Researching Individuals Archives

September 15, 2022 By Helen Brown

Searching 2.0 – starting and stopping

For those of you just starting out in prospect research, I have to be honest and say that the urge to check in just one more place never goes away. After a couple of decades (ahem) I’m now just about able to manage the urge, but I’ve never gotten rid of it.

I actually think that that hunger to keep seeking is a good thing, but being an effective researcher means knowing when to stop. It’s learning that you don’t need to find everything about a prospect and that – just because you can find a million pieces of information detritus – doesn’t mean they’re important to your end user.

But the most important part of being an effective researcher is knowing where – and how – to start. Because the bonanza of information you get on the front end leads to all of the threads you can pull (or decide not to pull) depending on what’s actually important.

This has been a summer of research tips and tricks on The Intelligent Edge, and we’re continuing today with one terrific tool and a couple of ways to think through your searching.

Permutations

First up is a brand-new tool by the top-of-the-heap researcher, Tara Calishain. You’ve heard me praise the fantastic tools she creates for all of us in the search profession, and this week Tara debuted yet another tool – one that is purpose-built for prospect research.

It’s called Carl’s Name Net.

Carl’s Name Net presents you with a series of search boxes. You put in someone’s name and it creates a beautiful search string with all sorts of permutations on that name designed for various search platforms, like Google, Google Scholar, Google Books, and the Internet Archive. There’s even a spot for additional keywords.

Anyone who has ever taken a search class with me knows that name permutation searching is one of the very first things I teach about when looking for information on an individual.

We never know how an article, or donor list, or licensing body, or association, or bio is going to name someone. Depending on the formality of the situation, someone could be referred to in completely different ways.

Take for example, former president Clinton: He might be referred to as William Jefferson Clinton; William J. Clinton; Bill Clinton; President Clinton; Clinton, William J.; Clinton, Bill…

I could probably go on, but you get it. And not only do you want to create all those permutations, but you also need to search on Willaim Clinton, too. I’m constantly surprised by how many legit hits you can get on a misspelled name.

Don’t forget to do the same kind of search for the person’s spouse, too! Seriously – spouses own property in their name (and LLCs and trusts, and business names, and …) too.

And also (most importantly), why would any nonprofit not want to engage with donors as a family?

Can’t find the spouse’s name? Try AROUND.

Use all the permutations in parentheses and add AROUND(4) (wife OR husband OR spouse OR partner). So for example:

(“Joe Bloggs” OR “Joseph Bloggs” OR “Joseph J. Bloggs” etc) AROUND(4) (wife OR husband OR spouse OR partner)

What this does is find an article or mention of your prospect “and(1) their(2) husband/wife/spouse/partner(3), <name>(4)”

In this instance, you really only need 3 words in between the person’s name and the spouse name, but I always leave room for an extra potential word in case the article adds in something flowery, like “and their dynamic husband, Pat” which is four words in between the two names. You can always put in AROUND(5) or more. The trick here is that you want to avoid mentions of Joe Bloggs in the first paragraph and Bob’s Smith’s amazing wife, Joan, in paragraph 5. Using AROUND keeps the proximity within a reasonable, efficient, distance.

Thinking through your search to get the most information up front

Here are two key questions to ask yourself before you get started, and as you’re researching someone:

Why have they asked me to research this person? Now, this may seem like a gimme, but it’s not always. Your perspective on this (or the response you get from the requestor if you ask them) may lead you in more creative directions than if you just take the request at face value.

What is anomalous about the information that I’m finding on this person? Where does that lead you? “They have houses in Boston and Miami but they’re a member of a golf club on Long Island. What’s that about?” Give information that seems out of place a second look.

Speaking of places to look

Things that are important when trying to get a full picture of a person include searching all of the organizations the person volunteers for to find not only their giving, but also to see if there are pictures (you may see spouses, kids, or colleagues!), articles highlighting the individual (again, spouses and kids, but also philanthropic interests), or awards and achievements that may be meaningful to them.

Search the websites of their clubs, alma maters (almas mater?), and professional associations for both the main prospect and their spouse for all of the above reasons, too.

Site search

If an organization or association doesn’t have a search box (and even if they do) try a site search. So for example, in your search bar, type in “site:jpmorgan.com dimon” to see information about CEO Jamie Dimon (who also may go by “James” – just saying).

Tells

In poker, apparently everyone has a “tell.” That tic, or way of sitting, or mannerism that gives away the quality of your hand.

Sometimes prospects have a tell, too. For post-Boomer generations, it’s not uncommon for a woman to keep her family name when she marries, but if a married women 60+ kept her birth name, that could be a clue that her family name was more important to her than her married name, and it could mean that there is family wealth there.

Look for middle names of children that sound like surnames, because they can be a clue to family wealth, too. Just like Anderson Cooper’s brother, Carter, a child may have their father’s more ordinary surname of Cooper, but the middle name of Vanderbilt.

When it’s time to say “when”

So now you’ve gotten a lot of information and so it’s probably time to stop. How do you know when enough is enough? When you get the answer to the fundraiser’s question – whatever that is. Before you start, maybe try asking them what they particularly need to know, both so that you avoid the answer “everything!!” and so you can keep your own search hunger in check.

August 11, 2022 By Helen Brown

How to know there’ll be an IPO

Today’s article picks up where Michele Borucki left off last week discussing the intricacies of initial public offerings. Last week we learned how to value them; this week we learn how to pick up on the clues that an IPO is imminent. Thanks for explaining this, Michele! ~Helen

Michele Borucki

Last week we looked at the process leading up to a private company going public, reviewed some pros and cons, and listed some ways to track upcoming IPOs with links to lots of great resources. This week I’m sharing a few clues that indicate a prospect/donor and their private company may be going public soon, talking about how the success of an IPO is measured, and the best timing to give a green light for the solicitation process to begin.

An interesting way to proactively look at our pool of prospects or beloved donors is to monitor their companies for indicators that they may be planning to go public. When a private company makes these plans, there is usually little fanfare or advance notice.

Some of this is due to the SEC requirements in relation to official filings of notices, while some of the silence is simply because a company going public is big news and puts the corporation under a magnifying glass. It’s easier for a company to prepare quietly and anonymously out of the public eye. There are, however, several signs prior to the official notification and filing that can indicate that a company is about to make the leap.

Before making the required SEC filings and announcements, etc., private companies will signal their intentions by taking actions in preparation for the IPO. They may implement procedures to tighten record keeping and accounting in an effort to show they have strict financial policies and internal controls that prevent fraud and mismanagement.

We may not notice that kind of thing, after all, we are fundraising experts, not accountants. But here is the big one for us prospect researchers: they may change up their senior management and begin to hire new executives with proven track records for leading companies through the IPO process.

Another pretty telling one that we’d notice is that they may sell off non-essential business segments and take all allowed accounting write-offs in order to present improved financial statements.

After all is said and done, once a company has gone public, the last thing to do is to judge how successful the IPO was. Researchers get asked a lot by gift officers “how much did so and so make off of their company’s IPO?” The metrics used to determine an IPO’s financial success are the market capitalization (or “market cap”) and market pricing.

Market cap refers to the total dollar market value of a company’s outstanding shares of stock. It can be calculated by multiplying the total number of a company’s outstanding shares by the current market price of one share. The IPO is considered successful if the difference between the offering price and the market cap of the issuing company 30 days after the IPO is less than 20%.

That is a lot of math, and I’m an English major so I tend to the let the professionals handle this type of thing for me (think smarter not harder, right?) Usually by the time we are asked how an executive did post-IPO, a financial publication Forbes or Fortune has already calculated it for us so be sure to check there as well as the SEC documentation!

Now that we know an IPO was successful and our prospect or donor has done really well, we aren’t quite ready to make that major or principal gift ask. Another important data point to be aware of and track are lock-up expirations. These are restrictions which prevent major shareholders and company insiders from selling shares in the company for a specified numbers of days following the event to prevent the market from being flooded with too much supply of a company’s stock.

The timeline for lock ups is usually 90 – 180 days depending on the company. Two resources you can use to monitor these are MarketBeat and IPO Monitor (paid subscription.) We want to be aware of windfalls in advance because this lock-up period obviously affects a person’s liquidity. They may not be able to cash out right away.

The process of taking a private company public is definitely not easy or cheap. It certainly isn’t one that is simple for us to research and wrap our heads around, but I hope with a little help from this post you will be on your way to connecting those dots with a bit more ease.

Once you know that a prospect you’ve had your eye on has done well in their company’s IPO and that their lock-up period has ended, you can confidently add them to the gift officer’s portfolio in hopes of someday (soon!) receiving a gift to further the incredible mission of your organization.

July 14, 2022 By Helen Brown

Highlights from the Art Market Report

If you do any kind of research on art collectors, this week’s article by Kristina Gropper is a real treat. Kristina is our resident expert on art markets, art collecting and collectors, and today Kristina walks us through the Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report and shares her insights on what stands out to her as noteworthy. Enjoy! ~Helen

Kristina Gropper

In mid-March, the spring daffodils blossom in my front yard. They are a welcome reminder that longer, sun-soaked days are approaching. Around the same time, I await the arrival of the newest Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report prepared by Dr. Clare McAndrew. Full of insight, charts, and jaw-dropping examples of post-war/contemporary art, it has become a ritual to flip through the annual report online and listen to the accompanying podcast episode from The Week In Art.

The annual art market report presents data collected and reviewed by Dr. Clare McAndrew, a cultural economist specializing in the arts, antiques, and collectibles markets. In 2005 Dr. McAndrew founded Arts Economics, a research and consulting firm focused on the arts economy. Since 2016, the firm has published annual reports sharing trends in the global art market for Art Basel and UBS.

While other reports like the Knight Frank Wealth Report touch briefly on luxury spending, Dr. McAndrew’s comprehensive reports focus solely on the global art market. The Art Newspaper describes the reports as the gold standard in decoding the art market, and I have come to consider them paramount as well.

In addition to annual reports, Dr. McAndrew has recently conducted potent mid-year surveys. The 2020 mid-year survey was particularly perceptive in understanding the ramifications of COVID-19 on art employment, online art sales, and auction sales. In my blog post from November 2020, I shared some takeaways from this mid-year survey and other contemporary reports. Now that two and a half years have passed, let’s revisit this topic and explore highlights from the most recent report.

The Art Market 2022 – An Art Basel & UBS Report

This year’s survey covered 2021 and interviewed 2,339 high net worth (HNW) collectors. The HNW survey data has grown to include ten markets, including Brazil for the first time. The median expenditure on fine art, decorative art, and antiques blossomed from $72,000 in 2019 to $274,000 in 2021.
In 2021, the global art market showed its resilience. After dropping to $50.3 billion in 2020, the art market recovered to $65.1 billion, which surpassed where it was in 2019 ($64.4 billion).
The three hubs remained the US, UK, and China. The United States retained its top position (43%), and Greater China is now in second place at 20%. The UK market dropped to 17%. Small shifts in these hubs may be due to the increased survey size (as noted above, Brazil was added) and the strength of alternative art markets in Europe. Art sales in France, for example, increased in value by 50% in 2021 to $4.7 billion. Sales in Germany, Spain, and Italy also saw growth.
Online sales accounted for 20% of sales in the global art market, which was a 5% drop from the previous year, but still double 2019 levels (9%).
The aggregate dealer sector was resilient and bounced back to around 2019 levels. Within this sector, the art fair calendar returned in 2021, and fair sales increase to 29% of total dealer sales, but nowhere near where it was in 2019 (43%). In 2021, local and regionally focused art fairs, especially fairs in or close to major art markets or cities with dense populations of HNW collectors, have done well given the reluctance of collectors to travel.
Looking at auction sales, private sales increased by 32% to an estimated $4 billion. Total sales conducted by auctions, including public and private sales, were estimated to reach $30.4 billion in 2021, a 10% increase over 2019 levels.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were not included in the $65.1 billion total value of global art sales from 2021. The rationale behind this is most art NFTs were sold outside of galleries, dealers, and auction houses. Even so, the report shared that sales of art and collectibles NFTs increased from $30 million in 2020 to $11.1 billion in 2021. According to the report, 75% of art NFTs were resales and owned for just over a month before being resold. An astonishing 74% of HNW collectors purchased an art-based NFT in 2021. A majority (88%) of HNW collectors expressed interest in purchasing art NFTs in the future, but time will tell if this trend holds.

Do you concentrate on art collectors and art markets? What stood out to you from this report?

April 7, 2022 By Helen Brown

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

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:

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.

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.

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.

March 24, 2022 By Helen Brown

Ch-ch-ch-changes: Why are musicians selling their catalogs?

Like many of us, HBG’s Jayme Klein noticed a trend in musicians selling their catalogs recently, and she decided to dig quite a bit deeper to help all of us understand what’s behind these massive sales. Thanks to Jayme’s article, we can see (much more) clearly now! ~Helen

Senior Consultant Jayme Klein

Stevie Nicks. Bob Dylan. Blondie. Neil Young. Bruce Springsteen. Paul Simon. Sting. Tina Turner. Many famous musicians are making headlines these days. Not for a new album or a worldwide tour, but because they’ve sold their copyrights in multi-million dollar deals. Even those without decades-long careers, such as John Legend, Shakira, Justin Bieber and Timbaland, are cashing in on their past successes to ensure their futures. It doesn’t stop with those still among us, either. The estates of the late David Bowie and Bob Marley have also signed over publishing rights. What’s the deal?

It starts with what they’re selling.

As the Washington Post so helpfully explains, for nearly every song, there are two copyrights associated with it. It makes it easier to understand the process when you think of a song as a two-step process.

First, it has to be written. Then, it has to be recorded. These steps each have their own copyright. The composition (music and lyrics) and the master (the recording) can be owned by different entities and are different revenue streams. Your favorite cover song creates different claims of ownership: first, by the original composer and anyone who records a cover. An automatic fee is due every time someone records a cover. Another hiccup in the process is if an artist re-records their music (Taylor Swift) and creates multiple masters. This is highly uncommon. If a company or individual wants to license a song, this can get really complicated, as they have to contact the composer, the owner of the master(s) and any other owner. Phew.

An artist doesn’t have to sell it all at once. Neil Young sold 50% of his copyright in 2021. The company Primary Wave purchased a 50% stake in the estate of Whitney Houston, and only publishing from before 1964 by Ray Charles. Mick Fleetwood sold only the recorded rights to BMG.

While the trend is making news right now, in 1997, David Bowie got things started by creating Bowie Bonds, the first celebrity asset-backed investment. He raised $55 million through 10-year bonds backed by his royalties, with a 7.9% return. They matured in 2007, with the income rights returning to Mr. Bowie. While the phenomenon didn’t last, it helped stir thinking about music catalogs as an investment.

Lately, it seems that investors with deep pockets want to “work smarter, not harder” and own these copyrights if the owner is willing to sell. Songs with longtime appeal (hits that continue to be popular over many years) are considered a lower risk investment, than, say, a one hit wonder from a few summers ago. The new owner of “Like a Rolling Stone” will get revenue if it is used in a film, a commercial, or even played at your local restaurant.

What’s causing these musicians to cash in? It seems like some older musicians are planning ahead for their futures, especially since touring revenue has dried up during the pandemic. While few musicians are speaking out about their decisions, some, like David Crosby, have said that streaming services have dissolved their income sources. “If we could get paid for records and play live we would not be doing it. None of us.” Some may see leaving their families a large sum of money less complicated than managing their music catalogs after they are gone. Given the multitude of estates cashing in, this may prove true.

Per Rolling Stone, tax benefits are a primary reason for the especially successful. In 2006, the Bush administration signed a law which allowed musicians use catalog sales as capital gains, rather than income (which is taxed higher). If the Biden administration changes capital gains taxes for sales over $1 million, this would raise the rate from 20% to 37%. A one-time payment on the sale would save musicians a lot of money over time. The article notes that a younger artist, Shakira, is involved in a tax evasion investigation upwards of $16 million. Selling copyrights could be a more lucrative way to make that up than, say, selling a property.

How are the deals decided? Hipgnosis, a company that has purchased several catalogs, pays artists, on average, “14.76x historical annual income.” This means an average of 14.76 years of royalties. Depending on the artist, this may be higher or lower.

Those buying the catalogs are almost as varied as the artists themselves. Often, they are going to recording companies, such as Bruce Springsteen’s $500 million sale to Sony, Bob Dylan’s $400 million deal to Universal or David Bowie’s estate’s deal with Warner Chappell Music for $250 million. Most recently, Sting sold his back catalog to Universal Music as well for $250 million. Investment firms like Hipgnosis, Vine Alternative Investments and Eldridge are looking at music catalogs as a reliable investment and making deals with artist young and old alike. Stevie Nicks sold her catalog for $100 million to Primary Wave, a New York-based talent management and publishing firm.

What does this mean for researchers? The majority of musicians that we might investigate will not be making deals like this. However, it always helps to broaden our knowledge of what people are selling and what it could be worth. Thinking creatively about the arts and how prospects become high net worth individuals is never a bad investment.

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.

November 11, 2021 By Helen Brown

Expanding our view on HNWI and their real estate holdings

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

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

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

Places we go to find that out

[Read more…]

August 5, 2021 By Helen Brown

There’s No Business Like Show Business

This week we welcome HBG Senior Researcher and LA resident Mandi Matz to the blog to talk about all things Hollywood – and in particular, movie magic and money. Mandi provides us with some great resources for finding compensation and deeper financial information on everyone involved in bringing entertainment to our screens, large and small. ~Helen

Mandi Matz

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for more than 15 years. While I’m not originally from LA, I think of it as my adopted home now. When I meet people from other states and mention where I live, I inevitably get asked two questions:

Do I go to the beach every day?
Do I see movie stars all the time?

The answer to both questions is “no,” but I did recently see a Hollywood A-lister at my local coffee shop.

[Read more…]

June 3, 2021 By Helen Brown

Real estate and the wealthy right now

When the pandemic struck last year, (those who could) moved into their summer homes or took long rentals outside of whatever city they lived in. Since that time, there has been a reshuffling of thinking about what it means to be employed full-time and if employers will maintain offices, move to a hybrid office/work from home (WFH) situation, or just close their offices permanently.

That means that in vacation areas especially the real estate market is booming. Houses are selling within hours, some sight-unseen, for cash – and well above asking price. It’s a good time to be a real estate agent, especially if you like working 20/7. It’s also a great time to be a seller (as long as you have somewhere else to live lined up). It’s not great to be someone who is looking for a primary – or first-rung-on-the-ladder home.

Pension and private equity firms are changing the market

Institutional money pockets are as deep as the Mariana Trench right now, and those investors have to diversify their portfolios. Real estate is a great way for them to do that. What that means is that they are becoming some of the largest real estate owners in the country and are driving up prices up so that the average home seeker is getting shut out of the process.

With medium-sized investors refurbishing medium-sized homes to flip to institutional investors, it means that monthly rental fees are going up, too, for those homes that are left.

According to real estate research and investment firm John Burns Real Estate Consulting, one in five homes in the US is owned by someone who will never live in it. In Houston, investors currently account for nearly a quarter of all recent home sales. Investors aren’t just buying houses and apartment buildings, either – they’re buying whole neighborhoods.

UHNWIs

Moving down the food chain ever so slightly, what about ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) – those with a mere $30 million and more? What does real estate look like for them? How did the pandemic change their attitudes toward where they want to live?

Respected real estate firm Knight Frank publishes their Wealth Report annually, and this year’s version had fascinating insights. Just over a quarter of UHNWIs expect to buy a new primary residence this year in a coastal or rural location. Their primary goal is to have access to open spaces near their main dwelling, and their plan is to have this upgraded residence also serve as their office (or be very close to their work-place).

90% of those surveyed said that international travel would be significantly curtailed due to ongoing concerns about COVID-19, so that makes the home-as-getaway even more important.

In terms of holdings, primary and secondary homes make up about a quarter of UHNWIs investment portfolios. Their interest in investing in commercial property is way down (imagine that!) but – just like pension and private equity firms – their interest is way up for owning rental properties.

So what does this mean for prospect research and fundraising?

Well, a lot. This real estate financing situation is a whole separate world that is important for those of us in fundraising to read about to understand what’s going on with money moving around. Here are 3 specific things to consider:

Your nonprofit’s UHNW donors may be on the move, so keeping in touch will be even more important this year.

While it’s true that a donor will never* give an organization their residence(s), real estate can be an important indicator of wealth. Use the ratios and percentages in reports like the Knight Frank Wealth Report and the Capgemini World Wealth Report to help you get a sense of your prospect’s capacity when you are creating ratings.

This is a real estate bubble. Bubbles always burst, and we won’t know the size of it until it happens. Historically, people and institutions that are heavily invested in certain types of real estate (commercial real estate, for example) may struggle if they put too many eggs in that basket. If the top of your donor pyramid has a lot of people in this category, now would be a good time to make some asks and to think about diversifying your prospect portfolios soon.

What else? If you share this on your social channels, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts about this. I’m at @AskHelenBrown on Twitter.

*this is not actually a true statement. See planned giving.

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