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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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Factoring in compensation

Among her many talents, Tara McMullen-King is the go-to person on our team for compensation information and training. She’s the one who keeps a running list of salary resources and shares them with the team (and you!) when she finds them. It’s not just resources that are important, though: taking a moment to sit and think about what you’re looking at is also a solid piece of advice from Tara today. ~Helen

tara

       Tara McMullen-King

Determining what a prospect earns can sometimes be a tough task – but in my opinion, researching a prospect’s compensation is a crucial step in conducting the proper amount of prospect research to provide an accurate understanding of their financial resources and potential gift capacity.

Not all prospects you will be called on to research will have the kind of assets that are readily evident – like executives at the tiptop of public companies, people who own vast portfolios of real estate holdings, or those who are esteemed enough to appear on published wealth lists. In many cases, your prospect pool may be chock full of individuals whose wealth is just not as easily identifiable.

Many nonprofit organizations choose to invest in wealth screenings, which aggregate publicly available data and use that data to assess an estimated capacity rating. But even though wealth screenings can be extremely useful and add significant value to your prospect development program, they really only match to publicly-available wealth data – such as real estate holdings or insider stock. They don’t often yield much – if any – actionable insight into salaries or compensation for prospects who aren’t involved with public companies…

But in most cases, a prospect’s wealth earned through their occupation is going to be the source of any significant philanthropic gift they make. So some of your prospects – who might be earning considerable income and have liquid assets to support your organization at a significant level – would fly beneath the screening radar, as specific information pertaining to their income is private and not easily quantifiable without additional research.

Given all this, it may be worth spending a bit of time carefully considering a prospect’s income (estimated, actual, or demographic) with the idea that it could yield insight into how much of that might be disposable and available for a gift.

Throughout my years in the prospect research field, working with different organizations, I have personally seen a variety of different formulas used to calculate estimated capacity ratings. One of the most well-known (and widely-used) formulas calculates a prospect’s capacity at 5% of identified assets, indicating their total giving ability typically spread over a 5 year period.

However, I have also seen other rating formulas used that are based on the national average of charitable giving as a percentage of income. According to Giving USA, the average American contributes 2% of their income per year to charity, with reports indicating that this increases substantially for those of higher income and wealth levels (sometimes upwards of 5% – 10%). Given that, a rating methodology that specifically considers income could be used in order to yield a more customized gift capacity rating for some prospects.

For example, I have seen the following formula implemented to calculate major gift capacity ratings:

Major Gift Capacity = 10% of annual household income (equating to 2% per year x 5 years for a multi-year pledge)

I have also seen ratings customized by factoring in a prospect’s household income, applying a multiplier of 1% – 5% to their total identified assets or total estimated wealth:

  • Income of <$250,000: multiply by 1%
  • Income of $250,000 – $499,999: multiply by 2%
  • Income of $500,000 – $999,999: multiply by 3%
  • Income of $1,000,000 – $4,999,999: multiply by 4%
  • Income of $5,000,000+: multiply by 5%

Although I am not instructing you to use either of these formulas, they are two examples to consider for how income can sometimes be used as a piece of an organization’s rating methodology!

RESOURCES

So if you do want to spend more time researching income and compensation for some of your prospects, what resources might you use to do that? And what factors might you want to consider when conducting your research and doing your assessment?

If you are researching one of those top executives at a public company who have their compensation packages reported on the company’s annual proxy statement, your research is going to be a lot more straight-forward!

However, it is likely that only a small percentage of the prospects in your organization’s pool fall into that bucket, so you may have to work a bit harder and do a bit more digging… but in my opinion, the extra effort can be worth it.

Some sources of information on salaries and compensation:

BRING YOUR CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

However, income research isn’t just the act of acquiring the right salary survey or article and then using some number listed there without a more critical assessment and analysis of the prospect’s compensation. When researching salaries and compensation, here are some additional questions to consider:

  • Would the prospect’s income naturally be considered steady, or might it fluctuate?
  • Many figures you will find through salary aggregators and industry compensation lists are averages… so what are some factors that might influence a particular prospect’s specific compensation? You might want to consider their job role and responsibilities, tenure in their position, length of their career, scope of their experience, education, company size and revenue, and the geographic area in which the business is located.
  • Has their industry been adversely affected by recent domestic or worldwide events or the overall state of the economy – and if so, might this affect their compensation?
  • Do they receive a base salary? Bonuses? Other forms of compensation?
  • Do they work in an industry (such as real estate) where professionals are paid based on the success of a deal or project?
  • Do they own and operate their own business, or do they work for someone else?
  • Are they employed in a field where they might earn income from other sources, like consulting, teaching, expert witness testimonies, product endorsements, their own product lines, or even royalty income? Even if you can’t place concrete numbers on these other streams of income, they are still worth taking into consideration as pieces of the prospect’s overall compensation and wealth picture.
  • Are they retired? Financial planners often estimate that people will need to be able to replace 70-80% of their pre-retirement income when they retire (although household expenditures also typically decline later in life) – for the purpose of estimating retirement income, it is sometimes suggested to assume a minimum of 60% of the prospect’s last known or estimated salary.
  • And finally – does their spouse or domestic partner also work? If so, what do they do? Don’t forget about them – it can be useful to consider the entire household!

ONE FINAL TIP

Why not start a spreadsheet with links to compensation resources, as well as compensation figures you find for various careers and positions? You could even have separate tabs for different industries of interest, and could have it function as a collaborative archive, shared amongst your internal research colleagues. How great a resource that would be!

In summation – I truly believe that while compensation research usually requires a bit of extra effort – and some creative thinking and thoughtful analysis – it is usually well worth the time spent.

 

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Celebrating Research Pride: Prospect Research and the Early Career Professional

Happy Prospect Research Pride Month, everybody! It’s been pretty thrilling to watch #ResearchPride grow over the past 9 years, shining a spotlight on this most wonderful of professions.

And that’s what we’re going to highlight this month on The Intelligent Edge – careers and leadership in our field. What motivates some of the leaders in our field to innovate (or just keep moving forward some days)? What inspires newcomers, and what keeps it interesting and fresh for folks who’ve been in the field for a long time?

This week we highlight an article from my colleague Chelsea Morin. One of the things we struggle with as a profession is how to advertise. How do we let people know that our profession exists? How do we reach out and recruit the curious? Chelsea is new to the field and she shares some terrific perspective that we can all benefit from, including great advice for people considering prospect research.  ~Helen

My path to research

In November, my lovely colleague Kelly Labrecque wrote a great article about how she and many of our colleagues in the field of prospect research fell into the work one way or another. This got me thinking about my own path. In college, I always knew I wanted to “help people” in some way but this was, of course, a very nebulous concept that could have been applied in a million different ways.

Over time, my focus sharpened into working with nonprofits and I interned with some really impactful organizations. But as I got closer to graduation, I still wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted my work with nonprofits to look like.

By chance, I noticed that my soon-to-be alma mater was hiring for an entry-level position in the development and alumni relations department. The position itself consisted of speaking with local alumni but was situated within the research and analysis team. It was from that team that I learned about the field of prospect research and how it could be used to help organizations further their goals.

After a couple of years, I realized my passion for research and went on to join the Helen Brown Group. My path to prospect research was quicker than most, so I’d like to use this space to recommend this less common career path for impact-oriented college students and early career professionals.

What is prospect research? Why is it important?

For the uninitiated, what even is prospect research? It’s so many different things. But to keep it simple, it usually involves conducting research for a nonprofit about individuals and companies who may be interested in supporting their organization. Some typical tasks include finding real estate or stock holdings, previous philanthropy, or possible connections to the nonprofit’s board members or volunteers.

Nonprofits are bolstered by generous support from donors, and prospect researchers can help to find those donors. We can also find additional information to help bring them into the fold.

Could prospect research be for you?

One of the greatest aspects of a career in prospect research is that you get to work every day with organizations that are making a difference. This kind of work is needed at institutions of all different shapes, sizes, and causes. So, there are plenty of opportunities to find an organization that fits with your interests and passions. And if those passions change over time, you can always seek out your next role at an organization that fits with your new direction.

Even if you are feeling a bit adrift (I certainly remember that feeling) or feel that your interests haven’t neatly coalesced into one particular area that you’d like to explore for your career, I would still humbly submit prospect research as an excellent option. From writing detailed profiles to researching IPOs to finding new prospects, the work is varied and allows you to delve into a number of different areas.

What makes a good researcher?

If you’re a curious person who enjoys solving puzzles and synthesizing information in useful ways, then prospect research may be a natural fit for you.

You can study anything in school and become a prospect researcher, but many who studied the humanities and social sciences seem to make their way into the field. These areas may be well-suited to this kind of research because they involve digesting lots of information, remembering details, and making connections.

Prospect research may also be for you if you enjoy continuously expanding your skill set. I am still a newcomer to the field myself but in the past year alone I’ve had opportunities to learn more about donor advised funds, SEC filings, the private equity landscape, New York real estate, and compensation estimation. Those things may sound tedious to some, but if any of them piqued your interest then this career may be right up your alley.

Where can you learn more?

If you’re still in school, try connecting with your university’s development and/or alumni relations department. This could be through the annual fund, student giving drives, or even internships or work-study opportunities. Not only can you learn from them, but it is more than likely that they would be very excited to learn from a current student too.

If you’re an early career professional interested in learning more, try joining a local chapter of  Apra, such as NEDRA. These groups often host bootcamps, seminars, and webinars for those who are newer to the field. And you just may make some useful professional connections as well.

Finally, to those reading this who already work in prospect research – please share this post with anyone you know who may be searching for a unique and exciting way to start their career! After all, Research Pride Month is here!

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Staying Positive

A photo of HBG consultant Lucy Poludniak

                             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:

  1. Cuddle a pet. I have two rescue dogs who are happy to oblige my need for hugs. Unconditional love, anyone?
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.

 

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How Did I Get Here?

Many (most? all?) of us fell into prospect research, and it’s always interesting to talk with people and find out how they got here. This week my colleague Kelly shares her own journey as well as others’ to prospect research and provides great advice for anyone considering this very best of careers. ~Helen

Kelly Labrecque

Kelly Labrecque

One of the things I love most about attending annual conferences, is meeting fellow researchers and learning about how they came to the profession. Prospect research is not exactly one of those careers you study for in college or aspire to as a child.

Imagine, if you will, this conversation at the family dinner table:

Mom: “What do you kids want to be when you grow up?”

Kid #1: “I wanna be an astronaut!”

Dad: “Wonderful, honey, you’ll need to study lots of math and science in school.”

Kid #2: “I’m gonna be a teacher!”

Mom: “You’ll need lots of patience and learn to be a good communicator.”

Kid #3: “I want to write reports about rich people and figure out ways to encourage them give away their money!”

Dad (turning to Mom): “We may have to Google that one.”

I’m always astonished by the myriad of backgrounds we come from – journalism, the arts, mathematics, natural science, library science, and the list goes on. In my opinion, it’s what makes prospect research unique from other professions. There really is no cut and dry path to walk. You have to pave it yourself!

A little about me

As a kid, my career aspirations were pretty typical. They changed annually and were sometimes based on the movies I watched or books I read. It really wasn’t until I went to college that I set my sights on psychology. In particular, I wanted to be a clinical neuropsychologist and study the intersection of brain and behavior. I wavered a bit between studying people and animals, but it was always psychology.

After graduating from a small liberal arts college in New Hampshire, I went right into the working world as a research assistant in neuropsychology at a Boston-area medical school. I spent five years there and had the most amazing experiences that I still draw on today; however, it turned out neuropsychology wasn’t the career for me after all.

Eventually, I got married and started my family. I focused on getting jobs that I knew I could do well and and would give me a good work-life balance. I worked as a veterinary technician, an animal behavior research assistant, and a financial administrator. It wasn’t until I became an administrative assistant at a local liberal arts college in 2008, that I started moving towards what would be my career for the next 14 years!

The job was perfect a young mom. It was 15-minute drive, no drama, 9-5. I worked in the college’s development office in major gifts. I had no idea what either of those terms meant. After my first year on the job, my boss (and now very dear friend) introduced me to prospect research. She thought it would be a natural fit, given my lab research background, and encouraged me to start talking with the in-house research team. Once I did, I was hooked! I soon joined NEDRA, took the two-day research basics bootcamp, and never looked back.

I got my first “real” research job at a Boston-area hospital in 2010; however, a difficult pregnancy with my second child left me in need of a remote position. Luckily, my strong relationships within the research community led me to a chance encounter with our very own Maureen Kilcommins at a NEDRA conference. I joined the Helen Brown Group (HBG) in May 2013 as a subcontractor and two months later was hired full time. The rest is history.

Researching the researcher

In preparation for this blog post, I surveyed a number of my colleagues in prospect research. I aimed to find out what path brought them to the profession and what traits they possessed that made them successful in this field.

I guess it was no surprise that the majority of us did not prepare for this job or even know what it was back when we were starting out. In fact, most of us had grand plans to do something entirely different.

My colleague Joan Ogwumike and creator of the blog, A Researcher’s Diary, planned to be a political journalist and had a background in journalism and political science. She wanted, “to write for a newspaper, interview people, and travel the world.”

Former HBG consultant Rachel Dakarian wanted to be a spy or an illustrator as a kid. Didn’t we all want to be spies? Or at least work as a crime scene investigator? I know I did!

HBG senior consultants Rick Snyder and Heather Willis also diverged from their original career paths. Rick studied Russian in college and wanted to work in fine art restoration or be a museum curator. Heather studied biology and hoped to pursue a career as a wildlife biologist or game warden. They are now two of the most senior members of our team.

Other researchers surveyed reported the desire to be an artist, doctor, teacher, and even a film director. So how on Earth did they come to prospect research? For most of us, it was all about timing and good old-fashioned luck.

HBG senior consultant Mandi Matz fell into research completely by accident after obtaining her master’s in library science (MLIS): “[I] totally fell into it.  By the time I got into research, I already had my MLIS and had worked in public libraries for a few years.  I saw a posting for a prospect researcher, and it seemed like it would be a good combination of research and writing (my skill set), so I took a chance and applied.  And then my future boss took a chance and hired me.” Mandi went on to say, “Like a lot of us, I’ve done many different things, and they’re all kind of interconnected.”

Researcher Marianne Iauco, who began her career as an education specialist for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, came to prospect research after obtaining her MLIS. A layoff from a corporate library job sent her into IT sales and marketing. Marianne says, “After another round of layoffs, I decided to go back to my library science roots, volunteered at NEDRA, began networking with prospect researchers, and refined my career story eventually getting work as a prospect researcher.”

HBG senior consultant Angie Herrington was a real estate paralegal before a move from Tennessee to Virginia left her looking for new employment. While her husband was working on his master’s degree at Virginia Tech, she took an entry-level position in the university’s corporations and foundation relations office. Angie said, “I didn’t even know ‘development’ meant fundraising when I took the job. There were only two prospect researchers on staff, so they weren’t able to help with corporate and foundation research. Tamara Overcash, who later became director of research at Duke University until she passed in 2011, gave me a few pointers and the link for Prspct-L. I was hooked!”

Curiouser and curiouser

Although our paths to a career in prospect research may differ, we all share similar skill sets and natural abilities. According to the survey, participants considered the following traits to be essential in a good prospect researcher:

  1. Natural curiosity
  2. Critical thinking
  3. Tenacity
  4. Attention to detail
  5. Ability to express ideas effectively in writing
  6. Desire to learn new things
  7. Sense of humor

Overwhelmingly, respondents considered natural curiosity and critical thinking to be the most important traits in a good researcher. I couldn’t agree more. Anyone can learn how to look up information in a database and copy and paste it into a document. But a good researcher takes that information and converts it into actionable intelligence by providing detailed, thoughtful insight.

“If you are not curious, I think you just end up ‘information waitressing,’ serving up the same information about potential prospects and not honing in on the one or two things that will help the officer/client move the prospect into the cultivation stage and beyond.” – Marianne Iauco

“You can teach people databases and websites to find information, but you can’t teach them the curiosity and critical thinking to pull it all together.” – Angie Herrington

“I love finding out someone’s story – what made them who they are or why they do what they do.” – Jayme Klein

Finding your path

If you are interested in pursuing prospect research as a career and think you have the skill set discussed above, there are a number of resources you can tap.

First and foremost, check out the Apra website, as well as, your regional Apra chapter. These two resources will provide you with information on upcoming conferences, training sessions, and roundtable discussions. I highly advise all new researchers to attend a research basics bootcamp at the annual Apra conference or one offered by your local chapter. It’s well worth the investment and you’ll meet some of the brightest minds in the field. Also, with a membership to Apra and/or your Apra regional chapter, you’ll have access to online knowledge bases, workshops, and courses to further develop your career.

Second, seek out a mentor. This can be done via LinkedIn, Apra, networking at conferences, or contacting your favorite research blogger by email. Reaching out to an experienced researcher is a great way to gain insight into how you can break into the profession.

Third, do some reading! There are so many books on the topic. Here are three that I consider to be mandatory reading for the new researcher:

 And lastly, check out the blogs of other researchers. If you are reading this, then you already know about The Intelligent Edge and as mentioned above, Joan Ogwumike has a great blog called A Researcher’s Diary. Others you might want to subscribe to include (just to name a few):

Thank you!

A big thanks to my siblings in research, who were gracious and eager to contribute their stories to this post. I couldn’t have done it with your help and encouragement.

 If you want to know more about a career in prospect research or are new to the field, I’ll be cross-posting this blog on LinkedIn, where we can carry on the conversation.

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A grab bag of good advice

Josh Ostroski

Senior Consultant Josh Ostroski

We’re kicking off June on The Intelligent Edge with a terrific article by Josh Ostroski on a variety of topics that he’s pondered on over the past several months in anticipation of sharing helpful tips and tricks with you.Enjoy! ~Helen

I’m going to take a slightly different approach with my blog post this time around. I’ve struggled with what to write about and have been brainstorming well before it was my turn to write this blog. I’ve decided to briefly touch on all the topics I have thought of in a mailbag format and give some of my thoughts and insight.

Do you think using past experiences can help you be a better researcher?

I forget to use my own experiences at times when doing research and must remind myself to pull from past experiences and knowledge to help me. If you’ve ever purchased a home, then you have experience and knowledge of how the process works and if something doesn’t look right in the records, you can use your experience to look more closely. Have you ever owned stocks? If so, you might have a better understanding of the tax implications or a better grasp on how much those shares may actually be worth if/when sold. You may have a better understanding of certain jobs fields based on close friends or family members being in that field. You probably know more than you think about certain things. Believe in what you know and don’t pretend to know things you don’t.

Do you ever worry about getting it wrong?

Yes. Yes, I do. Probably every day. We are all going to get things wrong. I’m not talking about constant egregious mistakes that take away from doing our jobs correctly. I’m talking about nailing down the absolute true value of that home; or making sure that we have the absolute correct capacity. What we do has so many variables and every prospect and situation is going to be different. Do we want to get it as correct as possible, of course, are we going to miss things? Yes.

I have two additional thoughts about this:

1) does the thing I’m stressing about or that is taking up so much time researching going to change the rating? If not, move on.

2) use the mistakes you have made in the past to help you going forward. I know that sounds obvious, but I know I forget to do that myself at times.

How do you feel about philanthropy from donors that you don’t necessarily agree with?

This to me is much more nuanced than “that person did a bad thing, so their money is no good here.” I think every organization should have their own parameters on what constitutes as a good donor that aligns with their mission and beliefs and they should stick to that. I also think in this day and age, where we are so quick to cancel someone, perhaps we should take a step back and take in the whole picture.

Now, I’m not talking about the Jeffrey Epsteins and Harvey Weinsteins of the world. But how do you feel about the Koch brothers? I may not agree with them, but they have supported more than climate denial and political causes. They have been major contributors to the Museum of National History, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What if something good can come from the money? Obviously, organizations should do their due diligence on prospects; however, if there are no visible red flags and the gift was given before something controversial comes out about the prospect, then should the money be given back? If good things come from the donations isn’t that the positive outcome? Perhaps the money can be used to right a wrong? I don’t think there is a simple answer to this question and I’m constantly going back-and-forth.

What is something that is an often-overlooked reason for the success of a research shop?

I have worked with two clients recently that do something I think is unique and hopefully is a sign for things to come. They embrace and implement change. If something isn’t working for their organization, they make changes. If those changes don’t work either, they don’t just stick with it because it’s now the new way, but tweak things till they get it right. I have also found that my interactions with these clients is much more collaborative and rewarding. It also helps that these organizations have leaders that also embrace change. Too many times I’ve talked to people that have said, “I don’t know, that’s just they way we’ve always done it.”

What are some effective ways that you learn new information about research?

I’m glad you asked. When I started in this field in the mid-2000’s, it seemed to me like learning the ropes was more trial by fire. We were told to look at some old profiles, use these resources, and figure it out. Don’t get me wrong, there is some value with playing around and figuring some stuff out, but that should be after learning the ropes. If you or someone in your organization is new to the field, the NEDRA Bootcamp is so invaluable. I wish it was around (maybe it was, but I didn’t know about it) when I started.

I’ve also noticed that for me personally, I learn better when I get real world examples. I recently attended a NEDRA Conference session, Looking for Love in all the Right Places: The Cause-Based Approach to Prospect Research by Marc Keller and Brandy Sims with Best Friends Animal Society. What I loved about their session was that they went through their processes of how they would conduct research for different scenarios. I learn so much more effectively when I can see how people process their information.

One more thought: don’t think because you know, or better yet, knew about a topic that you still know or remember everything. I’ve gained so much from taking “Beginner Level Sessions” at conferences not only as a refresher, but also to pick up on things I probably missed when I was new.

Are there times you don’t feel like you fit in?

I feel like this all the time. From discussions with colleagues throughout the years, I’ve noticed that many of my interests are different and at times I question, “why am I here?” Now, a lot of that has to do with my own insecurities and I’m sure my perception and reality are different. I would also say that because of this, I have become more secure in other ways. I have become comfortable knowing what I do know and what I don’t know. I also realize that having diversity of thought is good, if you are willing to listen and learn. I now embrace my interests and try to learn from others.

You’re not very active on socials, does that mean you don’t care?

I’m by nature introverted, even more so when online or on the phone. I try to not be this way, but I just get wicked anxiety and am actually better in person (which brings on a while different type of anxiety). I’m what you would call a lurker on social media. I’m don’t spend a lot of time online, but I do browse LinkedIn, Prospect-L, forums, etc. However, I rarely contribute (I understand this directly contradicts my goal with this blog post), but I am always taking in information and learning. I am trying to be better and more interactive, but just because you aren’t always active, doesn’t mean you can’t still be a part of the process and take in information.

What, no real estate talk?

Ok, I’ll give you my little soap box spiel about mortgages, home values, and why they matter. Even if you did hear this from me before (see above for why refreshers are good). I was helping a colleague not too long ago with some profiles. We’re talking a very seasoned, respected veteran of the field. He said the format looked good, but I didn’t need to go into as much detail on the real estate information. For reference, I always included purchase price, last known mortgage or refinance amount (if available), and current ESTIMATED market value. The reasons I laid out for my reasoning behind why I do this is as follows:

  • Purchase price gives us a snapshot of what their possible income was at the time of the purchase and gives context to how much the home has increased or decreased in value;
  • Current ESTIMATED value gives us an idea of what the property is worth, which will give us an idea of what the equity in the home could be if and when it is sold; and
  • Last known mortgage or refinance can provide a few clues. It helps determine the equity in the home (ESTIMATED value minus estimated mortgage). It shows if there is financial stability for the prospect. If a recent refinance was taken on the home, it could indicate home improvements, they could have used the equity to buy a second home or pay for tuition. If there is substantial equity, they could do a cash-out refinance to make a donation to an organization.

One more note about real estate as I’ve seen it come up a lot lately. Don’t be alarmed if a home that was purchased in the 2005-2008 range has about the same value or has even lost value. That was during the housing crisis. Particularly homes in the more affluent parts of the tri-state area of CT, NY, and NJ.

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Front Door Locked? Use the back door!

We just celebrated my colleague Jennifer Turner’s fourteenth anniversary with HBG (!), and one of the things Jen has become known for around here is her skill at tracking down hard-to-find information. In today’s article, Jen shares some of her tactics for finding contact information when the usual resources are less than helpful. Thanks, Jen! ~Helen

Jennifer Turner

Senior Consultant Jennifer Turner

Let’s face it – it isn’t easy getting a phone number for the likes of MacKenzie Scott (trust me, I’ve tried). I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s ever been given the daunting task of finding contact information for a famous philanthropist. It’s hard enough finding all their real estate assets, disguised under the names of various LLCs, let alone a direct phone number.

While it may be difficult reaching that donor directly, I am here to let you know that there is hope! Try reaching them through what I affectionately refer to as “the back door.” Below are some examples of alternative ways to connect your colleagues with those hard-to-reach prospects:

  1. Try to find the prospect’s personal assistant

Company websites usually just list the top executives, so you may need to dig a little deeper to find their assistants. I usually begin by searching the name of the prospect’s company in ZoomInfo’s “institution” tab. From there, I click on the list of individuals. Depending on the company, the number of names listed can range from a few to hundreds of thousands. I then sort this list by title, and scroll through until I find anyone whose title matches personal assistant, executive assistant, administrative assistant, etc. With any bit of luck, you will not only find the name of an assistant, but an email address and direct telephone number for them as well.

  1. Search within the prospect’s company’s website for “hidden” email addresses

Using an extension such as Hunter, you can quickly obtain a list of email addresses within a company’s website (note: Hunter offers a variety of subscriptions ranging in price, but even the free subscription gives you 25 monthly searches, so you won’t need to ask your supervisor to pay for another resource to have success with this method). Sometimes the email address will be accompanied by a complete name, and if you’re lucky, their title. Other times it will not. When I don’t have a name, I simply conduct a new internet search putting the email address in quotation marks. If/when I find the name, I can then run it through LinkedIn to see if I can obtain that person’s title. This method may sound a bit time consuming (which it can be) but has proven invaluable when I cannot find an email address for the actual prospect.

  1. LinkedIn

And speaking of LinkedIn, whether you have a paid subscription or use the free version (I use the free version), this can be a great tool for finding personal assistants. Look up the prospect’s company, then review its list of people. From this list, you can search employees by title, or you can simply scroll through the list of people to see if any titles are for an assistant. Once you have a name, you can then try to find their contact information in ZoomInfo or via an internet search. (Just remember that sometimes people hide their full names in LinkedIn.)

Of course, with these tips also come some hiccups…. 

Caveats

Sometimes there can be lots of administrative assistants. You can handle this a couple of different ways:

  • Include them all and let the fundraiser go from there.
  • Limit the ones you pass on to the fundraiser to those for which you have found an email address and a direct phone number.
  • Check to see if you can find the assistant’s location. Depending on the size of the company, the assistants may be scattered across various locations. Try to make sure the assistant’s name you provide is in fact employed at the same location as the prospect.

 

Outdated titles

  • People change jobs. Often. And sometimes information is outdated. Therefore, whenever possible, try to cross-check titles and companies to ensure the assistant is still, in fact, employed at your prospect’s company.

 

You simply cannot find an assistant.

  • It happens. When all else fails, try to give your colleague something. You may not be able to provide them with the prospect’s personal email or direct telephone number, but putting them in touch with a person whom they can refer to by name is the first step in getting them connected.

In conclusion….

 Don’t just give your fundraising colleagues a generic email (such as info@xxx.com) found on the main page of a company’s website, or their main business telephone number; take that extra step to provide your colleague with a specific name and a title, even if it isn’t for the intended prospect.

Chances are, they will have more luck speaking to an actual person this way, which can then lead to a future conversation with the desirable prospect. While it may be premature to expect an immediate call with the likes of MacKenzie Scott, there’s no harm in having an initial conversation with those connected to her. From there, you can let your colleague work their magic to get a meeting with a billionaire prospect.

 

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from a small discovery to a broad consideration

In today’s post, HBG’s Data Insight lead Steve Grimes continues the discussion on how we begin insight work in fundraising. As prospect development professionals, our work in this area puts us on a parallel journey with frontline fundraisers: how do we use the information that’s in front of us to tell a compelling story that motivates people to action? Today Steve helps us take those next steps. ~Helen

Assoc. Director of Data Insight, Steve Grimes

I’ve always had a hard time truly engaging with novels. Beyond the risk of embarking on a story with a slow burn that could turn stale, I took more to non-fiction because I felt it had a point to make, always something to disclose. Fiction, on the other hand, only provided me with a story consisting of characters, settings, plot, conflicts, and resolutions. I read novels as a fictional account of someone and failed to see how, through narrative, they could also be read as a story of the human experience.

Though not as purposeful, this is the same narrative found within non-fiction. However, if literary critic Roland Barthes is correct, narratives in any form of communication are inevitable as that “narrative is international, trans-historical, trans-cultural: it is simply there, like life itself.” With this lens, narratives are as personal as they are shared among us. They provide an avenue to emphasize intimate singular experiences and situate those experiences within a shared awareness. They are a reflection of a structure. Good novels, those with good narratives, make it that both structures and the individual stories can be engaged.

I’m sure to the chagrin of my high school English teachers, I should have learned this lesson earlier. However, it is one I’m happy to share with you here because it will help me conceptualize and highlight how a good prospect research profile can be like a good novel. Just like a good novel can provide the connections between individual story and the larger environment, I contend that the prospect research profile can be used as a tool to do the same. As you start to collect data for analytic work-streams within your shop, and to stay aligned with the strategies of your organization, your prospect research profile can help you answer what type of data you should collect for analyses. [Read more…]

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How much is that private company worth?

Finding information about public companies is so easy! Unfortunately, the majority of companies in the world are privately-held, so finding information about them – especially how much a company is worth – is a daunting task. Thankfully, today my colleague Grace Chandonnet provides a huge hand up for those of us who aren’t professional company valuers with this enormously helpful article. ~Helen

Grace Chandonnet

                Grace Chandonnet

It’s an age-old prospect intelligence challenge. Especially if you’re new to our field, placing a value on a privately held company, and on your prospect’s stake in that company, can seem daunting. Publicly traded companies are required to report their financial information to the SEC, and that information (things like market capitalization, revenue, number of employees, and insiders’ stock holdings), is then available to the public. Privately held companies are not under the same legal obligations, so getting at their financial information is a bit trickier and less straightforward. The good news is that there are some pretty simple tricks that can help a researcher arrive at a reasonable guess as to the value of a private company.

You will need a couple of pieces of information, and the fact is that sometimes you will not be able to know enough information to make a realistic estimate. But there are some resources to help.

If you can uncover a reliable estimate of the company’s revenues, that’s a great start. The unicorn is to find a news article, often published in business or industry publications, that is talking about the company’s industry and uses your prospect’s company as an example. In this article, the exact amount of revenue is not reported, but enough information is provided about the company, a provider of solar energy, to figure it out. The company “reported a 124% gain over 2018 gross sales – an increase of $42.4 million” – when you do the math, you will arrive at 2019 gross revenue of about $76.6 million.

If I have information like this, the first thing I will do is try to find one or more publicly traded companies with a similar line of business and similar revenue, and then compare the public company or companies to the privately held one that I am researching. To find similar public companies, I use a stock screener like this one, which is a free resource.

Select Create Custom Screen and then pull down on Select Category to Current Financials and select Revenue. Enter the revenue criteria (I use a range of values, in this case between $60M and $80M). Once you’ve entered that and clicked in the box to activate the search, go back to the pull-down menu. Pull down to Company Overview and then click on Industry (scroll down in the box, it’s slightly hidden). For this example, I picked “Alternative Electricity”. As you’ll see in the image, there is only one search result, but it’s a good one – click on View Screen Matches to see results. The piece of information to look for in those results is the market capitalization or market cap, which is the total value of the publicly traded company because it is reasonable to assume that there is some similarity between the market capitalization of the public company ($373.1 million) and the value of the private one.

If I have multiple companies in my search results, I will use the average market cap for the companies in the list that are the most similar to my prospect’s company. When doing this, I leave out any outliers – where the market cap is a lot lower or higher than most of the companies in the list.

If, however, you know that your prospect is trying to sell her company or that she already has, the value you want to look for is the enterprise value rather than the market cap. Enterprise value is the amount that a company could fetch in an acquisition. You can find this number by looking up the comparison public company or companies at any number of free sources. I like Yahoo Finance, where you can find the enterprise value under the Statistics tab.

Of course, a good deal of the time, you won’t find an article that tells you exactly what your prospect’s company’s revenues are or there just won’t be good comparison public companies in your search – sometimes a close industry match isn’t available or (if you do have an estimate of revenue), there won’t be any companies with revenues in that range.

My second go-to in cases like this is the Business Reference Guide, which is a paid resource, but not terribly expensive. This resource is available as an online subscription, a book, or both. It is focused on pricing businesses and franchises and is geared toward entities that are seeking to buy a company or franchise.  It is chock full of industry benchmarks and trends, rules of thumb when assessing certain industries or franchises, and ways to assess a ballpark figure for what a company is worth using a host of different data points that you may have. If you have an estimate of the number of employees a company has, for instance, you can often find a simple multiplier to use to estimate a company’s valuation.

This of course brings us back to whether you have that information and where to find it. I like to look at my prospect’s company in several different resources, including Dun & Bradstreet and ZoomInfo, both of which are included in a Lexis Nexis for Development Professionals (LNDP) subscription, and see how these resources’ results compare to one another. If you have access to LNDP, you not only have access to both of these resources, but also to a host of others, including Gale Group Company Briefs, IAC Company Intelligence, and Lexis Nexis Corporate Affiliations.

iWave is another great source of aggregated company information. Dun & Bradstreet has often been maligned in our profession for not containing trustworthy information because its data is frequently based on self-reported numbers and/or modeling, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. I’ve been finding lately that ZoomInfo often returns data about revenues and number of employees that seem pretty accurate to me. With practice, you will be able to identify which information is probably wildly inaccurate versus information that seems quite reasonable. D&B Private Company Insight (also available in LNDP) often has information about what percentage of the company is owned by whom, and this is great to know. Estimating the value of a company is one thing, but knowing how much of the company your prospect owns is the next (and important) step to including these numbers in your capacity score.

The more you do this kind of research, the more you will trust your instincts about what seems to be relatively accurate numbers, both for revenue and number of employees. There will always be things we can’t know abut a privately held company, such as the value of inventory or machinery and other hard assets, and debt/liabilities, but I believe that we should at least attempt to understand what a privately held company could be worth when assessing a capacity rating for a business owner, and I also believe that these relatively simple calculations can result in a strong estimate.

Some additional things to consider:

  • What percentage of the company does your prospect own? If you don’t know, estimate conservatively – I like to use 10 to 25 percent ownership.
  • Is it a multi-generation family business? This could indicate that there are minority shareholders (family members) and should be taken into account when assessing your prospect’s true stake.
  • Did your prospect found, grow and continues to head the company? This could indicate 100 percent ownership for your prospect.
  • Is it venture funded? Investors will own some stake in the company if so. Sometime the percentage of company owned by the investors can be found in a news search, but not always. If not, be conservative when estimating what your prospect’s ownership percentage is.
  • A company’s valuation is not a liquid asset for your prospect until/unless she sells it, but it is an asset that should be included in your capacity rating, just as real estate values are.
  • It is conventional wisdom that privately held companies are often not as valuable as publicly traded ones, so as for all the other steps, be conservative in your estimates.

Good luck – and remember: sometimes you just will not have enough information to make a reasonable guess about a company’s valuation and this is not a bad reflection on you or your research skills!

 

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What the heck are NFTs (and why should you care)?

Reflections. Photo by Julie Kahn (c) 2021

Research Pride is a celebration of all aspects of our wonderful profession, and the thing I probably love most about prospect research is that we’re constantly learning. Lots of times it’s about odd things that you never knew existed but discover quickly that they are an up-and-coming thing. Take for example today’s topic, NFTs – non-fungible tokens.

I started seeing the acronym NFT flying through my social media feeds about a month ago. The articles were relating to wealth and art, and just like with SPACs a few months ago, when I start seeing a mystery acronym that pertains to wealth, naturally I have to know more.

What I found was that there is an increasing amount of digital artwork being traded via blockchain for astonishingly high amounts of money.

Okay, let me back up and start at the beginning.

I first saw the term “non-fungible token” or NFT in relation to an auction that Christie’s is doing of a work of digital art, The First 5000 Days, by Mike Winkelmann, an artist who goes by the name Beeple. Christie’s website touts that it is the first time they are offering at auction a piece of digital artwork, and it’s also the first time they’ll be accepting cryptocurrency – Ethereum, specifically – as well as more standard forms of currency from the eventual buyer.

Now, you might be thinking, “Wait. If it’s a piece of digital artwork, what’s to prevent it from being copied a billion times or displayed on the internet for free?” and in fact that’s a very good question because The First 5000 Days currently is being displayed on the internet and you can go see it for free. Go ahead and check it out. I’ll wait here ‘til you get back.

Here’s how it works: this specific piece of digital artwork is being sold as a token, a small piece of digital real estate on a blockchain, which forever authenticates it as being a unique thing, an intangible, tangible thing, in the same way that Bitcoins (and Ethereum, and Dogecoin, and all cryptocurrency) are also things – tokens on a blockchain with a value that’s determined by the market.

Because they’re tracked on a blockchain, these specific things can’t be forged or hacked. But while there are more than 18 million interchangeable (aka “fungible”) Bitcoins, there is only one original of any single piece of artwork, which is why they’re non-fungible: one piece of artwork can’t replace another one on a 1-to-1 basis. It’s apples to oranges – they’re both fruit/both art – but not the same thing.

So why do we care about NFTs?

Well, for one thing, within one hour of going up for auction on the Christie’s website, bidding on The First 5000 Days went from $100 to $1 million. As of March 5th bidding was up to $3.5 million but the auction closes today, March 11, so we’ll know the final price as soon as Christie’s publishes it.

UPDATE: It sold today for $69 million. SIXTY. NINE. MILLION. DOLLARS.

It’s clearly a hot new market for art lovers who are also tech savvy, like Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla, and Chamath Palihapitiya, the chief executive of the technology holding company Social Capital and former Facebook executive. Both are NFT collectors, and it’s clearly a fast-growing market, too.

In fact, the market for NFT art was $342 million. Last. Month. That’s more than all of the NFT sales in 2020 combined and up from $12 million just in December. NFT art sales are hot and moving like a high-speed train on a 700 mile-long prairie. People are even burning extant art to make NFT art!

But back on the ground, and perhaps more importantly for our purposes: nonprofits are benefiting. A Banksy-style artist (is it actually Banksy? He says not but the works are verrrrrry Banksy-like) created NFTs that recently sold for $900,000 and a portion of the proceeds went to Save the Children.

Also, part of the sale of a lightly-animated Wonder Woman NFT created by veteran comic book artist José Delbo recently sold at auction and netted a $23,196 donation to the nonprofit Girls Who Code. So philanthropic tech art-philes are finding creative ways to fund their favorite charities!

So check out NFTs and do some mining to discover if you have any prospects that love them. This might be a good time for your nonprofit to look into accepting cryptocurrency, too, if you haven’t already.

FURTHER READING

Post-sale explainer from The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/12/nft-beeple-christies-blockchain/

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