It is with great pleasure that we welcome our newest team member, Heather Willis. Heather was one of the first people I trained when I began my consulting business and I have always been impressed by her intelligence, professionalism and can-do attitude. Heather’s background in prospect research includes working for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and for Carroll College. For the past seven years, Heather had been a freelance researcher and owner of her own company, Willis Research Services in Buffalo, Montana.

We’re delighted that Heather is joining our team and are excited about the addition of talents she brings to our Group and our clients.

Let me tell you a short story:  Back in the 1980s there was a pseudo war, and it was a big deal at the time.  Named the Cola Wars, it was a knock-down, drag-out to decide which of the two mega brands of cola was better, Coke or Pepsi.  Both felt that neither could survive while the other lived, and you, the consumer, had to choose.  Which did you like better?  Side-by-side blind taste tests were done in supermarkets, on beaches, Main Streets and college campuses.  It was the Duke-Carolina and the Yankees-Red Sox of marketing wars rolled into one.  It was huge.

Then Coca-Cola, in a moment no consumer could figure out (and no company should ignore), decided they would ditch their cash cow and make a whole different product.  “Old Coke” was gone overnight.  “New Coke”  was the Coke to beat Pepsi, and it was no contest:  nobody liked it.

It was awful.  New Coke tasted terrible and there were practically riots in the streets.  People started hoarding “old” Coke when they could find it.  If you weren’t around then (and I suspect most of the Google decision-makers weren’t) I know it’s hard to believe that consumers actually rose up and made such a stink that a mega company completely reversed course about something, but they did.  In a matter of a few months, New Coke was gone and “Coke Classic” was resuscitated.

So now we’ve got the New Google and for professional searchers it tastes about as good as New Coke.  Here’s the vanilla article from Lance Ulanoff at Mashable, announcing its birth:  Google Merges Search and Google+ into Social Media Juggernaut.  He says:

“Now we know Google’s master-plan for integrating Google+ ever more deeply into the Google ecosystem: Pour the whole thing into Google search. Starting today, Google+ members, and to a lesser extent others who are signed into Google, will be able to search against both the broader web and their own Google+ social graph. That’s right; Google+ circles, photos, posts and more will be integrated into search in ways other social platforms can only dream about.”

Short version: when you type a search into Google, what you’re going to get for your first results are everything you or your friends have ever written or shared publicly on Google Plus on anything related to the item you’ve just searched.

If you’re on your mobile device looking for a restaurant in San Francisco, you’re treated to a gold mine of your friends’ and acquaintances’ recommendations.  Nice!

If you’re a professional 9-5 researcher like me using Google it’s another layer of non-relevant stuff to wade through before you get to what you need.  We’re not “social” searchers, we use these tools to provide reliable answers to others.  Relevant search is our job.  And Google has always had the largest database of legitimate, relevant resources that professional researchers need and use every day.

THE EXPERTS WEIGH IN

Here’s a professional searcher’s take on it:  Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land wrote an article in response to the flaws (and potential legal issues) he saw called Real-Life Examples of How Google’s ‘Search Plus’ Pushes Google Plus Over Relevancy.

Sullivan argues that besides making relevant search results harder to find for professional  searchers, the potential trouble on Google’s horizon is legal: if they highlight information (mainly) from their own properties – including Google+ and YouTube they could be charged with abusing their power as a monopoly.  Also, there’s that teeny little issue of privacy – what if something you thought you were posting privately to Google+ got shared without your permission publicly and then emerged as an answer to a search query?

FIXING WHAT’S NOW BROKEN

I’ve seen peoples’ comments saying “what’s the big deal, you can turn Search Plus off!” and yes you can, and here’s how.

And you can also turn Verbatim on, which forces Google to allow you to use your exact search terms instead of Google trying to correct them for you (in case you didn’t really mean what you meant).  Here’s how:  Do a search, go to the search options sidebar, click “show more search tools,” select “Verbatim” and Google will keep your search string like you wanted it to be.

And you can turn filtering off, too, so that your world on Google doesn’t keep getting narrower and narrower.  And yes, it does.  You don’t even know what you don’t know, but you will if you read this and watch Eli Pariser’s jaw-dropping TED Talk.

But all these turning offs and turning ons are a total hassle.  Just to do one search in Google the way I used to just last year, I have to turn off two things and turn one on.  Every. Single. Time.  This is progress?

I’ve read other comments saying, “Google’s free and they can do whatever they want to with their product.”  And that’s true, they can.  I’d argue that Google is “free,” but whatever.  We can vote with our feet.  And Bing’s the next logical choice for database size.

Mat Honan at Gizmodo has this to say: Google just made Bing the Best Search Engine.

Trouble is, Microsoft has always run hot and cold on search.  They kindasorta want to compete with Google, but Bing’s not their core business and it’s never going to be.  There’s no Coke vs. Pepsi thing going on here.  It’s Coke vs. Shasta.  Google’s still got the largest database lurking inside all that growing social stuff, and Bing just doesn’t.  It’s big, but it’s not Google big.

So will Google create two products – one for professional searchers and one for social searchers?  Or, in the words of the immortal SNL writers, is it just to be “No Coke! Pepsi!” for us?

Update:  More on this from Wired magazine’s Tim Carmody: Dirty Little Secrets: The Trouble With Social Search.

Every half year or so, some newspaper or magazine comes out with an article about how creepy prospect research is (last spring’s example: the Wall Street Journal in a May blog post by Anne Kadet called “Is your favorite charity spying on you?”) (and no, I’m not going to do them the favor of linking to it here).

Usually articles like these run the third rail of incendiary hyperbole along the lines of how we fundraising researchers are just one half-step up from digging through ordinary peoples’ trash to find their pay check stubs so that our conniving fundraising overlords can trick them into donating their hard-earned cash to our undeserving and overhead-bloated nonprofits.

Okay, maybe I’m going slightly overboard, but it gives you the idea of how offensive these articles are to me and my colleagues, most of whom are diligently, honestly and ethically trying to help our nonprofits help people.  Or animals. Or the environment.  Or whatever else needs taking care of.  It’s a long laundry list.  And to have a journalist from a respectable rag freaking people out to sell a couple of extra papers is insulting. I get it, the paper business is hard these days – but go pick on someone your own size.  Like politicians.

So when I saw the headline for last Friday’s New York Times article by Ron Lieber called “What Nonprofit Groups Know About You” paired with an article called “Taking Fund-Raising To a New Level,” I groaned out loud and thought “oh for pete’s sake, here we go again.”

But what do you know – I was pleasantly surprised.  As I read through, I noticed that Lieber did his homework.  He actually interviewed people – not something usually done in these types of exposes. And as I got further down, I realized it actually wasn’t an expose – it was a real education piece.  I sat there reading it, tensed in my office chair, waiting for the cringe that …never happened.

Granted, the article relies just a teeeensy bit too heavily on fundraising software megagiant Blackbaud as a source but the two consultants he quoted, Lawrence Henze and David Lamb, were two good representatives from our industry for Lieber to talk with.  Both are well-respected and Lamb is a former prospect research practitioner.

Commentary from a couple of experienced prospect researchers in the trenches currently would have been nice: I’m sure our professional group APRA (the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement) would have been happy to steer an enterprising journalist toward a pithy prospect research professional.

But, on the whole I was …well, I was going to say “impressed” or “pleased” but to be honest “relieved” is what I mostly felt (– isn’t that kind of sad?)  Lieber actually bothered to find out what sources we use and how and why we use them.  His article was even-keeled and informative to the point of telling people how to stay under the prospect research radar if they want to.  And fair enough – everybody should have that option.

But philanthropy isn’t a game of cat-and-mouse.  At least, it isn’t for most professional prospect researchers and fundraisers I know.  The point is that we want to efficiently find prospective donors that want us to find them ~ and that want to work with us to (efficiently) change the world for the better.  Lieber’s article gets us one step closer to helping people understand that, and for that he gets my thanks and this blog post.

Jen Filla of Aspire Research Group and I have just signed a deal with John Wiley & Sons to write Prospect Research for Fundraisers; The Essential Handbook. We’re thrilled!

This book is going to be handy for every single front-line development officer, from the solo fundraiser in a one-person shop to the VP for Advancement overseeing a large university research department.

We’re going to highlight the successful partnerships, the innovative ground-breakers and the hair-tearing learning experiences, and our findings just may surprise you.

If you’ve ever wondered…

…then this book is for you!

We’re interviewing fundraisers and researchers to gain lots of perspectives, and the book will be chock-full of case studies and examples. We still have some space, so if you’d like to be featured for your great front-line/research collaborations, let us know!

Discussion about Social Impact Bonds is really hot right now.  SIBs have the ability to reward nonprofits for being innovative and for achieving measurable and replicable success.  But will they remove funding that would have been philanthropically given?  And will smaller nonprofits be left out in the cold?

To find out more, I attended last week’s Social Innovation Forum hosted by Root Cause.  The featured speaker was Jeffrey Liebman, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.  After Liebman’s opening remarks, a panel of experts discussed SIBs and how they might affect nonprofits.

Liebman provided a very simple graph to illustrate the flow of money in a SIB, which looked something like this:

Here’s how it works in a nutshell:  A nonprofit (or more probably, a collaboration of nonprofits) works with a bond-issuing entity to raise funds to solve a social problem.  Investors are approached by the bond-issuing entity and the investors provide working capital to the bond-issuer.  Investors are guaranteed a rate of return if the project succeeds, and the return on investment is likely gauged to the project’s risk of success.  (If the project fails, investors lose their money).  When the project is completed and has met performance targets, the government pays the bond-issuing entity, which pays back the investors their initial investment plus interest.

It’s a win-win-win.

1. The problems solved are ones the government would have funded anyway (reduced recidivism, for example, or after-school reading programs).  But with SIBs, the government only pays when there is demonstrated success, lessening government waste.
2. Venture philanthropists and foundation leaders have a creative tool for their investment portfolio to both fund programs and reap a return on their philanthropic investments which they can then use to seed another venture.
3. Nonprofits with proven success in their field of expertise have another pool of potential support to draw from.

Jeffrey Liebman calls SIBs a “Pay-For-Success” program, and it’s easy to see why.  As he explained, SIBs improve nonprofit performance and lower cost to the government; they accelerate the adoption of new solutions that are broadly replicable; and there is more rapid learning of what works and what doesn’t.

So what are the problems with a Pay-For-Success program?

Well, there are a lot of nonprofits out there and competition for dollars is already fierce.  According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, over 1.6 million charities registered with the US IRS in 2011. Granted, about 100,000 are foundations and a little over 500,000 are professional associations, fraternal organizations, chambers of commerce, etc.  Still, that leaves about a million nonprofits vying for philanthropic support and not all of them will be candidates to participate.  Also, SIBs won’t work for every type of nonprofit.

The likely participants will be collaborations of nonprofits working together to creatively solve a specific social problem.  They will provide new solutions with the potential for high net benefits and will be able to provide measurable outcomes.  The populations they serve will be well-defined and there will be a reliable comparison group.

Won’t this mean dollars formerly allocated to philanthropy will be used for SIBs?

Panelist Tracy Palandjian of Social Finance Inc. commented that SIBs wouldn’t cannibalize philanthropic dollars because a foundation could invest in SIBs from the 95% of their investment corpus rather than from their 5% annual distribution.  SIBs become both another investment vehicle and a way to further a foundation’s vision and mission.

One forum participant, a representative of a foundation observed “isn’t it the point to cannibalize money from underperforming nonprofits to fund those that are producing results?”

What is clear is that all nonprofits – those struggling for money merely to survive as well as those that are well-established – will need to start measuring their impact on the communities they serve if they aren’t already.  Today’s donors already expect to see a nonprofit’s results clearly outlined but a social impact bond-holder will require it, and it will be the bond-issuer’s job to track the venture’s success.  Will there be a move within our industry to set standards for the metrics that are tracked?

As a professional in this field, the idea that we researchers will be helping our organizations create the most logical metrics and use that data to improve service delivery is exciting to me.  But as cool as that is, and even though there is already one test-tube SIB in place in the UK, I can’t get too excited yet.

The biggest roadblock?

The biggest problem could be politics.  Most projects that a SIB would cover would likely be funded over one or more election cycles.  What happens if the next person in office decides that they don’t want to honor the previous office-holder’s bond agreement?

In an era where Congress can’t seem to get it together over the simple task of running its daily business, what chance does a new initiative – however fiscally sound, however cost-saving – have?

Governor Deval Patrick of my home state of Massachusetts was the first to formally seek to explore SIBs in May of this year.  We’ll see if he leads us to create the first one in the US.

RootCause wisely videotaped some of the key segments of this fascinating forum.  Have a look to learn more!

Read more here about Social Impact Bonds and Impact Investing (which apparently goes back to the Civil War!) from the Harvard Business Review’s blog article written by Chris Meyer and Julie Kirby.

Last week I had the pleasure of welcoming two new colleagues into the Helen Brown Group.  The fundraising world being as small as it is, you never know when you’re going to have the opportunity to work with someone again, and it’s certainly true for me with both Andrea Marks and Maureen Kilcommins.

Andrea Marks

I first worked with Andrea Marks ten years ago at Northeastern University when she was just starting out in prospect research.  Bilingual and a cum laude graduate of Boston University in international relations, Andrea was quick to understand the value of research in fundraising and its global possibilities.  Soon graduate school called her, and after receiving an MBA degree specializing in international business and marketing, Andrea worked for three multi-nationals and an NGO managing their payrolls.  I’m delighted that we were able to entice Andrea back into prospect research, and happy to have her international research and language skills.

Maureen Kilcommins

Maureen Kilcommins and I have worked together for the last ten years in support of the North American Foundation for the University of Manchester (NAFUM), England.  Previously Maureen worked as director of prospect research and management for Bentley University and as director of annual and special gifts for UC-Santa Cruz and associate director of the Harvard Law School Fund.  Maureen’s experience in research, front-line fundraising and operations brings a triumvirate of value for our clients looking for advice in those areas.  Maureen will continue in her role as North American administrator for both NAFUM and Sightsavers and will work with HBG on a part-time basis.

Welcome Andrea and Maureen!

My friend Chris Carnie at Factary in Bristol, England gave me a scoop that I am excited to share:  Factary is releasing a white paper today on venture philanthropy in the UK and Europe titled The Venture Philanthropists; A Review of Venture Philanthropy Funds in the UK and the People Behind Them.

What makes this study different is that it is written by someone on the inside: Chris is a member of the Finance and Fundraising Committee of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) and works closely with members of the venture philanthropy (VP) community.  This fascinating white paper focuses on the specifics:  Who they are.  How much they give.  What they give to. And most importantly, the keys to involving them.  I asked Chris a few questions:

HELEN BROWN: Chris, how long have you been following this topic and what kind of access have you gotten to the real story?

CHRIS CARNIE: We’ve been tracking venture philanthropy in Europe since it started. I got interested when one of the founders of VP in Europe attended a training course I gave years ago; he came from a private equity background, and wanted to know more about how the nonprofit sector worked. I spent some time with him, and then got to attend the first conference on VP in Europe, in Amsterdam in 2004. Since then, I have stayed involved and now serve on the Finance and Fundraising Committee of the European Venture Philanthropy Association, EVPA.

I’m interested in VP for lots of reasons. First, it has attracted some of the cleverest people I have ever met. People who are happy to throw all of the old ideas out of the window and build something completely new, creating social change in ways that are truly inventive. Second, it reaches a section of the community that has, historically, been very hard to get to – the private equity, City of London [financial district] people. Traditional “charity” is not very attractive to these people, but VP fits perfectly with the way they think. Third, well, when you get invited to speak at a private conference in Venice or Luxembourg, it’s hard to resist…

HB:  So what makes this new white paper a must-read?

CC: It’s a 70-page report on venture philanthropy in the UK. We’ve focused on the 130 or so people in the UK who have led and supported the growth of VP in the UK. The typical venture philanthropist was born in 1960 – so the median age is 51 – and is in private equity.  Eight out of ten VP trustees are male, and the most common source of women on VP boards is from the nonprofit sector.

He’s likely to be wealthy, and in fact the VP community have attracted a high proportion of people of wealth – across just 11 VP funds, we’ve counted 24 who feature in the UK’s best known wealth listing, the Sunday Times Rich List.

There are currently 11 full VP funds in the UK. I’m saying “currently” because the growth rate of VP in Europe has been extraordinary. The EVPA has grown membership 25 times in the last 6 years. They are supporting a very wide range of causes – there’s a shared interest in youth and education, but they are backing health, clean energy, HIV/AIDS too, both in the UK and overseas.

HB: But there are only 11 of these funds?  Why are they so important?

CC: That’s one of the keys to understanding this community of philanthropists – their influence is enormous. What’s happening is that large-scale foundations in Europe are taking a strong interest in the VP model. A number of the heavyweights have started venture funds within the umbrella of the larger foundation: an example in England is Charities Aid Foundation which runs a VP fund called Venturesome.

HB: Is that the future of VP?

CC: In part, yes. The VP model is about scale – growing small, high-impact nonprofits into bigger ones. In the UK we’re just at the start of that process (the first VP fund was set up here in 2002, four years after the Silicon Valley Venture Fund became the first VP in the US).  But we’re going to see stronger growth as the large foundations get on board. We’re also going to see traditional foundations copying the impact measurement tools that the VP community has developed. There will be continued growth in this sector and much of that growth will be international – the VP community has been very good at building links across Europe and the United States. Their conferences and meetings are multi-lingual affairs.

HB:  Thanks Chris for this sneak peek into the white paper.  For more information or to purchase the report for £125 contact research@factary.com. Chris will be speaking on this topic for ShareTraining on April 12.