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The UK Mansion Tax: a ‘game changer’ for researchers

Bodnant House

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…]

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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…Tower Bridge from White Tower

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…]

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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!

Ideas - Creativity

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…]

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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.

[Read more…]

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Elements of a full prospect research profile

young scientist with dinosaur

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…]

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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?

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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!

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Inconvenient Truths about Single Family Offices

By: Kenny Tavares, Senior Consultant

Kenneth Tavares

Kenny Tavares

Single family offices (SFOs) have become increasingly important in managing the wealth of ultra-high-net-worth families. These entities are designed to centralize financial, administrative, and governance functions, ensuring that family wealth is preserved and strategically deployed across generations. The rise in interest surrounding SFOs is not coincidental – it reflects broader trends in wealth accumulation, generational transitions, and the increasing complexity of managing substantial assets.

By some estimates, there are between 10,000 and 20,000 family offices globally, and this number continues to grow. This expansion is fueled by factors such as wealth transfer, succession planning, and the need for bespoke financial solutions that traditional institutions often cannot provide.

As a prospect researcher, it is always helpful to find evidence of a family office, but what does it really tell us about a prospect’s wealth? What type of family office do they have? What type of services do they offer? If you are like me, you have heard many estimates about the amount of wealth needed to start an office. Are these statistics telling us the real story? An examination of data in J.P. Morgan Private Bank’s 2024 Global Family Office Report tells us a more complex story. Here are a few interesting facts to consider when developing a wealth estimate.

The average assets under supervision at a single family office (SFO) in the United States is $767 million and the average net worth of those families is $1.4 billion, but…

The median assets under management in the US is $476 million and the median net worth of those families is $626 million according to J.P. Morgan. Additionally, 38% of US-based SFOs surveyed were founded by families with net worth of $500 million or less; 25% of them were managing assets of $250 million or less. This means that a little more than half of SFOs have assets less than $500 million. This is corroborated by Citi Wealth’s 2025 Global Family Office Report, which states that 47% of North America’s SFOs have assets of $500 million or less. While trends continue to point toward larger SFOs, there are still a significant number of smaller operations.

The average operating cost for a SFO in the U.S is $3.4 million, but…

The median operating cost is $1.4 million according to J.P. Morgan. 33% of these offices had costs of less than $1 million, including 59% of offices with assets between $50 million and $500 million. These expenses cover salaries, technology, compliance, and outsourced services. The difference between the mean and median are probably due to the following factors:

The average number of employees for a SFO in the U.S. is 11.4, but…

The median employee count is 2.8. 53% of SFOs have five or fewer employees; 71% have 10 or fewer employees, including 90% of offices with assets between $50 million and $500 million. Additionally, J.P. Morgan reports only 7% of US SFOs employ six or more executives; 79% employ 3 or less executives. Furthermore, Bank of America’s 2024 Family Office Study indicates that 60% of SFOs report that their founding assets originated from a family business and half of those share employees with the family business. Many of these SFOs are relying on services to accomplish their goals.

The large majority of SFOs offer financial asset management; professional services such as accounting and taxes, legal services and estate planning; administration services; insurance management; family governance and succession planning; and philanthropic services, but…

According to J.P. Morgan, 37% of U.S.-based SFOs outsource investment management services to third-party providers. 50% or more of the family offices that offer the following services rely on external providers instead of building capabilities in-house: legal services; accounting and taxes; trading and market execution; estate planning; investment banking; services and cybersecurity services; and matrimonial and family planning. 93% of SFOs plan to maintain or increase their reliance on outsourcing services to expand their services and manage expenses.

This behavior, which resembles that of outsourced family offices or hybrid offices, demonstrates the difficulty in defining family offices. Often, researchers lack the information needed to assume how these organizations function.

So, what does the existence of a single family office tell us about a prospect’s wealth?

The numbers above show us that without additional information, we can only make general assumptions about family offices and that, at a minimum, the existence of a family office confirms the following:

  • The prospect is likely a high net worth individual (investable assets of $30 million or more).
  • The prospect experienced a business sale or liquidity event that needed to be managed in the family’s interest. A record of this event can tell us more about the family office’s assets.
  • Any indication that the prospect has a SFO could increase estimated assets to a baseline of $100 million.
  • While difficult to determine, any indicator as to the number of employees or executives at the single family office could go far in determining the size and wealth of the organization.
  • Keep in mind that a single family office is not likely to hold all of a family’s assets.

A single family offices’ existence signals significant financial strength, but understanding their scale and structure requires additional context. As wealth management becomes increasingly complex, SFOs will continue to evolve, balancing in-house expertise with outsourced services to meet the demands of governance, investment, and legacy planning. Recognizing these dynamics is essential for accurately assessing their role and implications in today’s philanthropic landscape.

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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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Adapting the Reference Interview for Prospect Research

We’re lucky to have quite a few members of our team who are former librarians (or MLIS degree holders who opted to use their degree in prospect research). I’m always interested to hear how they come at a tricky research conundrum and think about where the best information might be found. Everyone on our team is helpful with each other, but in particular the library science degree-holders seem to be especially interested in helping their teammates find the right answer. Today’s article is written by one of our valued MLIS-holders, Christine Bariahtaris. Christine shares five great tips that will help researchers provide exactly what each requestor needs, and will help requestors think about how to communicate those needs. ~Helen

             Christine Bariahtaris

Imagine you are your local librarian sitting at a reference desk. A patron comes up to you and says, “I want information about birds.”

You spend the next hour and a half pulling everything you can possibly find on birds. You’ve got it covered from Big Bird to the endangered Bahama nuthatch. Beaming, you deliver your hoard to your patron and invite them to enjoy.

Fifteen minutes later, the patron walks past you on their way out, empty-handed. “Thanks,” they say, “but I didn’t find what I needed.”

This scenario is too real for many prospect researchers – just swap out the birds for donors and the patron for a gift officer. I’ve had many personal experiences of delivering thorough research only to be told it lacked the insights the gift officer was hoping to see. At best, it’s frustrating, and at worst, it’s downright disheartening for everyone. However, I’ve noticed that those experiences have become fewer and fewer, and recently asked myself why.

At some point, I let my library science training resurface. Librarians have a way of making sure the bird scenario doesn’t happen: the reference interview.

What is a reference interview?

When someone asks for information, they are usually asking for what they think they want, which is not the same as what they need. This isn’t a criticism – if they could articulate what they needed well, they wouldn’t be asking for help!

The reference interview is a conversation technique that encourages people to talk more about what they need, which gives the researcher better guidance. It translates seamlessly into prospect research. The result should be that everyone walks away happy: the researcher finds the most relevant information in the least amount of time and the requestor gets exactly what they need.

How does it work?

There are five core steps to follow:

  1. Be Approachable

It can be intimidating to ask for assistance, no matter what kind. You don’t need to become the office party planner – even small efforts to connect build trust. When your colleagues trust you, they will feel more comfortable speaking openly about what they need. Some easy ways to do this are:

  • Be visible: either in the office or via remote chats
  • Be available: make sure your colleagues know they can contact you when needed
  • Keep it casual: avoid technical jargon and rabbit-holes
  1. Be Interested

It would be great if every research question was a stimulating mystery, but that’s not reality. Nothing will stifle a conversation faster than signaling you are bored, so your workspace is a judgement-free zone when it comes to research requests. Use active-listening behaviors such as re-establishing eye-contact and nodding to show you are engaged. For remote workers, make sure you are sending written prompts demonstrating you are interested in the question (some guidelines suggest keeping a prepared list to make this easier) and that you are responding to colleagues in a timely manner.

  1. Listen & Inquire

Once your colleague is comfortable, you can get to the meat of the reference interview.

  • Let them fully state their question in their own words before you respond.
  • Rephrase their question back to them and ask them to confirm that you’ve understood.
  • If needed, identify the goal they are hoping the research will help achieve.
  • Ask open-ended questions that encourage your colleague to give you more information, such as:
    • Can you tell me more about this prospect?
    • Can you tell me more about this prospect’s relationship with our organization?
    • How much information do you need (i.e., full profile, wealth report)?
  • Ask clarifying questions to narrow down which sources to consult, such as:
    • What have you already found that has been helpful to you?
    • What type of information do you most need (bio/capacity/giving)?

Avoid interrupting or correcting their answers. Remember: the interview is a conversation, not an interrogation.

  1. Research

At this point, you should have a good idea of what your colleague needs and where to find it. This is where prospect researchers diverge from a typical reference interview. Librarians “show their work” so that the process is also a learning experience for the patron. In our case, that usually isn’t necessary for our colleagues.

What is helpful is to give a final restatement of their need, a quick overview of what you plan to do, and a time estimate if you are able: “You need a giving summary on Joe Smith focused on the last 10 years. I’m going to check x, y, and z to get started. I can get this to you by Wednesday. Does that work for you?” This gives your colleague a chance to clarify one last time and make sure you share the same expectations on the deliverable.

After this, you do your research thing! Keep your colleague in the loop if you find something unexpected or concerning in the process. Since they know the general plan, they should be able to give feedback more easily.

  1. Follow Up

When you send your results, make sure you add a line in your message that invites your colleague to come to you if they have questions or cannot find what they were looking for. If you have regular meetings with frontline staff, it is also good to set aside a few minutes for them to ask questions about any research you have recently provided. This closes the loop on the interview process, circling you back to step one.

 

Effective reference interviews take practice. Librarians take whole courses on them so that the process starts to feel natural, but it is worth the effort for any prospect researcher. I’m positive it has made me not just a better researcher, but a better coworker as well.

A shout out to Professor Marie Radford, who taught Reference Sources & Services in my first semester at Rutgers. Thank you.

 

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