Helen Brown Group

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Private Member Clubs

The Cosmos Club, Washington, DC

Traveling by air in recent years has become a slog that no one enjoys. For frequent travelers, the appeal of an airport lounge makes all of the inconveniences slightly more bearable. They’ve got free food and drinks, a place to plug in your laptop, and all the wifi your devices need. There are showers, nap rooms, and gathering spots if you need to hold an impromptu meeting. What’s not to like?

Maybe the overcrowding and the decrease in exclusivity, for two. Credit cards and add-on ticket fees have allowed greater numbers of folks access to airport lounges, making them less pleasant than the club atmosphere of old. But it’s given more middle-to-upper income folks a taste of how the 1% lives, and that is fueling another trend: the rise in private member clubs (PMCs) open to a wider clientele.

For a certain tier of wealth, PMCs have always provided an oasis of calm with food, drinks, and social opportunities. Instead of hanging out with a host of harried nine-to-fivers, there’s just you and others in your profession, or neighborhood, or school affiliation, or sport/leisure activity, (or gender, or race, or other exclusivities). It’s quiet, and there are armchairs and fires.

Or at least that’s how it used to be. Now, if you’re looking for a club where you can relax in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and chat while getting a vitamin C IV drip, or where you can collaborate with other artists, or discuss the relationship of physics and stock derivatives with other like-minded souls, there’s a place for you.

Some PMCs feature a learning element, with lectures and guest speakers and seminars around social change. Others provide space for golfing/racing/yachting, supper clubs and charity events. There’s really something for everyone and, although there are still clubs with stratospheric membership and annual fees, some clubs provide limited low-cost or even free membership based on the values (or personality, or artistry) an individual brings to the club.

The recent pandemic had everything to do with the rapid growth in clubs. New York Times writer Anna Kodé visited seven clubs in the course of her research to learn more about the proliferation of PMCs. She wrote: “These clubs have risen by filling two voids left by the pandemic: the loss of “third places,” or locations distinct from work and home that can foster a sense of community, and the abundance of empty office space amid a new work-from-home culture.”

Both membership in clubs – and clubs themselves – are mushrooming. Over 60 percent of clubs in the US saw growth in membership between 2021 and 2022, according to GGA Partners, a consulting firm for private clubs. Real estate research giant KnightFrank writes that “more PMCs have opened in the past four years than in the three decades following the 1985 opening of London’s iconic Groucho Club.”

And it’s not just in the cities. What piqued my interest to research and write this article in the first place was Knight Frank’s research report showing that that the opening of private member clubs well outside of London is impacting real estate prices and days-to-close by multiples in those areas.

For example: the Cotswolds is an area northwest-ish of Oxford in England. It’s a popular second-home spot for Londoners looking for country air and scenery. Knight Frank reports that demand for homes within a 15-minute drive of the exclusive club Soho Farmhouse (tagline: “A home for the world’s creatives to come together and belong”) was more than twice the rest of the area.

Typically, 12% of buyers registering in the Cotswolds are from outside the UK, but that rises to 26% within the all-important 15-minute drive to Soho Farmhouse. Not only that, but houses within a mile of these clubs sell faster (by 2.5 weeks) compared to similar properties five miles further away.” ~Knight Frank, A Guide to Private Members’ Clubs.

Can it be that proximity to a social club also elevates the price of a property? That’s something worth considering in your research as well. According to the Knight Frank report, “the impact on property values can be significant when the clubs come with luxury facilities.” If you’re wondering why prices are popping upwards in a particular area that seemed steady before, take a look and see if a membership club has moved into the neighborhood. (Or, if your donor/prospect lives in an area where a club is about to move in, watch for an uptick in their property value).

For now, let’s take a look at annual membership for the top 5 “most exclusive private clubs in America” in 2019 according to media and consulting company Private Club Marketing (the full list of the top 11 is  below in the section for further reading).

  1. The Union Club, New York. Initiation fee: $50,000. Annual dues: $10,000
  2. Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C. Initiation fee: $50,000. Annual dues: $10,000
  3. The California Club, Los Angeles. Initiation fee: $25,000. Annual dues: $5,000
  4. Union League of Philadelphia. Initiation fee: $20,000. Annual dues: $4,000
  5. The University Club of Washington, D.C. Initiation fee: $25,000. Annual dues: $5,000

FURTHER READING

11 Most Exclusive Private Clubs in America. Private Club Marketing. (2019)

The Future of Private Clubs: Trends Shaping the Next Decade, June 2024. Private Club Marketing.

A Guide to Private Members’ Clubs. Knight Frank Research. 2024.

A Look Inside New York’s Most Exclusive Social Clubs, by Amy Rosner and Chandler Presson. Gotham. May 21, 2024.

Members-Only Mania: Why Are More Private Clubs Popping Up in New York? by Anna Kodé. New York Times. March 29, 2024.

The Most Exclusive Private Members Clubs in New York by Sasha Huang. PSC. Sep 2, 2023

Top 50 City Clubs 2023-24. Platinum Clubs of America.

 

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365 Days, Six Continents, and 26 Countries

This week the blog belongs to Angie Herrington, who is one of the most resourceful research professionals I know. “Resourceful” in two ways – because not only does Angie always have a great stack of resources in her back pocket, she is the undisputed magnet on our whole team for the most complicated/obscure prospect research assignments, and that has made her very canny. We’re all very lucky to have Angie sharing her resources this week on her new favorite topic – international research. ~Helen

          Angie Herrington

My supervisor: “We have a new client you’ll be working with, and they want to focus only on international research.”

Me: …

Me: …

Me: Sounds great!

The past year has been a travelogue through six continents (sorry Antarctica) and 26 countries. I began with a severe case of imposter syndrome but within a few weeks realized I loved doing international research! In the past my initial reaction was always “where do I even start” or “I’m never going to find anything.” I now look forward to the challenge and creative ways to approach finding actual substantive information to help my client.

The thing about international research is you can’t rely on databases to do the work for you. Channel your prospect research ancestors who looked at primary sources like phone directories and business registries. You have to jump off the modern and well-paved path that’s become a push of a button with data aggregators and start putting together clues to build a picture. Even if you only have a name and a city, the odds are still in your favor you can find something helpful.

Corporate Directories

Corporate directories can be the key to your success when you don’t have information from your database or LinkedIn to rely on for biographical information.

First search to see if the country has a government corporate registry database similar to the U.S.’s individual Secretary of State offices. Examples include the U.K.’s Companies House, the Australian Business Register, or Switzerland’s Central Business Name Index.

There are several sites with varying levels of information searchable by an entity or company’s name. Although some require a subscription, most provide basic details for free. Be sure to use more than one source to verify its accuracy.

  • B2BHint – search over 100 jurisdictions
  • Dato Capital – search companies and officers for 14 countries
  • Infobel – covers 73 countries from 300 telephone subscribers and 270 million businesses
  • Infoclipper – search companies in over 200 countries
  • Kompass – search companies in 70 countries
  • North Data – search companies and officers for 18 countries
  • OpenCorporates – search companies and officers in over 140 jurisdictions
  • OCCRP ID (The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a partner with the ICIJ) – search 181 countries for links to corporate and director databases, stock exchanges, land, legal sites, and more

By using a combination of these sources, you might find incorporation and dissolution dates, addresses, directors, and business descriptions. Look for patterns:

  • Names or addresses connected to other companies or people
  • An address might be their residence
  • Family members who are also part of the company
  • Several sites let you search by a director’s name, and you’ll find current or past employers or board affiliations

Real Estate

Even if you don’t have an exact address, you can still provide an estimate based on the general area, neighborhood, city, or province they might live. Start your search with the full address and based on what you find work backwards by removing the house number, street name, and so on until you can get a sense of the price range, reputation for highly sought after areas, and other indicators. Don’t expect to find exact home values but you can give estimated ranges which are enough to determine wealth, lifestyle, and an initial estimated capacity.

Examples include:

  • Switzerland is one of my favorite countries to research because of its easy to find real estate, even down to the exact address. I’ve had a lot of success with ch, a phone and address directory to find or verify a person’s most up to date home address or phone number. RealAdvisor lets you search homes, rentals, and provides the median value for homes in a postal code. Another good one is immobilier.ch.
  • Idealista Spain, Idealista Italy, and Idealista Portugal are frequently compared to Zillow.
  • Area guides like the UAE’s Bayut also provide details about districts, neighborhoods, and communities including price ranges, amenities, and other valuable information to consider. Area guides and expat discussion boards give some of the best information about where your prospect lives.
  • It’s important to understand address formats. For example, knowing which of the 12 administrative districts in Taipei or the postal code in Bangladesh can help you narrow down neighborhoods and districts to find a range of sales prices.

Bits and Bobs

  • Bookmark the HBG Prospect Research Links Library for more resources, including due diligence, salary and compensation, and global privacy laws.
  • It’s possible the person you’re researching has lived or attended school in the U.S. If you have a subscription to Lexis Nexis for Development Professionals search for current or previously owned homes, family connections, professional licenses, and more. Always use the Advanced Search feature for potential business connections and contact information, biographical details, articles, and due diligence checks for red flags.
  • If you have a subscription to iWave PRO search under the individual’s name AND company. Although the charitable donation amount is shown in USD, double check the provided donor report source or search for one externally. The gift amount from the annual report is usually in the home country’s currency, and you’ll need to convert it.
  • Remember naming conventions can vary and will affect your search results
  • Research the cost of living, especially for putting real estate and compensation in context
  • Search expat websites, travel websites, and similar resources to find the insider information about neighborhoods, income, and culture
  • Copy and paste full text into Google Translate
  • Add a translation extension to your web browser
  • Create a spreadsheet of all of your go-to bookmarks and share them with your coworkers. I’ve collected over 200 bookmarks and organized them by country, type of resource, name/description, and URL.

When it comes to international research it’s important to manage everyone’s expectations. You’re inferring wealth based on pieces of information that might give you a ballpark capacity for your gift officer to further evaluate and work their magic.

And finally, DO NOT forget that prospects in countries in the European Union fall under GDPR and prospects in the UK fall under the very-similar Data Protection Act. Worldwide privacy laws are always evolving including within the U.S. See HBG’s Michele Borucki’s Data Privacy: Where We’ve been and Where We are Going and Jessica Woodbridge’s Data Privacy (Part 2): Practical Tips and Better Practices for additional information.

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The RiF Prospect Research Handbook is out today!

Lots of times we might have a brilliant idea to nudge forward (or perhaps even revolutionize) our profession, but then we think, ugh, is it worth it? That would take forever! And we go back to whatever it was we were doing before our daydream.

Fortunately for all of us that’s not what happened back in 2019 when Ben Rymer, then chair of Researchers in Fundraising (RiF), dreamed up the bold idea to create a soup-to-nuts Prospect Research how-to Handbook. In case you’re not familiar with RiF, it’s the professional association for prospect researchers in the UK. Just like Apra here in North America, RiF has a great conference every year (theirs is in November in London) as well as gatherings throughout the year.

The RiF Handbook (available today!), called Researchers in Fundraising: Best Practice Guide and Handbook for Prospect Research has been a labor/labour of love for many of us in the prospect research community. I was lucky enough to be one of the volunteer editors for a segment or two, and I was impressed at what a well-run machine it was, and what a great job that the project’s manager Ally Lee-Dudley, founder of Adcumulo, did of keeping the operation running so smoothly.

I was interested to learn more about the Handbook and the process of creating it, so I got in touch with Ben, Ally, and Chris Davis, RiF’s current chair, to find out more. Sincere thanks to Ben, Ally, and Chris for sharing these great insights!

Helen: Ben, how did the idea come about to do a Handbook for prospect researchers?

Ben Rymer: When I sent the initial proposal to the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIoF) in August 2019, I’d known for a while that a handbook/textbook/how-to guide was needed. My feeling was that prospect research was still something of a trade, rather than a profession or discipline. We have a huge amount of expertise, experience and goodwill in the community, but it had never completely crystallised into a finished product so we could build on and improve existing good practice.

HB: What was your initial plan for the scope of the project, and did that change at all as it evolved?

BR: All I knew was that the main areas of research practice should be included. Basically I wanted to create something that I would’ve found practically useful in my first job in the sector. We cast the net wide in starting, with plans for 23 chapters. The big trade-off since then has been in response to volunteer availability. All the content is crowd-sourced, and so we have to work in sequence with the expertise of volunteers who come forward … Also, Covid hit a short time after project kick-off, but we pivoted to remote working pretty well, thankfully.

HB: Ally, how did you get involved with the project?

Ally Lee-Dudley: My involvement with the project began in January 2020 when the Steering Group were looking for a Project Manager to move the Handbook from a great concept to a work in progress. At this time there were not yet any structures, processes, or resources in place so this really was the beginning of the Handbook as an active project.

HB: How many volunteers were part of it?

AL-D: To date around 90 volunteers have contributed to the Handbook, some as writers, some as editors, some as beta-readers, as some as micro-volunteers. Volunteers come from 3 different continents, and around a dozen different countries making the volunteer effort an international collaboration.

HB: How many chapters are there, and how was the decision made on which topics to include?

AL-D: At launch, 8 chapters are available for readers plus a Resource Director and Glossary of industry terms and phrases. There are another 7 chapters in progress which will be published as and when they are completed and a further 11 chapters that are yet to be started. Publishing content on a staggered basis like this means we are able to start getting useful content out and into the prospect research community far more quickly than if we wait for a ‘complete’ Handbook. The original list of potential chapters was developed through discussions between the volunteers who make up the RiF Committee. Over time several additional chapters have been added to that list as a result of suggestions made by volunteers involved with the project.

HB: Chris, as the scope of the project evolved, what changes did that cause you to make?

Chris Davis: As we added more chapters to the Handbook, we found ourselves looking beyond our immediate peer group for input and advice, to those with specific expertise or lived experience. For example, in our chapter on Strategic International Prospecting, we were aware that we needed to get as much input as possible not only from researchers with extensive knowledge of international prospect research, but also from those with experience of living or working in different countries and communities. This was definitely a challenge, but I hope we got the balance right! Similarly, when we start work on the chapter on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in Prospect Research we’ll be seeking involvement from those who are experts in the ED&I space.

HB: What surprised you most about the process, or what created the most changes or opportunities as things went along?

CD: I think I was surprised by how much content we ended up generating! I knew that the prospect research community would be hugely generous with their time and knowledge, but I was still taken aback at times by the volume of work we ended up producing. At this point I’d have to give a big shout out to our beta-reading and editing volunteers, who were a major help in clarifying and refining the chapters and getting them to where they are now.

HB: Ben, what do you think are the top 3 things that readers will find that might surprise them?

BR: 1. Reach: it is a big thing! Chapters I’ve worked on have ended up being 10,000-20,000 words long. We also have a very broad range of topics, so I think readers will be pleasantly surprised at that.

  1. What’s still to come: by the same token, there are some big chapters in the pipeline, so reader may be left waiting for those. If anyone has suggestions, please feel free to get in touch via the Handbook website, www.rifhandbook.info.
  2. Quality: we’ve put a lot of effort into making the content as good as it can be. For a wholly volunteer-generated initiative I think it is a solid product, but I’m biased of course!

HB: Chris, what do you think are the top things that you think readers will find most useful in the Handbook?

CD: I think that will be different depending on the needs and experiences of readers – throughout the Handbook we’ve tried to ensure that content is relevant for both those who are new to prospect research and for experienced researchers who are looking to innovate and upskill.

For early-career researchers or those who are setting up a prospect research function, we hope our New Researchers Guide chapter and the chapter on The Prospect Research Role will be invaluable. Within the Data & Skills Domain of the Handbook, there is some very detailed, nuanced, and in-depth content on estimating wealth and assigning capacity ratings – topics that we know are of eternal interest to prospect researchers and fundraisers alike!

Finally, we’ve made extensive use of case studies throughout the Handbook, drawn from the real-life experiences of researchers. We hope these will really bring the content the life and illustrate how the principles and techniques outlined in the Handbook can be applied practically.

HB: Chris, what did you enjoy most about the process?

CD: I’ve really enjoyed the experience of being involved in creating content for the Handbook, especially the early stages of this where you are exchanging knowledge with your peers. I’ve been working in prospect research for over a decade, but being involved with the Handbook has absolutely encouraged to rethink some of my settled views about the work that we do, and how we do it. I think the Handbook does reflect this process of peer exchange, and I hope that everyone who uses it will find something new and different in there that challenges their assumptions.

HB: Ally, What tools did you use for collaboration on this massive project and how well did they work? If you had another large collaborative project to undertake, would you use the same tools?

AL-D: The Handbook was always intended to be primarily a remote project, so in that sense we were lucky and the pandemic didn’t significantly affect our plans. In order to help ensure both accessibility of tools at no cost for volunteers and to help embed project sustainability by keeping the financial burden of the project low for RiF, we’ve largely drawn on tools that are available for free. As a Steering Group, our project management hub is a tool called Freedcamp, and this enables us to plot and track actions, deadlines, and milestones and assign task accountability at a strategic level.

For the Handbook’s wider volunteer community, the free version of MS Teams is our collaborative workspace. Teams provides us with a place to create, share, and store documents such as meeting agendas and action plans, and to work collectively on producing and editing content in real-time whilst being able to communicate quickly and easily with each other. Within Teams volunteers can access the web versions of MS Word and Excel so we’re all using the same tools to ensure compatibility plus there is in-build versioning history and storage back-up for those ‘just in case’ moments.  We’ve recently made the switch from using Zoom for our regular meetings to using MS Teams’ video calling service; it doesn’t quite have all the same features as Zoom but it does come at zero cost rather than requiring a subscription to hold meetings for small groups for up to an hour at a time.

The Handbook itself is created using a custom-made WordPress website. We chose the route of e-publishing over hard copy for several reasons and the WordPress platform, with its almost unlimited flexibility and versatility, is the best fit to meet the Handbooks needs both now and in the future. As an e-publication it is not only much easier to keep the Handbook content up to date, it is also far simpler to ensure its availability to readers around the world who can access the content from any device with a web browser.

Overall, aside from the usual occasional IT glitch, (we’ve done the equivalent of turn it off and on again once or twice), the tools we’ve chosen have been effective and created not only a conduit for remote productivity and development, but also a space to come together a a community and experience that sense of being part of a team working towards a common goal that is so important to the Handbook.

Many thanks again to Ben, Chris, and Ally for sharing the inside scoop on the RiF Prospect Research Handbook, and for all of the hard work and coordination that went into creating it! Check out the Handbook website at www.RiFHandbook.info. If you would like to be a volunteer writer or editor for future chapters, please visit this page to learn more.

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Expanding our view on HNWI and their real estate holdings

The year 2020 was weird all around. A global pandemic raged across the globe like the wildfires in California. The stock market blithely ignored it and soared.

The supply chain was MacGyvered on the fly with duct tape and dental floss by businesses scrambling to get products out of warehouses and into peoples’ houses. Meanwhile, the technology industry Zoomed ahead.

Also, global wealth rose 7.6%. An additional 6% more people in the world moved up a rung to become official high net worth individuals (HNWIs). Six percent more people wondering where on Earth to put all that extra cash.

Places we go to find that out

[Read more…]

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European-style foundations come to the United States

Bethlem Hospital, London, 1677. Engraving.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images (http://wellcomeimages.org)

Foundations have existed in Europe for over 600 years. The oldest is likely Bethlem (aka “Bedlam”) Royal Hospital, which has been taking care of the mentally ill without interruption since the 1400s in London. Even though it’s a charitable organization, it’s called a foundation because that’s the legal way it was set up.

The way foundations are set up in Europe is different in the law than the way foundations (as we know them) are set up here in the US. (At least, until now – I’ll get to that in a minute). [Read more…]

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Companies House: a treasure trove of info on UK companies

Carrying on with the theme of prospect research and the UK for another week, I’m delighted to welcome Toby Savin as the author of today’s Intelligent Edge article on finding information about companies and company directors from Companies House. An experienced researcher and leader in the UK prospect development community, Toby is Development Research Manager at the University of Leeds. My thanks to Toby for sharing his knowledge! ~Helen

Over here in the UK, for all the challenges we face, including (and because of) a culture where it’s still seen by many as crass or taboo to discuss money even in the context of giving it away to a worthy cause, the prospect research community has one resource that our counterparts elsewhere can only dream of: Companies House.

Companies House is the UK registrar of companies and there are 4.4 million companies (and their associated filings) on the register, many of which are privately-owned. This includes not just limited companies, whether quoted on an exchange or not, but also limited partnerships (the legal business structure of choice for private equity funds and hedge funds) and limited liability partnerships (‘LLPs’), which have been astonishingly popular across many sectors of the economy since being introduced in the UK in 2001, thanks to the twin benefits of limiting partners’ liability and not incurring UK corporation tax. It also includes companies limited by guarantee (as opposed to share capital), a structure much used by charitable trusts and foundations.

What’s more, it’s free to access this data: in 2015, a Beta version of the register – freely available to anyone with an internet connection – was launched as part of the UK government’s commitment to free, open data. Sure, the register has its faults: one major issue, which was successfully used to push for a formal consultation on reforming the register last year, is that the information filed is not actually verified or checked by anyone at Companies House.

But, unlike data on non-quoted companies that many other countries are forced to rely on (typically, top line numbers self-reported to large data vendors within a voluntary and entirely unregulated framework), in the UK there is a statutory requirement to formally submit a whole range of filings and many of the accounts themselves are externally audited. Make no mistake: this is a treasure trove of public data that ought to make us the envy of researchers across the world, especially the US, where finding reliable, detailed information on privately-held companies can be difficult or impossible.

Want to know not just who owns a particular company but how much they own? Check.

Want to know the total compensation of the highest paid director? Check.

How about estimating the value of a privately-owned business? For sure, this is a tricky pursuit at the best of times (like a house, a business is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it) but close to impossible – and perhaps even futile – if you have only sparse, unreliable numbers to hand. Here too, Companies House can help: businesses of a certain size are required file full audited accounts with a profit and loss account, balance sheet and cash flow statement.

And in addition to the hard numbers, Companies House provides an abundance of less tangible (but equally useful) information. A Chairman’s Statement on the company’s performance and strategy, for example, might be taken with a large pinch of salt by a forensic accountant looking for fraud but in the hands of a savvy prospect researcher, the salient points can be summarised and used by a frontline fundraiser to completely transform a discovery meeting with that top prospect who hitherto has been impossible to engage.

For anyone wanting to tap this most valuable of resources as part of their prospect research (or indeed gift acceptance due diligence), here are some things to take into consideration.

Firstly, if you intend to process any personal data, you’ll need to carry out an assessment as to what research is acceptable from a data protection perspective. There is an abundance of guidance available, from bodies like the Institute of Fundraising and CASE (the Council for Advancement and Support of Education).

Secondly, you’d do well to keep tabs on any changes to the legislation governing the information that companies are required to disclose (thankfully, these are widely reported across the blogosphere and beyond) as well as changes to the search functionality and other aspects of the free Companies House beta service itself (signing up to be a member of the user panel can help with this).

Last but by no means least, you really need to know what you’re doing: the proverb “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” might as well have its origins in interpreting data in company accounts. This one is a bit trickier to address but I’d like to highlight a couple of initiatives that will help.

Here in the UK, Researchers in Fundraising (RiF), a special interest group of the Institute of Fundraising, has launched a major project to develop a Researcher’s Handbook (including a chapter specifically on estimating wealth and capacity). Work on this is in progress and in the meantime, one very enterprising former prospect researcher has been working with some of the best talent in the sector (and me) to launch a Community Interest Company called PyroTalks offering a wide range of (virtual) conferences and training sessions, including a number that are specifically aimed at helping prospect researchers navigate some of the data you can find on the Companies House register.

Companies House isn’t the only source of useful data on UK organisations and potential donors but it is an essential part of any researcher’s tool kit; and, for all its faults, we’re lucky to have it. Take a look and expand your UK company knowledge.

Toby Savin is Development Research Manager at the University of Leeds in the UK, having joined the Alumni & Development Office there in 2010. Prior to this, he spent a decade working for a leading business risk consultancy in London and then a Nasdaq-quoted fraud prevention company, carrying out investigative due diligence and background checks on employees and vendors for banks, hedge funds and FTSE 100 clients.

In between these two ten-year periods working as a researcher, he gained first hand experience of worker-controlled co-operatives at two food co-ops in Manchester and volunteered on a number of different food and environmental projects. This experience formed the basis of a dissertation on the co-operative movement as part of a Master’s degree in Food Policy at City University in London, which he successfully completed with Distinction in 2011. Toby also holds a Bachelor’s degree, with Honours, in Hispanic Studies from the University of Birmingham, UK.

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A bigger boat

My brother-in-law’s voice had a huge smile in it when I picked up the phone. He might not even have bothered with a “hi.” Just: “You’re going to love this, Helen.”

As part of his and my sis-in-law’s kayak and outrigger tour business in Jaco, Costa Rica, Neil captains the Ashuma, a trimaran that guests book for day sails in Herradura Bay.

Neil’s also got a pretty good nose for prospect research, and every once in awhile he comes across a tip or resource he knows I’ll like, usually related to Central American sources or to yachts and/or the people who own them.

“I’m standing on Ashuma looking at the Hodor. Nice helicopter on the back. I’m going to send you a picture.” 10 seconds later, this pops up on What’s App:

Hodor. Photo by Neil Kahn

Now, Ashuma is not exactly a small sailboat – she’s 7.6 meters (25 feet) long, but Neil tells me she’s a dingy next to the Hodor, which I later learn is 66 meters long (216 feet).

As Neil is talking about what she looks like, I click the link to the article on the building of the Hodor on Super Yacht Times that he sent after the photo. It’s got lots of nice pictures which I start to scan through.

I see a helicopter, three or four boats on the deck, a winchy-crane-looking thing, three dune buggies, a gorgeous cabin and galley…

I’m skimming, skimming, mainly looking at the pictures, not really reading because he’s still on the phone…and that’s when I see it.

“Wait! Neil??!?”

Neil chuckles at the tone of my voice: “I was waiting for you to find that.” Simultaneously he and I both say, “SHE’S THE SUPPORT YACHT.”

My exhale turns into an almost-silent “holy cow.”

Lonian. Photo by Neil Kahn

Hodor is essentially a floating carriage house carrying the 20 support crew and toys that don’t fit on – or that they don’t want crowding up – the $125 million, 87 meter (285 foot) superyacht Lonian. Lonian is owned by 51-year-old Las Vegas billionaire, philanthropist, and art collector Lorenzo Fertitta and his wife, Theresa. The megayacht only has room for 12 guests, so you can imagine how big each stateroom is.

There are lots more resources

As we were about to hang up, I mentioned to Neil that two weeks ago my colleague Rick Snyder (no relation to this fine craft) wrote an article chock-full of resources that can help us think about (and estimate) the additional costs that a wealthy lifestyle entails. Nannies, housekeepers, family office managers – all of the people needed to keep the small village of everyday high net worth life running smoothly.

Neil’s call was another reminder to me (and to all of us) not to take things we see at face value, but to look behind the cost of the big yacht (or house, or island) to see if there’s an even bigger one to consider. Fortunately, there’s lots of information about these wealth indicators if you know where to look for them.

For example, if you ever happen to be walking down a wharf and see a yacht in a slip (or slipping down the waterway you’re walking by) you can check it out on the very handy MarineTraffic.com. The website/app doesn’t go into detail about a watercraft’s ownership, but you can get a lot of information for free about that ship sailing by.

Besides that and the other sources linked in this article, help yourself to lots more yacht (and art, and horse, and jet) resources which can be found in the “Wealth Indicators” section of the HBG Prospect Research Links (Americas page). Access is free; we just require your email address (which we don’t use to mail you) to register to access the pages.

If you have other favorites, don’t be shy – share them here with all of us, and I’ll add them to the links page for everyone to use.

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Fact-checking the fact-checkers

My research mentors drilled into me the importance of verifying information that I put into a profile by checking at least two (and preferably, three) separate sources to fact-check.

You might not do that for every single piece of information, depending on the original source, but especially for the things that needed to be right. Address, for example. Spouse and children’s names, for another.

And by verifying the facts, they also meant that if the information was found in three different newspapers, I needed to be careful that it wasn’t one Associated Press report that was simply re-published in three media outlets.

A question came up amongst my team this week that adds another dimension to this verification imperative.

How do you know that you can trust the resource itself? Especially if it’s from a source you’re unfamiliar with, or located in another country?

You certainly don’t want to cite authoritatively from what you later discover to be the Dutch or Japanese or Saudi equivalent to InfoWars, right? If you don’t know the language, and you’re unfamiliar with the culture, honest mistakes can happen, but it’s best to avoid them in the first place.

On the other hand, it’s possible that the resource you cite is fairly reliable, but tends to lean to the left or right politically. That’s not such an issue, but it’s always good to consider the source in your reporting, and to make sure you’re transparent when citing information.

Earlier this week the HBG team shared with each other some of the resources we use to have confidence in the information we’re reporting, and I thought you might be interested to know about them, too.

MediaBias/FactCheck (MBFC) is a free source to check the political slant of US periodicals. Plug in the name of a periodical and Media Bias/Fact Check will tell you if the newspaper or magazine has a left- or right-leaning slant or if it is a questionable resource. As I mentioned, it’s free, so be prepared for an onslaught of ads on the page.

Media Bias Ratings from AllSides is another great resource for checking the bias of over 600 news sources in the United States and around the world. AllSides also provides a homepage with the top stories with links to reporting from the left, center, and right to give everyone an opportunity to step out of their own filter bubble.

Not quite sure what constitutes a bias to the left vs. right? This infographic from Information Is Beautiful simplifies things quite a bit (well, it is an infographic after all), but it’s generally a good overview of the differences in political-spectrum viewpoint.

Want to know more generally about how you can battle the onslaught of fake news? (I don’t mean fake fake news, but real fake news). A joint study by researchers at Dartmouth and the University of Michigan provides several new insights about the most effective ways to counter fake news on social media, and this article by Journalist’s Resource from Nieman Lab describes the results of their research (and several other studies in the same vein) in plain English.

What resources do you use to fact-check the fact-checkers?

 

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7 Highlights from the Knight Frank Wealth Report

One of the yearly reports that sends a tingle up the collective spines of the prospect research community is The Wealth Report from Knight Frank. The 2019 edition came out this week, and my copy is already highlighted and sticky-noted – how ‘bout yours?

If you haven’t had a chance to download and read it yet, here are seven highlights I didn’t want you to miss… [Read more…]

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Don’t miss this new report

Nobody has ever scientifically measured the role of prospect research in major donor fundraising before. Sure, we researchers have always been confident in our knowledge that research is important for fundraising success, but how do end-users really feel? How exactly is it important? What parts are most useful? How do fundraisers actually use the information they receive?

And – scary question to ask – could fundraisers do as well raising funds without prospect research? [Read more…]

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