By: Christine Bariahtaris, Senior Consultant
Christine Bariahtaris
While on vacation last week, I was catching up with some family friends I had not seen in a while and found myself answering the usual question: “What is it you’re doing for work again?” I suspect most of us are used to this – prospect research is a niche field. What I don’t usually get asked was my friend’s follow-up question: “How do you know when to stop?”
Knowing when to call it on a research profile is tricky, especially for those new to our field, since it’s a skill best learned on the job. As a new prospect researcher, it’s tempting to follow every possible tangent. As someone with ADHD, calling it quits was an even bigger challenge for me, since every avenue of information can become distracting. Once, I was researching a small foundation that gave a gift to my organization and ended up spending hours in the online archives of San Diego State University reading the family’s history. Super interesting for me…but not so much for the gift officer who had to read the novel of a profile I submitted.
In 2023, Stevens Institute of Technology conducted a study showing that more information is not, as my kid would say, “more better” by default. In fact, extra information can make it even more difficult to make decisions, which defeats the purpose of prospect research: to help fundraising teams make better strategic decisions.
When I’m writing a profile, I’m on the lookout for figurative “do not enter” signs that can help me avoid unnecessary rabbit holes and decide when the research is ready to send along. Here are some examples of what tells my brain to pump the brakes:
Red Flags
Let’s get the ugly stuff out of the way. I don’t move forward with research if I find information that signals reputational risk without consulting the person who has requested it. This includes criminal records (beyond a traffic ticket), membership in recognized hate groups, involvement in political scandals, etc. Every organization has its own level of risk tolerance; what may be a red flag to your team may not phase another. As a researcher, it’s important that you’re aware of what your organization considers problematic, so that you can identify issues early on without wasting time on a prospect that is going nowhere with your team.
Out of Bounds
Getting your team to refine their requests to be more specific can go a long way towards clarifying an end point, and there are a few approaches you can take. A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about adapting the library reference interview for prospect research, and I still stand by that advice. The interview encourages communication, so it acts as a relationship booster as well as a research intake method. I am also a fan of creating different research templates to accommodate specific types of requests (ex: wealth and giving reports vs. comprehensive full profiles) as it eliminates guesswork – if the section isn’t on the template, you don’t need to look for it! You can also assign template types to relationship stages to help moves management, giving frontline fundraisers an idea of what amount of information is appropriate at what stage as their donor relationships progress.
Dead End
I am loathe to admit defeat when working on a profile. The internet truly is forever, and there is a good chance that the info you are looking for is out there (as long as it’s publicly available). But every once in awhile, a prospect has covered their digital tracks well enough that the effort required to find the information isn’t worth the time required. For giving history, the information may truly not exist online if organizations have not made their annual reports available or highlighted your prospect’s gifts. If I’m striking out with my preferred sources, I head over to the Wayback Machine and cross my fingers someone has saved a relevant page. If that also comes up blank, I take it as my sign from the universe that I’ve lost this round, and that’s okay – no one bats 1.000 over the course of their career (except John Paciorek, because of course I looked it up).
Interesting to Me, But Not to Thee
This is by far the most difficult sign to recognize as a new researcher, especially if you love falling down rabbit holes (guilty). I love being a researcher because it’s rarely boring – there are tons of interesting people out there! My favorite tangents are usually family history: that great-great grandmother who entertained European royalty, a 19th century nouveau riche family’s carefully arranged marriages to cement high social standing, that Southern California cattle ranch that became the subject of the longest probate case in state history (true story!). But at the end of the day…likely none of that matters to a gift officer who is just trying to arrange a coffee meeting to see if a donor wants to support pediatric care. So, I’ve learned to hit pause when I find myself combing through old newspapers and ask, “This is interesting to me, but is it interesting to thee?” And if the truth is that the info that I find so fun provides nothing actionable to the fundraiser, it’s my responsibility to climb out of the rabbit hole and refocus. When I’m reading through a profile and the only avenues left are fun-to-me rabbit holes, it’s time to finish up.
Most researchers I know are naturally curious and are good at their jobs because of that quality, but let’s leave the mass information regurgitation to the robots. We’re here to maximize informational impact, not information quantity. Knowing when to stop signals good data judgment, not a white flag of surrender.
