Non-profit trends Archives - Helen Brown Group

February 16, 2023 By Helen Brown

Prospect Research and AI

“Spot the 8 Differences” Photo by Theen Moy (https://www.flickr.com/photos/theenmoy/)
Copyright https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Let me start by saying what this article is NOT about.

This is not about the increasing presence of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools that are being used in the fundraising sector, primarily for the purposes of identifying, segmenting, and/or communicating with constituents. Used wisely by those who understand its limitations and its strengths, AI does have applications that can help fundraisers be more efficient, saving time (and therefore, money).

(It’s also not about the fact that nearly three quarters of the words I have typed so far for this article were pre-filled in as I typed them based on words and sentences I had written previously. That’s AI and ML for you: helpful, at times. Well, equal parts annoying and helpful, to be honest.)

This article is about being able to trust the resources we use to provide reliable data to frontline fundraisers. Data we produce that informs their decisions about whom they should ask for support and at what level. And, from a due diligence perspective, who is safe to ask to affiliate with a nonprofit.

Trust, but verify

I learned early in my career from my mentors to verify every piece of information that would go into a profile unless it came from a rock-solid source, like a newspaper or magazine, Who’s Who, an assessors database, or Standard & Poors. Not all blue-chip resources made the ultimate-trust list, though, just because it had a well-known name. (yes, I’m looking at you, D&B).

Generally speaking – newspapers and magazines made that trustworthy list because of the prevalence of fact-checking in journalism.

Obviously, things have changed over the last several years with the proliferation of media outlets catering to increasingly segmented audiences, but – as long as you consider the source and confirm stray-seeming threads – big-name periodicals have remained a reasonably safe bet for reliable, trustworthy information.

Enter the dragon

What was one of the first things you did when you signed up for ChatGPT? For prospect research folks, let me guess – you asked it to provide a definition of prospect research, right? Yeah, me too. It did a pretty good job, didn’t it.

But ask it to write a blog post on a topic related to prospect research and you get something so dull that it makes our endlessly-interesting profession sound like a month-long visit to the Museum of the History of Nuts, Bolts, and Screws, with the full two-hour introduction documentary filmed in 1967. In the original Flemish, with Danish subtitles.

But dull is one thing. Providing unchecked – and seriously flawed – information is entirely another.

Last week Men’s Journal published an article called “What All Men Should Know About Low Testosterone” that was written entirely by artificial intelligence but without giving readers a heads-up that a machine created the copy. It didn’t take long for people, including experts, to notice.

Bradley Anawalt MD, the chief of medicine at the University of Washington Medical Center told science and tech site, Futurism, that there were 18 factual errors in the short, 659-word article.

Futurism reported that “Some [errors] were flagrantly wrong about basic medical topics, like equating low blood testosterone with hypogonadism, a more expansive medical term. Others claimed sweeping links between diet, testosterone levels, and psychological symptoms that Anawalt says just aren’t supported by data.”

Now, I’m not saying that I’d trust Men’s Journal for medical advice over, say, the Harvard Health Letter, or the Mayo Clinic newsletter, but it’s not like it’s some quack click-bait-y site. As someone on Mastodon quipped the other day, Men’s Journal is “truly the SunnyD of journalism.” But, you know, SunnyD’s got some fruit juice in there.

We expect this from clickbait. But we’re talking about information from (formerly?) reliable outlets here.

Anyone who has been on the web for awhile can gennnnnerally guess when an article is click-bait. If not, it becomes pretty clear once you’ve gotten to whatever website they pulled you to.

But you expect Men’s Journal, owned by Arena Group, also publishers of Sports Illustrated and The Street (“Business news that moves markets, award-winning stock analysis, market data and investment ideas”) to publish reliable (or at least, vetted) info. You don’t feel like you should have to fact-check it at a basic level, especially when it’s providing health advice on such a serious topic.

But until it was fact-checked and fixed, that Men’s Journal article could have seriously affected someone’s health if they took its advice on testosterone levels.

Finance and technology, too

The same concern about negative impact goes for CNET, the site that’s been a resource on all-things technology since it debuted in 1994. CNET is held by Red Ventures, owners of other venerable media titles like ZDNet, Healthline, and Bankrate (“The trusted provider of accurate rates and financial information.”)

In November of last year, CNET quietly started publishing articles generated entirely by AI, which in certain cases aren’t such a bad thing, but it turns out this group of articles were lousy with errors. And the information that they did have right…was proven to have been plagiarized. From competitors.

Yeah, it’s not a good look.

I’ve got nothing against AI. In fact, as I said up top there are areas it’s been applied to in our industry (and beyond, of course) that have definite potential.

The problem is that I’ve used The Street and CNET as sources. If I were researching an athlete, Sports Illustrated would probably be one of my first stops. I probably would (have) put those publications on the “Do Not Need To Verify” list. Now they’re firmly on my “Grain of Salt” list.

Stuff like this undermines our confidence in outlets we’ve previously trusted. Or at least not mistrusted. Verifying more and more adds to the time it takes us to do our work.

What to do?

It’s going to get murkier as time goes by, as article generation technology is used more widely.

So first of all, make sure you’re double-checking bylines. Look for a real person (or several) listed as the authors and/or editors. After the serious cutting in newsrooms, much of what we read is created by freelancers instead of staff writers – and that’s okay. You can check LinkedIn or see other articles they’ve written if you’re concerned about their own fact-checking and you need to rely on the information they provide.

Keep it old-school: If the information is critical, verify it from at least two sources (that weren’t cribbing off each other). And if you’re not sure, a written disclaimer and a quiet word with the information recipient are your best CYA friends. Yesterday’s Washington Post has a good article on the use of AI, chatbots, and things you can do to get reliable information from search engines.

Finally, stay educated. Be aware of what the tech is capable of now, what its limitations are, and plan accordingly in terms of how you gather, synthesize, and present your own work. And if you can, support local, regional, and national journalism that works hard to vet the facts.

January 6, 2023 By Helen Brown

Staying Positive

Lucy Poludniak

Since the beginning of the pandemic (and maybe because of it), many of us are taking a step back to consider the importance of wellness – both in the sense of wellness as a physical or mental activity like meditation, yoga, or hiking, but also as a consideration of what being “well” means for each of us. The beginning of a new year is a great time to reflect on this, and this week’s author, HBG’s Lucy Poludniak, brings her reflections and some solutions to the consideration of bringing well-ness into a new year. ~Helen

The holiday season is ending and all the sentimental music, decorations, family recipes, unbridled joy and infrequent fellowship will be tucked safely away as normalcy resumes. I am exceedingly thankful to have survived this holiday season because it is always a struggle for me to remain positive. “Bah humbug!” is always beneath my surface holiday smile partially because the expectations of good cheer are so unreasonably high and partially because my life is nothing like those depicted in the Hallmark Christmas movies or myriad home-for-the-holidays commercials.

Please don’t misunderstand. I am generally an optimistic person and can put a positive spin on nearly any situation, but the end-of-year requests from multiple nonprofit organizations always tempers the holidays with the feeling that the world is in such a mess. How can I stay positive when faced with so many Dickensian appeals, especially when I am privy to inside information on the unimaginable wealth some people hold in relation to their philanthropy. I love the work I do and see it as my contribution to making the world a better place, yet sometimes I find it disheartening to realize that high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) never seem to make a meaningful dent in their net worth despite gifting millions.

Why is that? Through research I have found that HNWIs use various tried and true and new techniques to safeguard wealth. I’m sure these are familiar to you: limited liability companies (LLCs), trusts, stocks, dividends, donor advised funds (DAFs), real estate investments, private equity, and foundations. A new one I discovered this year is philanthrocapitalism. If you haven’t heard about it, let me direct you to a 2019 article in the Berkeley Economic Review: “The Merits and Drawbacks of Philanthrocapitalism.” From what I understand, it is a hybrid of business and philanthropy that offers a return on investment. I do not understand the concept of expecting something in return for gifting, but that is because I have never been wealthy enough to make financial investments. I cannot fathom the mindset of HNWIs and that probably contributes to my struggle to remain positive while doing research, especially during the holidays.

But I try to keep everything in perspective. An understanding of how the wealthy become and remain wealthy helps me balance my holiday mood swings. Informative articles such as ProPublica’s 2021 article, “The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax,” help but still leave me wondering if there isn’t more that can be done by philanthropists to provide the woeful basics of life to the majority of the world’s population, you know: food, water, clothing, shelter. Health care would also be nice since philanthropy has progressed since Dickens’ day.

Are my thoughts on the imbalance between the haves and have-nots becoming too much for you? Do you sometimes get disheartened when doing research? Here are some simple methods I have found useful in remaining optimistic, staying positive, and keeping up my spirits:

Cuddle a pet. I have two rescue dogs who are happy to oblige my need for hugs. Unconditional love, anyone?
Look, up in the sky. Sometimes, just marveling at how blue the sky is can free my mind of its heaviness. Watching sunrises and sunsets are especially rewarding.
Take a walk. I’m no longer a 10,000-step-a-day fiend but my 20 minutes—even in the rain—improves my day. Walking is good for your overall health and being outside is even better.
Get outside. Sometimes I forget to take a break from the computer screen and must remind myself to at least walk to the mailbox. By the way, that’s how I found my second rescue dog. She was loose in the neighborhood and wandered over to me. So, please step away from the screen, go outside and rediscover nature for the sake of your senses: hear the birds, see the fog, feel the breeze, smell the flowers, taste the rain.
Daydream. I am especially good at letting my mind wander since I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. I was the one in kinder class looking out the window when the teacher called my name.
Imagine what you would do if you won the Lotto. Frankly, I believe that researching HNWIs is also preparation for my imagined winnings (a silver lining) and here’s a link to a helpful article for more advice.
Ponder an inspiring quote or idiomatic expression. I favor Anne Frank’s: “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

When your research, or any other situation or season, turns your mood awry, please know that you are not alone. Acknowledge that working in philanthropy, while rewarding, can also be stressful and disheartening. If you need help and find that sharing your feelings with a friend or family member aren’t helping you feel better, you can talk to someone 24/7 at Lifeline, 800-273-8255, or dial 988. You can also try the NAMI HelpLine, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. (ET) at 800-950-NAMI (6264) or text “HelpLine” to 62640.

October 20, 2022 By Helen Brown

Widening our perspective about giving in America

I got a new phone about 6 months ago (is it really a phone? do I actually use it as a phone? why do we call these things phones?) and I’m still getting used to the fancy camera. I really like the portrait mode, but it is constantly telling me to back up. I want it to change its focus, but no – I’m the one who keeps needing to change mine. Fine. But in the meantime I have a lot of stubbornly blurry photos.

I thought about that this week as I was reading a fascinating article from Vox titled “What happened to giving money to charity?”

It’s been a big source of concern lately in our sector, this rapid decline in the number of donors giving to nonprofit organizations. While the total dollars donated to nonprofits continues to increase annually – according to a study by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy (IUPUI) the amount last year was nearly $485 billion – the percentage of Americans giving to nonprofits dipped below 50% for the first time in 2018.

So what’s going on? What accounts for people being so much less generous?

Well it turns out that, according to the experts, we’re just not looking at the whole picture. We really need to back up and get a wider view. Of course.

If you don’t track it, you can’t measure it

For academics who study philanthropy like Lucy Bernholz, a senior research scholar at Stanford University, the seeming decline in number of people giving in the USA caused her to consider the question in a different way than more traditional reports of annual philanthropy have done.

And what she found is that the traditional way of looking at philanthropy in America isn’t capturing the whole picture. As she remarked, we’re just not counting everything that counts. Philanthropy has “centered writing a check to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit as the singular act of giving in this country,” she told Recode. But that’s not nearly all that people are doing philanthropically.

Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer at GivingTuesday observed “Most giving in the US does not involve nonprofit organizations.”

That’s some statement, eh? For those of us working in the nonprofit sector, that’s a pretty sobering observation.

The good news is that people are still generous. They are still giving. They’re just giving differently, and in ways that are harder to track (in the ways we’ve been tracking them up until now).

People are giving directly to others through GoFundMe or Facebook or directly amongst their friend groups. They’re joining giving circles or doing point-of-sale giving at the grocery store. They’re using platforms like GiveButter for direct peer-to-peer giving.

From the Vox article:

“According to a 2022 study by Independent Sector 57 percent of Gen Z believe that giving directly has more impact than giving to nonprofits.”

So that’s interesting from a traditional nonprofit/prospect research perspective, eh? How do we widen our vision to take into account those ways of giving as we consider prospective donors to add to major donor pipelines?

And/Or, how do we creatively utilize those new-ish giving platforms to bring donors who like giving in those ways – to us?

When you get a chance, please do take a look at the article and don’t forget to click on the studies and other articles that it draws on. It’s an eye-opening perspective on philanthropy, and it challenges us to think creatively as we strive to identify and engage new generations of donors.

March 3, 2022 By Helen Brown

A DAFinitive answer

It’s Research Pride Month, and boy oh boy do we have a celebration going on at the Helen Brown Group! If you have no interest in donor advised funds, you might want to skip today’s article and wait for next week.

But if you are, let me tell you what the party’s all about here at HBG:

A couple of years ago I got really frustrated by the lack of information about DAFs.*

It was a constant struggle for me and my team to find out:

Who are the people with DAF accounts?
When we’re researching a potential donor, how can we find out if they have a DAF so we can let our client know?
Why isn’t it possible to find DAFs based on their philanthropic interests? Or their geography?

So a few members of the HBG team and I began building a database of donor advised funds to use as a lookup when we did research for our clients.

And it started to grow. And grow. Ten thousand funds. Twenty thousand funds. Forty thousand funds. Fif…holy cow!

About a year ago it dawned on me that this would be helpful to researchers everywhere. Not just us at HBG, but a research resource created by prospect researchers for prospect researchers. Or for anybody, really, who is interested in DAFs and their donors.

It’s finally here and we’re ready – and super excited – to show it off to you. It’s called DAFinitive™.

What can you do here? Well, check out the search page:

The keyword box searches the entire database. That includes every field you see here as well as additional fields you don’t, like notes we might have found about the fund.
Or, you can search by the last name and first name of a donor or fund administrator.
Want to search for a list of DAFs in Florida that have an interest in animals? You can do that.

Is every DAF in DAFinitive™? Absolutely not, but we do have about 5% of the roughly one million DAFs estimated to be in existence, and we’re adding at least 1,000 funds every week.

We’re elbow-grease searching for those tough-to-find funds, too (you know the ones I mean…the ones held by sponsors that rhyme with Schwidelity and Billicon Salley that don’t list their funds anywhere aargh). Fair warning – if you’re thinking DAFinitive™ is going to solve your Fidelity-Charitable-is-a-black-box problem, I’m sorry, we’re not there yet. We do have a few of those funds – and growing, though.

That said, we’re happily crowdsourcing from everyone in the research community (hint hint!) who sends us a fund name and a URL to confirm it so if you want to see a fund in DAFinitive™, send it along!

Do we know how much is in each fund? No, but much to our surprise we did find a couple of sponsors that actually did list how much (or a range of how much) was in each fund account – that was a yahoo moment! And you might be as interested as we were to learn that the average fund size held in those commercial sponsors (like Fidelity and Schwab) is lower – by a lot – than in community or single-issue sponsors. (Check out the facts and figures below).

If you want to know more about DAFinitive™, there are lots more FAQs on the front page of the site (www.DAFinitive.com) – take a look to learn more.

Thanks for sharing my excitement! A heartfelt and massive thank you to the absolutely amazing beta testers who gave us honest and helpful feedback to bring DAFinitive™ to the launch pad.

Happy Research Pride Month!

*Not familiar with DAFs? Here’s a bit more information for you!

DAFs are philanthropic bank accounts that just about anyone can set up with one of the 976 sponsoring organizations in the US. Sponsors are regional community foundations, the nonprofit arm of a for-profit financial institution (also known as “commercial sponsors” or “national sponsors”) or a single-issue sponsor (like a university, religious-based community fund, etc.).

The donor gets a tax deduction when they deposit money into the account, and then they advise the sponsor to make donations from that account when they’re ready.

Lots of times information about those funds (and particularly about the donors) sits in a big black box. Many of the commercial DAF sponsors don’t publish anything about the funds they hold, and it’s hard for nonprofits to find out if someone has a DAF unless they make a gift. (And sometimes even then the nonprofit doesn’t find out who directed the gift if the sponsor doesn’t include that information with the donation!)

Want to know more about DAFs? Giving USA just released a fascinating report that is a must-read. Here are some key points from the report:

Many DAF accounts have multiple donors or administrators that make gifts from the fund. Vanguard Charitable reported in 2016 that 61 percent of their funds had both male and female donor/administrators.
DAFs provide much less of an administrative headache than setting up a personal or family foundation, and in recent years an increasing number of foundations have rolled their assets into DAFs.

Don’t miss the 2021 DAF Report, either, from the National Philanthropic Trust (NPT). 2021 marked their eleventh annual report about DAFs, and this edition holds some fascinating information. For example:

“Grants from DAFs to qualified charities totaled an estimated $34.67 billion, representing a 27.0 percent increase compared to 2019 and a new high-water mark. This is the highest DAF grant increase in a decade.”

In 2006 there were 160,000 donor advised funds in the United States with assets of about $31 billion. NPT reports that as of 2021 that number now stands at over 1 million funds with assets of nearly $160 billion. The majority of them are held with commercial sponsors (approximately 864,099), with another estimated 84,334 held at community foundations and 56,666 at single-issue charities.

The average size of a DAF account across all sponsor types is $159,019 but that average varies quite a bit between them. The average amount in a commercial-sponsor DAF is $115,901; in a community foundation it’s $543,553, and in a single-issue sponsor is $244,238.

February 10, 2022 By Helen Brown

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.

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.
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.

December 2, 2021 By Helen Brown

Resilient nonprofits can face anything

HBG Senior Consultant Heather Willis

It hasn’t been too difficult to find articles in the press about the success or failure of companies to survive (or, indeed, thrive) during the past 18 months, but what about nonprofits? How have they fared? And for the ones that have been successful, what has been their secret? This week my colleague Heather Willis does a fantastic job of walking us through a series of reports from the Charities Aid Foundation which has surveyed nonprofits across the globe multiple times during the Covid19 pandemic to discover and share the game plan for resiliency in our sector. ~Helen

When the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) America set out on a mission to document the impact of the crisis on nonprofits worldwide. CAF has produced nine surveys and reports since, which represented the voices of 3,500 organizations operating in hundreds of countries and representing 15 causes.

These reports take account of charities around the world that have been performing their duties under extreme pressure. While many organizations have had to close in the last year due to new problems posed by the COVID-19 virus, others that have remained open have showed amazing tenacity and persistence in the face of new challenges.

What CAF found through this research is encouraging and uplifting. There was an expansive picture of persistence, humility, compassion, and empathy. The pandemic has had the counterbalancing impact of bringing the worldwide community closer together for a purpose that transcends borders and cultures, at a time when many people are feeling socially isolated.

In the Beginning

The vast majority (94.84%) of the respondents’ countries imposed coronavirus related restrictions that had an immediate impact on the organizations.

CAF reported in the first survey that 67.93% of the respondents saw a decrease in funding and reported difficulties in reaching donors, while 33.97% indicated an increase in operational costs. More than half were unable to fully meet the expectations of those they serve due to staffing limitations (48.58%) and system-challenges (37.57%). Restrictions on travel, a key programmatic element for many organizations, affected 63% of the respondents’ operations.

Despite the serious challenges, 90.10% of respondents continued to serve their communities. Although they had to suspend certain activities, almost two thirds of the organizations surveyed (61.87%) continued their operations remotely and 28.23% maintained full operations (11.03% working in office and 17.20% working remotely).

Mid-Pandemic

Volume 5 reports that the majority of responding organizations, 97.16%, were able to maintain their operations, and another 2.84% were not operating at that time. While the data suggests a marginal improvement compared to the Volume 3 survey in June when 92.47% respondents were operating, the organizations that had to close down during the past months were poorly represented among current respondents.

Of those that closed operations or some programming, the majority indicated the incompatibility of their services and programs with online delivery as their principal reason.

Reasons for closing operations or programming

In one three-month time frame, 9.98 percent of surveyed organizations did not receive any money, and many were struggling to meet rising demand for their services. Individual donations continued to be the primary source of income for more than 70% of the organizations surveyed. Since the previous study, the number of groups receiving corporate funding climbed by 10.41%. Subsidies from the government also helped to mitigate the crisis’s harmful consequences. Since the previous survey, the number of groups getting government funding also climbed by 12.50 percent.

Charities had to adapt quickly to constantly shifting demands and donor interests promulgated by the pandemic. Normal fundraising channels such as special events and annual campaigns were closed off due to social distancing regulations. Charities that were nimble enough to shift all or most of their fundraising to online portals at their websites fared better.

In a decidedly challenging task, the Volume 5 survey asked respondents to rate the most critical skills for success during those months.

In answer to the question “What skillsets were most useful to your organization during the months impacted by the coronavirus pandemic?” respondents ranked skill sets as follows:

COMMUNICATIONS (telling your story, connecting with your stakeholders)
FUNDRAISING & DONOR RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
FINANCE (effective fiscal management, strategy, contingency planning)
TECHNOLOGY (creating virtual networks, developing apps)
EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT & BOARD OF DIRECTORS
NETWORKING

To deal with the new problems, an overwhelming number of responding organization were able to design and implement creative ideas and activities. Ninety-seven percent of responders agreed that innovation is necessary.

Large organizations (with 21+ employees) were roughly twice as likely to report that they were surviving or thriving than small organizations (1-5 employees). Smaller organizations were more likely to face limited staffing resources due to illness and lock-downs. Organizations with five and fewer employees are 56.5% were more likely to say that they were “struggling” as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as opposed to all other larger organizations surveyed.

Currently – Unfortunately not Post-Pandemic

Charities responding to the survey had many things in common, but three strong themes emerged: smaller organizations have had a more difficult time; the way charities fundraise has had to fundamentally change; and many organizations have adapted to view disaster and crisis planning as a core part of good charity governance.

Given their tenacity during the epidemic, over 64% of respondents are confident in their capacity to continue operating indefinitely under present conditions.

Organizations were asked the question “How confident are you in your organization’s ability to successfully face the next crisis?” Their answers were:

Surviving to Thriving

Over the course of CAF America’s research, they summed up their observations in Volume 8 and have detected six thematic areas to a charity’s ability to survive such a significant interference with their operations, finances, and staff.

Technology

There is a direct correlation between organizational resilience and the ability to adapt to online tasks that will remain the case post-pandemic. Key areas of improvement in resilient organizations included fundraising through digital technology, identifying digital tools to better connect with stakeholders, formulating digital strategies, and enhancing online programs and service offerings.

Communication

Improved communication is necessary for fundraising and storytelling to entice more support, engaging impact reporting, communications with non-digital and other stakeholders, and video presentation to improve outreach. The trend towards more cost-effective communication on social media channels and through online newsletters and reports is likely to continue post-pandemic.

Fundraising

The pandemic has highlighted the fundraising issues that smaller charities confront when their entire workforce is focused to meeting the growing requirements of their recipients. Sixty-five percent of the nonprofits unable to devote resources to creating and implementing new fundraising activities had fewer than twenty staff.

Finance

Areas critical to charities’ long-term success include building and sustaining financial reserves, strategic planning, contingency planning, and developing a risk management framework.

Leadership

While the majority of charities have faith in their leaders, they still need to enhance their skills and strategy. Nearly 60% of the charities polled said they wanted to improve their change management skills both during and after the crisis. Strategic planning, developing crisis-resilient teams, organizational mental health and well-being, and effective internal communication and staff engagement are among the other abilities that need to be improved.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

To strengthen their long-term strategy and build resilience, charities recognize the importance of incorporating DEI into bigger talks about global philanthropy. The pursuit of DEI to develop more effective organizational and programmatic outcomes is essential for social progress.

Donors are showing an increased commitment to flexibility while nonprofits now understand that impactful philanthropy requires collaboration, flexibility, commitment, and streamlined progress measurement strategies.

As never before, non-profits are being asked to put resilience into practice. Nonprofits will move forward from being aware of the new normal to clarity of renewed purpose, and then to taking deliberate action, as a result of the dialogues taking place today between staff and boards. They will be focused on instilling energy, encouraging renewed spirit and re-dedication to mission, and exhibiting, in word and deed, an increasingly positive attitude toward mission.

Further reading

Nonprofits show resilience and initiative during second year of pandemic, University of Washington News, December 14, 2021

Is your organization thinking about continuing working remotely? Some things to ponder are listed in this Nonprofit Times article, “Remote Possibilities – What Comes After Zoom?”

November 4, 2021 By Helen Brown

Crypto, DAFs and Fundraising – Oh My!

We’ve talked a bit in recent months about both cryptocurrency and DAFs here on The Intelligent Edge, and this week my colleague, Kenny Tavares, pulls the two together in a thought-provoking piece. What do these two vehicles have in common, and how do they impact fundraising and prospect research? Read on…

Kenny Tavares

Let me start with a disclosure: I’m a skeptic. When the media starts to buzz about new investment approaches and how it might benefit nonprofits, I see red flags. So, you can imagine how I must feel these days with a drumbeat of favorable stories about cryptocurrency (crypto) and donor-advised funds (DAFs). It’s not that I don’t support new ideas. However, I do worry about the consequences of not being more thoughtful about these changes.

In July 2021, Paul Sullivan of The New York Times, in a story about nonprofits handling gifts of cryptocurrency, noted that Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, the largest donor-advised fund (DAF) in the United States, had already received $150 million in crypto this year, an increase of more than 435% so far. A number of other donor-advised funds, including those run at colleges and international institutions, have announced that they also accept crypto.

Blockchain technology, which cryptocurrencies run on, have made some transactions easier to track and more cost effective, providing more money for the nonprofit organization. But the skeptic in me wants to know why crypto gifts to donor-advised funds are surging. How will the growth of these two vehicles affect fundraisers and researchers? First, I think we should look at why each of these might be attractive to investors. [Read more…]

September 16, 2021 By Helen Brown

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…]

September 2, 2021 By Helen Brown

Interview with a prospect development crypto miner

This week we have a real treat of an article: HBG’s Associate Director for Consulting, Tara McMullen-King, interviewed Amy Begg, former NEDRA board president and an Ann Castle Award recipient. Amy is also an active cryptocurrency miner (with a heart of gold!). Tara and Amy had a fascinating discussion about crypto mining, and Amy generously shared her knowledge and experience about what it means to mine cryptocurrencies. Huge thanks to Amy for taking the time to explain it all for us! ~Helen

Tara McMullen-King

It is clear that the demand for cryptocurrency and crypto mining is not subsiding any time soon – as of August 2021, the combined value of the world’s cryptocurrencies stood at about $2 trillion. Not only are more people investing in crypto, but an increasing number of donors are using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to fund their charitable contributions. According to a recent article in the New York Times, there has been a significant increase in cryptocurrency donations to donor-advised funds – for example, Fidelity Charitable received $150 million in cryptocurrency in 2021, up from $28 million in 2020 and only $13 million in 2019. And in May 2021, it was reported that a $5 million anonymous gift in the form of Bitcoin had been made to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania – the largest cryptocurrency gift ever made to the University.

Amy Begg

While many nonprofits are still not set up to accept gifts of cryptocurrency, more and more are beginning to put the internal infrastructure in place to do so, or signing up to accept crypto gifts through donation platforms like The Giving Block – in part because of some of the benefits. Donors can benefit from tax write-offs since cryptocurrency is classified as property (which means no capital gains tax and a fair market value deduction). They are also cost-efficient for organizations involved in international transactions since they eliminate the usual costly associated international banking fees. And with close to half of Millennial and Gen-Z investors owning cryptocurrencies, making the choice to accept crypto donations will also potentially provide an opportunity for nonprofits to engage with a new generation of younger donors in the future.

But how does cryptomining work? How do people get started in the field? And what even IS cryptocurrency? To try to get some answers to these questions, I sat down for a conversation with Amy Begg, Managing Director of Prospect Management at Harvard University, who is a miner with a wealth of knowledge and insight about all things crypto! [Read more…]

August 26, 2021 By Helen Brown

The overlooked generation

There’s a puzzle that I’m trying to figure out. Maybe you’ve got some insight and can help me.

When I got started in my career in prospect research, it didn’t take me long to figure out that we were concentrating on people (okay, mostly men) who were in their 40s to 70s. These were the donors who were in their prime earning years or recently retired, finally able to spend their spare time on volunteering and their spare cash on donating.

We didn’t ignore their kids, of course, but since there’s only so much time in the day, it was the Boomers that got the majority of our prospect identification and research attention. It’s just Sutton’s Law.

So, okay, those Boomers are aging out of prime giving now. Most are now fully in retirement mode, so it makes sense that we look to the next generation who are in their prime earning years or recently retired.

In the press (fundraising and general audience), you can’t open a newspaper or magazine without seeing articles like Millennials And Charitable Giving: A New Approach To Philanthropy, How Millennials Are Changing Philanthropy, and How to Appeal to Millennial Supporters.

Which is great.

But that’s not the next generation after the Boomers. Gen Xers are. [Read more…]

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