You may remember a few months ago I talked about how Brown University got a 500% return on the proactive research they did for the Boldly Brown campaign.  One part of that was successfully integrating the results of several wealth screenings that they did.

Because some of the vendors are offering database screenings at a deep discount this quarter, a number of our clients are taking advantage of the savings … which means that it’s screening analysis season here at HBG!

Andrea, Jennifer and Maureen have been collaborating closely as a unit and with our clients on these screenings, and I’ve been really interested as I listen to them share ideas over lunch or at our afternoon tea breaks.

There’s a lot of delight and excitement when a screening is returned, but also some regret when they find an opportunity that was missed.

What I hear from their conversations underscores that how you approach a screening really makes a difference in the end result.

So I thought I’d ask them to share their top tips for making the most of an electronic screening so that we can all boost our return on screenings to Brown proportions.  If you have more tips to share with readers, we’d love for you to add them!

From Andrea:

I’ve become a big fan of wealth screenings lately.  I’d say my top three tips are:

• Include as much information as possible: middle initials and spouse names are particularly important in helping save time later.
• Don’t trust the database’s judgment: verify everything! Screenings are a good jumping off point but the human element of analysis is important.

• Once the data is returned, try several different sorts to see if there are any trends.  I generally start to look for patterns sorting by confirmed assets, then by identified assets and filtering by state, zip, and past giving.  It’s really interesting what you can find!

From Jennifer:

• Pay particular attention to high net worth individuals in New York City – chances are if they own a co-op apartment that the entire co-op building is being counted in their assets.
• Cleaning the data beforehand is well worth the time investment. Fix any typos and check to be sure addresses are consistently entered – bad data is the #1 way why matches aren’t made. Time spent on this in advance can save lots of time (which is money!!) confirming later.
• Don’t include anyone that only has a PO Box address.  Either leave them out or find their street address.

From Maureen:

• Purchase an address update (NCOA) as part of the screening if you haven’t done one recently – a significant match point for assets is address.
• If your budget is tight, don’t waste it on screening donors that you already know well.
• Depending on the size of your screening, make sure to allocate at least one staff member to do the analysis when the results are returned.  Screenings are expensive and you don’t want the results to just sit there gathering dust.
• Don’t screen if you don’t have the front-line fundraising staff to follow up on the leads that are produced.  Be strategic in the number of prospects that you screen and consider doing rolling screenings.

Are you sometimes waiting (and waiting!) to have research requests completed for you? Or getting completed research *after* the visit? Frustrating, isn’t it? Wish you had a way to get your research requests done first? It can’t work all the time, but there is a way…

I read a blog post by Rajesh Setty the other day called “Help is on the way.*” Setty’s an entrepreneur consultant and writes for the business market. It’s not long, and it’s worth a read if you have time. If you don’t have time now, here’s my interpretation of what he wrote with regard to prospect research in a typical mid-to-large size development office:

Generally speaking, good help is scarce because:
• People that are good at their jobs are busy becoming even better at their jobs.
• People gravitate toward people who are good at their jobs and ask them to help with their projects …
• …which makes people that are good at their jobs even busier…
• …which makes good help even more scarce.

So what do these good, busy people do to cope with the increased requests for help? Setty writes:

“1. They eliminate meaningless requests.

2. They eliminate requests that were made because the requester was lazy.

3. They eliminate requests that don’t deserve to be fulfilled.

4. They eliminate requests that are not meaningful to them.

They look at the remaining requests and choose the ones that will provide the highest ROI for their investment of time…[T]he odds change significantly depending on ‘who you are’ to them. If you are someone special to them, the terms and conditions section suddenly disappears.

The objective decision making walks out of the door replaced by subjective decision making in your favor.”

Prospect researchers don’t usually have the discretion to eliminate requests for reports.  Normally it’s first come, first served… unless your job title gives you the cachet to jump the queue.  Requests – both worthy and worthless – pile up.  One person’s request for a full profile on a donor prospect they are merely curious about means that another’s truly hot prospect briefing goes further down the list. 

Would a researcher prefer to work with a major gift officer that actively sought visits with prospects that that researcher identified for them?  Sure.  Might that MGO’s requests mysteriously move higher in the research queue from time to time?  Mayyybe.

Would a prospect researcher work harder for a front-line fundraiser that came by their desk and said “Let me tell you about the great meeting I just had with that prospect you researched for me!!”  Absolutely.  Might that person’s requests mysteriously gain helium in the research queue from time to time?  Mayyybe.

I know that I’ve done it.  I worked with a fundraiser who made a fill-in appointment based on a gut feeling I had about a prospect I’d found.  I knew the prospect had their own privately-held company and there were rumors the company was going IPO in the next six months, but that’s about all I had.  Still, the fundraiser honored my gut feeling and set up the discovery meeting.  That act of faith (and the subsequent major gift donation of stock – I’m not kidding – yay!) forged a great researcher/fundraiser team that communicated often from then on.  I will admit to moving that fundraiser’s requests slightly higher in the queue from time to time because we were a team that was making things happen.

Research – good research – is a time-consuming job, and we all only have so much time.  All of us want our work to be for something – to know that what we do has meaning.  If you don’t have a fancy title after your name, consider internal stewardship to jump the queue.  You’re a fundraiser, after all.  You know all about relationship building.

So let’s say you want to email a password-protected document to someone.  Or give them access to the back end of your website.  You need to send them the password to open it …but what if they’re half a world away, sound asleep?  Or they’re in a meeting, or just unavailable to take your phone call?  Emailing the word itself just isn’t a secure option, even if you are using your super duper top-secret spy subject-line code:

Trust me, the bad guys are going to figure it out – if they want to hack the document or your website, that would be the first email they’d look at.  And this is the second:

So here’s what you do:

Use a secret sharer.

One Time Secret

One Time Secret does just that – it allows you to share a secret just once.  It can be a word or a phrase that you want, or the site will generate a random password for you.  Just type in the word or phrase, click “Create A Secret Link” and an encrypted link is generated that you can cut and paste into an email.  You can set the period of time for the secret to expire – so when your secret is opened by your authorized person, it automatically disappears and can’t be accessed again.  Likewise, if it doesn’t get accessed within the allotted time, poof – it’s erased.

QuickForget

QuickForget does all the same things that One Time Secret does, but your secret doesn’t have to disappear after the first viewing.  So if you need to send the secret to more than one person, you can choose the number of ‘views’ the secret has as well as the number of hours it’s available for viewing.  There’s a handy email-it feature, too… (*cough*) as long as you don’t go with their suggested subject line…

Next Wednesday, November 30th I’m going to be speaking at a conference sponsored by the Massachusetts chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

I mention this because it got me to thinking about what I like and don’t like about conferences. I like really meaty sessions at conferences, and I get disappointed when speakers are entirely theoretical or philosophical. I do like the theory and I do like understanding the context, but then I want you to show me how. Or at least give me a roadmap, inundate me with URLs, show me some first steps so I can figure out the rest.

It drives me crazy when the subtext of a session is if you want the real details, you’re going to have to buy my book / hire me to consult for you / buy my product.

Ugh. People come to a session to learn something, and to have practical take-aways that they can use when they get back to the office. Or at least that’s true for me.

So that’s what my seminars are – heavy on the take-aways. Sure, I’ve got a couple of the requisite cartoons and polls to get people chuckling, talking, and sharing. A lot of people in my sessions have cool tools and sites to share that I end up checking out when I get back to my office. Prospect research is like that: new tools are popping up every day, and we do love to share them! I think that’s what conference sessions should be about, too.

My session, Using the Web to Manage Information Overload is going to highlight handy web-based resources that will help fundraisers save time and get to the information they need more quickly. Prospect researchers are welcome too – come bring your best tools to manage information overload and be prepared to share and to take away.

Selected meaty take-aways if you can’t make it to the session:

A terrific research metasite from Northwestern’s prospect research department
Another one from Supporting Advancement
Prospect research Tweeters to follow

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!

The Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration (SOFII) has curated a group of great articles on how to be an effective partner with consultants in our sector.  As a riff on Alison McCants’ great web article sharing her experience, I thought I’d add some questions to ask before engaging a research consultant:

1. What resources do you use?
2. Do you purchase them yourself?
3. How often do you attend continuing education courses to keep up with the latest resources and trends?
4. Do you teach any training courses?
5. What types of organizations have you worked for?
6. What kinds of reports do you provide?
7. How much do they cost?
8. May I see samples of your work?
9. How long does it usually take for you to complete a report?
10. May I speak with three current/recent clients?
11. What is your privacy/confidentiality policy? (Thanks to Jen Filla for that one!)
    

Ask a consultant’s references:

1. How easy is this consultant to work with?
2. Do they provide good customer service when something goes wrong?
3. Do they deliver research when promised?
4. How do you feel about the quality of what you receive?
5. Is their work good value for the price?
6. Are they innovative?

Do you have more questions to add?

I just finished Tony Hsieh’s highly-recommended book Delivering Happiness, and it’s gotten me thinking about resources for fundraisers/researchers that provide a WOW factor:  sources that deliver beyond expectations.

For me, that would be a metasite, or web page that has lots of links and resources of help to users.  Here are my top picks in three categories.  What are your favorites?

Best Overall Collaborative Metasite

First up I recommend SupportingAdvancement, a Mall of America-sized site with resources for every department in a fundraising office. The site has free templates, report formats, white papers, and training resources useful to everyone, as well as links to research-specific sites and much more. It’s updated daily and thrives on the generosity of its contributors of content and site sponsors. I could go on, but really, you have to see it to believe it.

Best Metasite Created as a Division-Wide Resource (update: link sadly no longer valid because they liked it so much they turned it into an internal-only resource)(!)

This next site is a resource created by the research team at The University of California San Diego for the entire development department.  It’s called the Development Office Toolkit and they created it using Google Sites (free!) and linked it to the university’s servers.  The site is chock-a-block with information for the whole development office: news of upcoming training classes, pdfs of internal (yet public) reports, how-tos, templates, university event calendars and lots more.

For prospect research specifically, there are pages on ethics and confidentiality policies, information about prospect management and links to lots of research resources, including some niche sources like BloodHorse for finding thoroughbred horse owners.

This is a fantastic example of an internal resource that isn’t just a research department resource, but one created with the needs of the entire division in mind.  And since they used Google Sites to make the resource, you can too!  It’s a great example for others to follow.  Bravo!

Best Metasite For Research-Specific Information

And last but definitely not least, Northwestern University has kept up a comprehensive Research Bookmarks list of several hundred links since the early 1990s, and it is consistently fantastic.  Updated monthly from recommendations within the NU research department and from the prospect research community at large, the list is particularly strong with links to international resources including hard-to-find offshore real estate listings.  It’s been on my bookmarks list for years and it should be on yours, too, if it isn’t already.

If you have other metasites that you’d like to add to this list, comment below!  Let’s crowd-source this!

Here at the Helen Brown Group we are constantly testing new tools and sharing them amongst ourselves.  I asked our team leader/director of research Rick Snyder to share some of the ones he  uses frequently.  Here’s what Rick had to say:

Read It Later (RIL)

The first is a browser add-on called Read It Later (RIL).  It works with all browsers and web-enabled phones.  I think of it as a way to save bookmarks that don’t really deserve to be bookmarks (RIL calls them bookmarklets).  It works across numerous devices, stays in sync, and allows offline reading by downloading pages before you disconnect.

When I first found RIL I was looking into buying a new HDTV.  It was all new to me and I was scouring numerous websites on makes and models, user forums and technical articles.  I needed a way to manage all of the information but I didn’t want to save all of the sites as bookmarks since my project had a discrete end, at which point I’d no longer need them.  Enter RIL.  I ended up saving twenty or more bookmarklets but within a couple of weeks I was done and easily deleted them all.  Had I added them to my regular bookmarks there’s a good chance that they would sit there for years before getting pruned out.

It’s easy to see how this is useful in the research world.  In the course of an average day any researcher will view dozens of websites.  Most of them merit a quick view and then you’re done.  You’ll want to come back to others but maybe it’s the end of the workday and you need to save them to return to the following day.  Or maybe you’re going to continue your work on a different computer and want to be able to access the pages from there.  RIL helps you to save your work without cluttering up your list of “real” bookmarks.

SearchTeam

Another tool that I’ve been playing with is called SearchTeam.  SearchTeam is a collaborative search engine.  It allows multiple people working on the same project to see the results of everyone else’s searches in real time.  You can create a SearchSpace and invite friends and colleagues to join the search with you.  You can share comments, chat in real time, upload files, and more.

As with Read It Later, I came across SearchTeam while working on a personal project and then brought it into my work life.  I’m planning a two-week motorcycle tour of Nova Scotia this summer.  My riding buddy lives in Brooklyn and I live in Maine.  By setting up a Nova Scotia SearchSpace we are able to see each others’ searches, leave comments and chat when we’re online at the same time.  It keeps us from duplicating efforts and by seeing each others’ searches it is spurring us to think of things that each of us may not have come up with alone.

Since much of the work we do in prospect research is solitary in nature, it might not be readily apparent how it can be used.  If you are a member of a research team there will be times when several of you are tasked with working together on a project.  SearchTeam may help you organize and coordinate your efforts.  A couple of years ago our group worked together on a white paper on industries that were faring well in the recession.  SearchTeam would have been a tremendous help to us then.  I’ll be curious to hear back from you about the research-related uses that you find for it.

Evernote

Another promising new tool is Evernote.  It is sort of like a combination of Read It Later and SearchTeam.  It helps you to capture websites, notes, screen shots, sounds, files or video and organize it all into notebooks.  It is accessible from anywhere and works on all platforms.

I believe this is the simplest way I’ve yet come across to capture information in one place from so many disparate sources.  As with Read It Later, it is a handy way to temporarily save sites.  Deleting a notebook with everything you’ve saved on an entity you’ve researched only takes a couple of clicks.  As with SearchTeam, you can share your notebooks with others so they can see the results of your work (read-only in the free version, read/write in the premium).

The free and paid versions of Evernote offer different levels of data storage, notebook sharing, searchability, etc.  The free version is all many of us will need but the added features at the premium level are well worth the $45/year if you become a heavy user.

We’d like to hear from you about new (or old) tools that you use to make your work easier or more efficient.  What is it, how does it work and what do you like best about it?  Shoot us a comment below, or email us!

When my nephew Jason was a little kid, he could drive me crazy with his questions.  He’d start with “What is that man doing?” “He’s digging a hole.”

“Why?” “Well, he’s helping build a bridge.”

“Why?” “The old one washed out.”

“Why?” “Because there was a mudslide.”

“Why?”

Before I knew it, I was trying to explain global weather patterns and El Niño…and quickly getting w-a-y out of my depth.  (Of course, this was before iPhones; I think I’d last a few more rounds now).

“Why?” is the question

In fundraising research, we need to be like four-year-olds every time we do our work.  Every single time we come up against information that doesn’t quite make sense.

Why does that couple belong to a golf club on an island off the coast of Georgia? They live in New York.  Their second home is in Colorado.  What’s going on?  Is their capacity to give larger than we think?

Why is our alumnus not responding to a 45-page proposal we labored over for two solid weeks?  It was a sure thing – he asked us to put it together!

Why did a distinguished business leader suddenly change her giving priorities ten years ago?  It used to be the environment, now she’s into medical research.  Will she give to us?

Something’s just…off

When we research, facts that are asymmetrical should grab our attention and bug us like a stone in our sandal.  We’re not just finding information, plonking it down in a report and throwing it over the transom in a factory line.  Yawn.  Another report done.  Next.

The couple belongs to the island golf club because their third home is there, held in trust in a compound the wife’s grandfather, an oil baron, established.  Fortunately on its website the golf club’s newsletter mentioned the great season-opening party at the couple’s house, with photos of the art collection and the back-story of the oil baron.

The alumnus mentioned in a newspaper interview years ago that he is dyslexic.  Our alum hasn’t read the proposal and didn’t feel comfortable mentioning it.

The prospect’s sister died of a hereditary disease 10 years ago.  In a video interview she discusses how she’s motivated to honor her sibling and find a cure for herself and her family.

These are three real examples* where asking “why?” made a make-or-break difference in our client’s success with engaging a donor.  None of the answers were available on the three main search engines – they were found in deep web sources.

Every piece of research you do could make that difference

We have to keep at it ~ to keep asking “why?”  Yes, it’s a lot more work, but it makes work a lot more interesting.  We researchers live for that “Eureka!” moment, and there’s no better feeling than being part of a gift that transforms a donor, an organization and the people or cause we serve.

*Details changed to preserve anonymity

Clients ask me this question a lot:

“Which online prospect research tool should I buy?”

Then they’ll go on to say:

“My old colleague tells me to use this one because it’s really inexpensive, my consultants tell me I should use their product, and I just heard about something else that’s supposed to integrate with my database …I’m so confused!  Which one is the best?”

It’s a really good question.

You’ve got limited time, limited staff and a limited budget.  Wouldn’t you love to have a tool to be able to look up a name, push a button and get a perfectly-honed strategic research profile on that exact person?

Yeah, me too.  I’m really sorry; it doesn’t exist.  There is no push-button profile.  Although I’m sure the good people at IBM are looking into ways to maximize Watson beyond Jeopardy!

Until then, there are subscription services to multi-database products designed to get as close as possible to this ideal.  In alpha order, the largest services operating in this space are: DonorScape, DonorSearch, FindWealth Online, Prospect Research Online and ResearchPoint.

These products represent a portion of what I consider the Swiss Army Knives of the prospect research world.  They package as many different databases as possible to help with the variety of wealth-and-philanthropy information needs of the typical development office.  Most of these vendors also provide electronic screenings of your database, but you aren’t required to do a screening with the company to purchase access to their look-up service.

But which one is the best?

I guarantee you that within a week, you will know.  You will need to commit about 5 hours of your time, but that time you spend could save you thousands of dollars (and a lot of aggravation).  This is a big decision and depending on the size of your budget this could be a significant purchase for you.  You want the most for your money and a tool that saves you time.   So when you’re ready, just follow these three easy steps:

STEP ONE: Get the lay of the land

First, visit the vendors’ websites and spend 15 minutes familiarizing yourself with each company’s offering.  You will notice some similar databases and features as well as some differences.  Many of the vendors have pdfs with further information for you to download or print.  If you’re a paper person, create a grid.  If you’re a computer person, try Evernote or Zotero, two very cool tools for saving, filing, and creating notes online.

STEP TWO: Kick some tires

Now that you’ve gotten an overview, call the vendors of the products you’re most interested in.  Arrange for all of the product demonstrations to happen on the same day.  Why?

a)      You will begin to form opinions quickly based on what you’re seeing from one product to the next in that short period.

b)      If you ask, most of the vendors will provide a week’s worth of access to test their product after the demo, and you will be able to test them out side-by-side in the week ahead.

Smart, huh?

At this point I would recommend not asking about pricing.  You want the best product for you, not just the cheapest.  The one you select may actually end up being the least expensive, but don’t let that be a factor – yet.

STEP THREE: Take them for a test drive

Do the exact same searches across all of the products, entering names of donors and volunteers you know very well and those you don’t know well at all.  Ten to fifteen of each group should give you the information you’ll need to make a solid decision.

• Which had the easiest interface for you to use?  Which was the most confusing?
• Which gave you the most information?  The least?
• Which gave you the most accurate information based on what you already knew about your insiders?  Which gave the most false hits?
• How easy is it to build and store lists?

And some more general questions to ask yourself…

• How much information do you need to know generally?
• How much time do you have to sift through information?
• What questions about prospects will you need to answer over the coming year?

The focus really sharpens now

Usually at this point a fairly clear ranking is emerging on the decision grid.  If you’re ready to buy, now it’s time to call the sales rep(s) to get pricing for your top one(s).

DO:  Ask for and call three references.  How responsive is the vendor’s customer service? What do they love about the product and what do they find frustrating?

DO:  Find out if a professional association you belong to has negotiated any special discounts with the vendor to maximize your budget.

DON’T: Just go with the service your best friend likes.  Your organizations may be similar, but your situation is completely different from theirs.

Voila!

And there you have it – the very best prospect research Swiss Army Knife lookup service.  You knew I was going to say this all along, didn’t you – it’s the one that’s best for you.

Note: I have specifically omitted tools like Lexis Nexis, Dialog, Factiva, Highbeam, Morningstar and others from this article because I consider them in a different category of information aggregators.  But you can still use the techniques I’ve described above to determine which of those resources would be best for you, too.