order the opposing party liable for your legal fees. And legal fees can be considerable: a simple case can cost $500,000 while even cases that only get to the discovery phase can cost upwards of $100,000. These cases can be more expensive than the value of the copyrighted material itself. Moreover, while it is hard to establish how much is lost with infringement, a court can award statutory damages if the copyright owner has registered.

In this age of the internet, fair use has become a front and center copyright issue. Fair use is based on the idea that there are certain things people should be allowed to use even copyrighted works if it promotes the progress of arts and sciences as provided in the US Constitution. Fair use depends on several factors, such as how much of the new work uses the old, what is the purpose of the new work, and whether the new work transform the older one into a new work. However, air use is really only defined by the judge making the ruling.

One notable trend in copyright is the issue that there is now more of an emphasis on copyright proprietors (companies) than copyright creators. You may have heard news coverage of “copyright trolls,” disreputable, practically anonymous companies that go after creators in order to make money through litigation. You can read more about it at EEF. https://www.eff.org/issues/copyright-trolls

However, this issue extends beyond copyright trolls. Major corporations are battling over copyrights between one another and individuals, and even estates litigate over copyright. For instance, the Marvin Gaye estate is battling Robin Thicke over copyright infringement of Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give it Up.”[vii] The estate alleges that Robin Thicke infringed Gaye’s songs with his summer hit “Blurred Lines” and other works. The case is still pending between the Gaye estate and Robin Thicke.

So what does this mean for Prospect Management and Research? Remember that the copyright is intended to promote the progress of arts and sciences, not necessarily to generate a profit. Copyright protect the expression of many ideas, not the idea itself. There are many rights associated with copyrights including the right to copy and license it to other people. Registration is optional but gives copyright owners special rights if there are infringement lawsuits. Fair use is a tricky field that will continue into the future.

Most importantly, holding a copyright may not necessarily impact your wealth. Most copyrights are often not worth as much as it costs to take infringers to court. As noted before, a simple case could cost $500,000. And that’s if all goes well. Some copyrights maybe worth fighting for, such as Harry Potter books, while others may be more trouble and expense to defend like a Facebook profile photo. On the other hand, due to the high legal fees, IP and patent attorneys may be worth looking at in your constituency for purposes of Major Gift research.

With this emphasis on copyright proprietors, it may also be worth looking at content owning companies, like Disney, who would hold many copyrights or families that may hold valuable copyrights. Those companies may profit extensively from the licensing of their copyright rights and may be worth the time for your organization to investigate their corporate giving or company foundations. Moreover, the people within the company may be Major Gift leads.

And keep an eye out for estates that may hold valuable copyrights. If you have famous singers, authors, and other copyright creators in your database, you may want to look a little harder at their families because “their copyright rights last at least 70 years after the death of the authors and may remain valuable property rights for longer than other assets.”[viii]

That’s all for now!

- Elisa

[i] “Trademark, Patent, or Copyright?” US Patent and Trademark Office, accessed 2/21/14, http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/definitions.jsp

[ii] “Trademark, Patent, or Copyright?” US Patent and Trademark Office, accessed 2/21/14, http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/definitions.jsp

[iii] “Trademark, Patent, or Copyright?” US Patent and Trademark Office, accessed 2/21/14, http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/definitions.jsp

[iv] “Copyright Law of the USA,” Copyright Office, accessed 2/21/14, http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92preface.html

[v] Graham, Michael, “Copyright: From Madison to Disney,” Class Lecture, Business Law from Harold Washington College, Chicago, 2/20/14.

[vi] “How Long Does Copyright Protection Last?” Copyright Office, accessed 2/21/14 http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html

[vii] “Marvin Gaye’s family nixes six-figure deal in Robin Thicke copyright fight,” FoxNews, 8/25/13, accessed 2/21/14, http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/08/25/marvin-gayes-family-kos-six-figure-settlement-from-robin-thicke-in-copyright/

[viii] Graham, Michael, e-mail message to Elisa Shoenberger, February 28, 2014.

Less is More

(Past member) — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 15:30:00 GMT

Written by Joey Cherdarchuk | Director at Darkhorse Analytics

Edward Tufte introduced the concept of data-ink in his 1983 classic The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. In it he states “Data-ink is the non-erasable core of the graphic, the non-redundant ink arranged in response to variation in the numbers represented” (emphasis mine). Tufte asserts that in displaying data we should remove all non-data-ink and redundant data-ink, within reason, to increase the data-ink-ratio and create a sound graphical design.

Stephen Few convincingly argues that some redundancy is often more effective and we agree, however, most graphics don’t struggle with understatement. In fact, most contain a stunning amount of excess ink (or pixels). Rather than dressing our data up we should be stripping it down.

To illustrate how less ink is more effective, attractive and impactive we put together this animated gif. In it we start with a chart, similar to what we’ve seen in many presentations, and vastly improve it with progressive deletions and no additions.

And here is the slide deck if you want to go at your own pace.

The next time you are trying to improve a chart, consider what you can take away rather than what you can add.

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery