The 2015 Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management World Wealth Report is out! Every spring, it makes for fascinating reading for those of us in fundraising, and for financial advisors and wealth managers working with high net worth individuals (HNWI). [Read more…]
Search Results for: real estate
The Artful Science of Capacity Ratings
It is a great pleasure to welcome Melissa Bank Stepno as this week’s guest writer on The Intelligent Edge. I’ve long admired Melissa’s gift in seeing the big picture in prospect development and her ability to eloquently communicate and train on its finer details. So when she and I were chatting between sessions at the recent NEDRA conference, I grabbed the opportunity to ask her to share her thoughts here on capacity ratings, which has been a hot topic lately on the prospect research discussion forum, prspct-l.
How much can they give? What should we ask for? How rich is she? What’s his net worth?
Such short questions. Such common questions. Such important questions. [Read more…]
The UK Mansion Tax: a ‘game changer’ for researchers
We continue our theme of international research with an extended pause in the UK (because as anybody who knows me knows, I’ll take *any* excuse to pause there!). This week, guest blogger Ben Rymer shares with us some tantalizing news about high net worth real estate in Britain. Ben is the Fundraising Research and Insight Manager at Age UK, the UK’s largest charity working with and for older people, where he has worked for four years. His professional interest and specialism is in measuring affinity and gauging capacity to give using data. This is his first article for the Intelligent Edge. He tweets at @benrymer. [Read more…]
Casting Your Net Across the Pond: 5 Tips for Effective UK Research
Always a popular fundraising research conundrum, this month’s theme on our blog is finding information on international prospects and donors. We kick off the series with a guest post by HBG Research Associate, Kelly Labrecque, who traveled to the UK to bring back some great resources for us to use…
A few weeks ago, while visiting a client in England, I started to think about how challenging it can be to research prospects outside of the United States. If you’re like me, you spend the majority of your time researching prospects in North America. You know exactly where to look to find what you need – addresses, real estate values, stock holdings, philanthropy, etc. But where do you turn when your prospect lives “across the pond,” specifically, in the United Kingdom?
As researchers, our efforts are often hampered when many of our trusted resources, like Lexis Nexis for Development Professionals, are limited to country-specific (i.e. US-only) information. Also, the UK has strict new guidelines governing donor privacy and doesn’t have the same reporting requirements for corporations and foundations. [Read more…]
Prospect Identification: Going beyond the same old same old
The theme for our HBG September blog is prospect identification and, because it’s one of her favorite activities, I asked Senior Researcher Jennifer Turner to give us some creative ideas for finding new donors. Over to you, Jen!
Your usual prospecting assignment: Find high net worth individuals (HNWIs) with the capacity to make a gift in a specific target range and with a likely interest in your cause.
Sounds like Prospecting 101, right?
Your usual method might be head to donor lists of organizations similar to yours to see who is giving, and at what level.
But what if you took some slightly unusual approaches – ones that shake up the traditional ways you normally prospect? Might that result in viable new prospects as well? My experience says yes! [Read more…]
Capacity Ratings – get informed for better results
In my early days as a prospect researcher, I used to be a “Just the facts, ma’am” kind of researcher and report writer. A “here’s what I can see. I have no idea what the rest looks like so I can’t even guess for you” kind of gal. I was so afraid to be wrong.
Except I already was wrong.
Elements of a full prospect research profile
In my last post, I talked about four ways to speed up the flow of information from researcher to fundraiser, and I gave examples of the average amount of time it takes for research reports to be done.
The post prompted a reader to ask “How many pages is your average in-depth profile? What categories does your in-depth profile include?” It was a great question that deserves a more thorough answer than just a quick reply in a comment. [Read more…]
Summer reading: wealth and philanthropy
With the publication of the always-worth-reading “World Wealth Report” last week, it reminded me that I wanted to mention to you a few white papers about high net worth individuals (HNWIs) that are well worth your time. They are:
The World Wealth Report 2011. CapGemini / Merrill Lynch.
- FREE with registration.
- Brief overview with additional links here; actual report in English here.
- The WWR details high net worth individuals worldwide: where they live, what they spend their money on, how they allocate their assets, etc. and they break the information down by country or region to achieve even more granularity. A tidbit I found interesting in this report: women made up 27% of the global HNW population in 2010, up from 24% in 2008. From under a quarter to nearly a third in two years – what does that make you think about your prospect portfolios?
The Wealth Report: A Global Perspective on Prime Property and Wealth 2011. Knight Frank / Citi Private Bank.
- Pdf version is FREE, click here. Hard copy also available with registration.
- For researchers and front-line fundraisers specializing in international work, this is a must-read overview of already-hot and emerging high-growth regions, industries, and people with a focus on global wealth and real estate. Contains interviews with experts such as Rupert Hoogewerf of the Hurun Rich List and discussions of topics including venture philanthropy.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch High Net Worth Philanthropy Study 2010. In collaboration with Indiana University Center on Philanthropy. Biennial.
- Pdf version is FREE, click here.
- The study is a survey of HNWIs to discover their attitudes toward giving and philanthropic behavior, how they make philanthropic decisions within their household, and their thoughts on volunteering and engagement. In addition to the study, there is also a video at the site featuring a panel discussion with two members of the Bank of America team and the director of research from the IU Center on Philanthropy.
Not specifically about HNWIs, but certainly related is:
Giving USA 2011. The Giving USA Foundation / Indiana University Center on Philanthropy
- Hard copy; web-based version; powerpoint slides and pdfs; $75
- Subscribers can (at the moment) access Volume One: the Numbers. Full publication to be released in July.
- Giving USA provides preliminary statistics on giving within the United States. The resource comes as a hard-copy book or web-based version, and includes tons of charts, graphs, and statistics as well as information on historical giving and trends.
Lastly, and maybe most fun:
For an engaging, entertaining, and enlightening article that gives you a glimpse into what it’s really like to be ultra wealthy, read this some Friday afternoon at 3 when you still need to work but just can’t make your brain do anything. From The Atlantic magazine, the article is called “The Rise of the New Global Elite.”
Do you have any other must-read white papers to share?
Three Truly Great (FREE!) Fundraising Research Resources
I just finished Tony Hsieh’s highly-recommended book Delivering Happiness, and it’s gotten me thinking about resources for fundraisers/researchers that provide a WOW factor: sources that deliver beyond expectations.
For me, that would be a metasite, or web page that has lots of links and resources of help to users. Here are my top picks in three categories. What are your favorites?
Best Overall Collaborative Metasite
First up I recommend SupportingAdvancement, a Mall of America-sized site with resources for every department in a fundraising office. The site has free templates, report formats, white papers, and training resources useful to everyone, as well as links to research-specific sites and much more. It’s updated daily and thrives on the generosity of its contributors of content and site sponsors. I could go on, but really, you have to see it to believe it.
Best Metasite Created as a Division-Wide Resource (update: link sadly no longer valid because they liked it so much they turned it into an internal-only resource)(!)
This next site is a resource created by the research team at The University of California San Diego for the entire development department. It’s called the Development Office Toolkit and they created it using Google Sites (free!) and linked it to the university’s servers. The site is chock-a-block with information for the whole development office: news of upcoming training classes, pdfs of internal (yet public) reports, how-tos, templates, university event calendars and lots more.
For prospect research specifically, there are pages on ethics and confidentiality policies, information about prospect management and links to lots of research resources, including some niche sources like BloodHorse for finding thoroughbred horse owners.
This is a fantastic example of an internal resource that isn’t just a research department resource, but one created with the needs of the entire division in mind. And since they used Google Sites to make the resource, you can too! It’s a great example for others to follow. Bravo!
Best Metasite For Research-Specific Information
And last but definitely not least, Northwestern University has kept up a comprehensive Research Bookmarks list of several hundred links since the early 1990s, and it is consistently fantastic. Updated monthly from recommendations within the NU research department and from the prospect research community at large, the list is particularly strong with links to international resources including hard-to-find offshore real estate listings. It’s been on my bookmarks list for years and it should be on yours, too, if it isn’t already.
If you have other metasites that you’d like to add to this list, comment below! Let’s crowd-source this!
Innovation in the DAF space
One thing I’ve gathered in my learning journey about donor advised funds is that they are an ever-evolving and very creative philanthropic vehicle, both for the kinds of assets that go into them, and for the way the monies are invested.
A brief background for those new to donor advised funds, but with extra fun stuff…
Even though DAFs have been legally codified since the Pension Protection Act of 2006, there still isn’t a whole lot of legislation restricting their structure or reporting (which could change if the ACE Act becomes law).
Here’s how the process works on a basic level: the donor irrevocably gifts an asset such as cash, appreciated securities, cryptocurrency, private company shares, restricted stock, limited partnership interests, or thoroughbred horse-race winnings to a DAF sponsor.
The sponsor, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, can be a commercial entity like Fidelity, a community foundation like the Boston Foundation, or a single-issue sponsor like a university, Jewish Federation, or Rotary International.
The assets then (usually) get converted into currency and invested, and the DAF donor can pick what they want their fund invested in, sort of like when you pick mutual funds for a retirement account. A DAF donor might choose a conservative bond fund, or a more aggressive stock fund.
Orrrrr…
They can designate their assets to go into an impact investment. So instead of the money going into a mutual fund, the donor can designate the money to be invested in a project for the benefit of a nonprofit.
Take for example, Habitat for Humanity in Austin, Texas. They’re currently building 150 affordable homes that will be ready for occupation next year. Normally Habitat might go to a bank for a loan and/or solicit philanthropic donations to help with their project. But their innovative financing brought together a coalition of funders from foundations, companies, individuals, and DAF donors at the Austin Community Foundation as partners invested in the project’s success.
The Austin American-Statesman put it like this:
The drive for more affordable housing in Austin recently got an extra push when Austin Habitat for Humanity received a $4 million loan from Austin Community [Foundation] to help build 150 single-family homes.
Half of the $4 million comes from grants from St. David’s Foundation, Tito’s Handmade Vodka and Bill Wood Foundation. The remaining half comes from investments from the Shield-Ayres Foundation, the Aragona family and a group of donor-advised fund holders at the community foundation.”
The money from the DAFs is loaned to Habitat at a 2% interest rate, with the full amount paid back in 2 years, so when the money goes back into the donor’s fund, they’ve earned 2% on the amount they loaned and they got to help Habitat build affordable homes in the meantime.
This sort of arrangement isn’t new to the Austin Community Foundation DAF donors interested in making a double impact – they did this before in 2019.
Impact investing isn’t entirely new to Community Foundations, but it’s still a relatively new area. Many CFs, like the Baltimore Community Foundation, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (of course) have been leveraging donor money for a while. Others, like the program at the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation and the Hawai’i Community Foundation are still nascent but growing.
Who knew loans were part of a DAF’s potential investment portfolio?! That’s some creative double-impact funding action.
What else is happening in this DAF world we live in?
How about making DAF grants to nonprofits from your phone: this week PayPal, the National Philanthropic Trust, and Vanguard announced a collaboration that will allow DAF donors to use an app called Grant Payments to donate directly to the nonprofit of their choice and, best of all for nonprofits,
Both grantmakers and charities will have access to all available grant details, including donor information when provided, via a PayPal dashboard.”
Now that‘s innovation!
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