Helen Brown Group

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Phone a Friend: The Importance of Relationships within Prospect Development

By: Chelsea Morin, Consultant

Chelsea Morin

Chelsea Morin

First things first, Happy Prospect Development Pride Month! Thank you to everyone in this community who goes out of their way to share their knowledge with others and enhance the standards of the profession. Our founder Helen Brown has called it the most wonderful of professions, and I personally feel that that still rings true.

I was recently catching up with a colleague from my previous institution, and I was reminded of the importance of connecting with others and continuing to learn new perspectives, particularly in prospect development.

Most people, me included, just fall into this area of work and learn on the job or with the help of resources like classes, books, and blogs. Unless you were or are working in a shop of one, you probably learned from your coworkers as well. Because there is no formal degree or single path into prospect research and development, it is particularly vital to learn from others and subsequently pass on the knowledge, tips, and tricks you have picked up.

I recommend keeping in touch with other prospect development professionals for a few reasons:

  1. No two organizations look the same. Casually talking shop about your work whether it is about writing profiles, identifying new prospects, conducting due diligence, or any other number of topics can reveal a new approach or resource that you may not have thought of or even heard of.
  2. Human connections ground us. In such a digital world, human connections can help to remind us of what’s really important and renew our dedication to the mission of our organization.
  3. Both history and the future can inform our current context. It’s important to keep a pulse on where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going as a field of work. Conversations like these help inform decision-making and organizational trajectory.

If you know other researchers from a previous role (or even your current role!), consider taking some time this month to reach out and catch up. If you don’t know anyone in the field yet, think about some ways that you might be able to get more involved. Can you get plugged in to your local Apra chapter? Take a class or attend an event? Go to a conference? Set up a virtual or in-person coffee chat with someone you might like to get to know? This could be a mutual connection or even a classmate from a course that you’ve taken.

If you don’t feel ready for any of those ideas yet, you could test the waters by making or commenting on a post somewhere, such as LinkedIn or Apra’s PRSPCT-L. The main point is to use this time of the year as a jumping off point to get more connected in a way that works for you.

As researchers, we may sometimes think of relationship building as a skill that lies more squarely in the domain of gift officers and visible leadership. To be honest, one of the reasons I was drawn to this kind of work was because I was interested in supporting organizations doing good work without having to be externally facing. And while gift officers and leadership are primarily the ones who are going out and connecting with donors, it is important for us to build, foster, and maintain relationships as well! Connecting with other prospect development professionals can help us to hone our research skills. This, in turn, can lead to stronger work products and hopefully stronger relationships with gift officers too.

During this month, make sure to take the time to celebrate not just the profession but also the people who make it what it is!

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Counting Down the Most Popular Intelligent Edge Posts of 2025

Tis the Season!

Whether you’re marking the 12 days of Christmas, the eight nights of Hanukkah, the seven days of Kwanzaa, or simply counting down to the New Year, this season invites both reflection and celebration.

Here at The Intelligent Edge, we thought we would join in the holiday spirit by using this final post of 2025 to revisit and re-share the posts that sparked the most interest with our readers this year.

So, with no further preamble, here are the Top Intelligent Edge posts of 2025:

  1. Kicking off our list is Heather Hoke’s deep dive into Philanthropic Private Equity, a concept that was brand‑new to many in our community.
  2. With due diligence becoming ever more essential in our field, it’s no surprise that Due Diligence in Prospect Intelligence: The Why and the How by Grace Chandonnet earned a top spot.
  3. Pushing us to look beyond the familiar, Melissa Bank Stepno introduced us to one of the newest fundraising reports in our field in Beyond Giving USA: Highlighting the DAF Fundraising Report.
  4. Chelsea Morin’s Demystifying the Forbes 400 and the Bloomberg Billionaires Index made sense of two of the most‑referenced (and often misunderstood) resources in our work.
  5. And, rounding out the list, Michele Borucki turned a notoriously dense document into a treasure hunt in Form 990s: Complex (Boring) Tax Form or Treasure Map?

With that, we wish you a festive season.  We’ll be back with fresh new content in early 2026!

 

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Demystifying the Forbes 400 and the Bloomberg Billionaires Index

By: Chelsea Morin, Consultant

Chelsea Morin

Chelsea Morin

Have you ever wondered about the methodologies behind the net worth estimates that some major financial and business publications report? What information do they use to come to these numbers and how accurate can it possibly be? Are the details they use for their estimates publicly available, or are they sitting down with the billionaires they are reporting on to get inside information?

For this post, we will focus on the methodologies of the Forbes 400 and the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, take a look at their differences, and break down how these estimates can inform our work in prospect development.

Let’s start with Forbes

Over at Forbes, they publish a ranked list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, known as the Forbes 400, once a year. It reflects a snapshot of each individual’s wealth on one particular date but also reports real time net worth updates for the wealthiest people in the world.

The first step the Forbes team takes is meeting with billionaires being researched for inclusion on the list or speaking with them virtually or over the phone whenever possible. They will also interview associates including employees, asset managers, and attorneys. Sometimes, they even reach out to rivals and peers to collect more information!

Some billionaires will provide documentation to support their estimated ranking, but others won’t. In either case, documents from a variety of sources including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), court and probate records, news articles, and more are researched to get a fuller view of an individual’s assets. All assets are considered including real estate, art and car collections, yachts and planes, and other unique holdings. Stakes in both public and private companies are considered. For public companies, SEC insider filings help to provide a clearer view of holdings.

What about private companies?

For private companies, Forbes compares estimates of the company’s revenue with price-to-sales, price-to-earnings, or other relevant ratios for similar public companies and then applies a 10% liquidity discount. The liquidity discount accounts for the difficulty an individual might face when trying to sell a private asset quickly for a fair price. In the case of companies backed by venture funding, several factors may affect the estimated value of the company including how shares are being traded on secondary markets, how institutional investors account for their shares in the company, and the overall health of the company’s sector.

So, what’s not included?

Forbes subtracts any known debts from net worth estimates and excludes any funds donated to charitable foundations or donor-advised funds. Family fortunes dispersed amongst many family members are generally not included either. In these cases, the wealth belonging to the living founder of a fortune and their immediate family will be listed with the addition of “& family.” Occasionally, wealth held by an immediate family member of an heir will be included if relevant.

How Bloomberg Differs

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index tracks the world’s 500 richest people and updates daily after New York markets close and public company stakes are valued using the latest closing price.

Private company valuations rely on peer comparisons based on industry and size, using price-to-earnings or EV/EBITDA (Enterprise Value divided by Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization). If direct debt figures aren’t available, peer net debt-to-EBITDA ratios are used instead. Values adjust daily with peer or index movement. Most private firms get a 5% liquidity discount; a country risk discount is added when assets are concentrated in riskier markets, based on S&P sovereign ratings.

Hedge funds are valued using average market cap-to-AUM (assets under management) ratios of similar public funds. Personal capital mixed with outside money isn’t counted. AUM is pulled from SEC Form ADV filings, and returns are considered if reported. A 25% “key man” discount applies when performance depends on one person.

Realized dividends and proceeds from share sales are also included. Taxes are deducted at the highest rate for the person’s country unless evidence supports a lower one.

Although assets may often be transferred to a billionaire’s family members, it is the position of Bloomberg News that this does not change who controls the fortune. As a result, Bloomberg credits family fortunes to the founders or head family members who have the most direct control over the assets. In cases where the stakes of individual adult family members can be verified and those family members are actively involved in the family business, the value of the stake is credited to the individual.

All billionaires or their representatives can respond to questions about the net worth calculation, including the balance of their assets and liabilities.

What’s not included in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index calculations?

For one, the ownership of closely held assets is not included if it cannot be verified. Additionally, if a billionaire has pledged shares held in a public company as collateral, the value of those shares is not included in their estimated net worth. Fee income for hedge fund businesses is not included because it cannot be verified across the board. And finally, no assumptions are made about personal debt.

A confidence rating between one and five stars is also given to each profile. A one-star rating is used when an individual’s fortune is primarily made up of closely held assets and several assumptions are required to calculate metrics such as company ownership and personal assets. A five-star rating means that most of the individual’s fortune is composed of publicly traded assets or can otherwise be verified through reliable sources, including the billionaire themselves or their representatives.

How to calculate an estimated net worth without the help of a billionaire…

What do you do when you can’t reach out to a billionaire or their representatives to confirm assets? Or when you don’t have the staff to do as much thorough research as a major publication such as Forbes or Bloomberg? Here at the Helen Brown Group if a net worth from one of these reputable publications isn’t available, we generally rely on the total amount of visible assets an individual holds to determine what their giving capacity may be.

What is the difference between estimated net worth and total visible assets? Simply put, an individual’s net worth is the value of all their assets minus all their liabilities. A helpful tool we sometimes use to determine an estimated net worth for high-net-worth individuals is a calculation from the Capgemini/Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report which provides evidence that real estate comprises approximately 19% of their total assets. Forbes or Bloomberg may get close to estimating an accurate net worth for some of the wealthiest individuals in the world, but it’s not very practical, or really even possible, to do this in our daily work. Often, it is not feasible to know exactly what an individual’s private assets, debts, or other liabilities might be.

Instead, let’s just consider total visible assets when calculating a giving capacity. In other words, what is the total of an individual’s assets that we can determine based on public records and searches? This will include real estate holdings and the stockholdings and compensation of public company insiders. When looking at assets for the purpose of charitable giving, it can also include assets held by a foundation if it is solely controlled by the individual. If you’d like, you can try to estimate someone’s compensation based on what information is available about compensation for similar roles or in similar industries. You can also attempt to estimate what an individual’s privately held company might be worth by comparing it to similar public companies or past sales of private companies. Sometimes, you may even get lucky and find information about someone’s private art collection, boats, or planes that they own!

Once you have gathered all the public asset information available, a common calculation to determine giving capacity is to use 5% of visible assets. Always remember though, that this capacity can be adjusted based on factors such as previous giving history.

It was insightful to learn more about what factors are (and aren’t) included in Forbes’ and Bloomberg’s calculations and compare them to my own work. I hope this information is useful for you and your organization as well!

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2024/10/01/2024-forbes-400-methodology-how-we-crunch-the-numbers/

https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/methodology/

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Digging Deeper into Real Estate

We spend a lot of time learning about the finer points of real estate information in this job, and this week my colleague, Chelsea Morin, shares some great tips and resources to help you confirm the information you have, and perhaps find even more! ~Helen

Chelsea Morin

                 Chelsea Morin

Imagine this scenario: You’re asked to research a couple and you easily come across multiple properties all in both spouses’ names (think a primary property and a secondary property, or two, or three). Sounds nice right?

But it doesn’t always, or even often, happen.

Next week, Melissa Bank Stepno (HBG’s Vice President of Data Insight & Business Development and Managing Director of DAFinitive®) will discuss that real estate holdings are not always the most reliable indicator of wealth and capacity in her webinar R-Cubed: Residential Real Estate Review for the California Advancement Researchers Association (CARA) on May 16th.

But they are often the most visible. And when real estate holdings are considered in the appropriate context, they can provide a fuller view of your prospects. If you feel like you have been hitting dead ends in your real estate research recently, read on!

First things first – confirm what you have

Always try to use multiple resources to confirm information. There are several free resources that I use often in my research. The town or county property/tax assessor’s office where you suspect your prospect owns property usually has lots of local level information.

If you’re researching in the New York City area, using ACRIS and StreetEasy together can help provide a more comprehensive picture of tricky real estate holdings like co-ops.

And finally, OpenCorporates can be used to search for any LLCs you might come across and will show you who the registered agent is for an LLC. You can also search by agent name and find any LLCs they are associated with.

If you have paid resources available to you like LexisNexis for Development Professionals and iWave, they can be used in tandem to confirm information as well. I personally like to start in LexisNexis to view a prospect’s “Real Property” holdings and “Current” and “Prior” addresses (I’ve found that “Prior” addresses can sometimes reveal current holdings too). I’ll then head to iWave to try to confirm what’s in LexisNexis and/or find additional properties by searching on different terms. Some search queries I like to use are:

  • a couple’s names together,
  • each person’s name individually,
  • common name misspellings,
  • reverse searching addresses from LexisNexis, and
  • any P.O. boxes associated with the household.

Moving on to find new surprises

In iWave, always look at the “Additional Properties” tab when viewing a real estate record – but don’t assume that that includes all affiliated properties! Something as common as a name misspelling can prevent properties from being properly connected in iWave.

Another great paid resource is Property Shark, which can be useful for viewing sale documents and finding finer details like signatures on paperwork. These can be useful in situations where you suspect that your prospect owns a property that is held in an LLC. Finding your prospect’s name and signature on the paperwork can help confirm the connection.

Be curious and look for patterns!

Real estate research can often be like putting the pieces of a puzzle together. I try to keep track not just of owned property addresses, but also the mailing addresses those properties are registered to, any LLCs, and registered agents for LLCs. You may find that the same agent manages multiple LLCs that seem related to your prospect. Or you may start to notice a pattern like I did when I researched a group of properties recently: they were all held in LLCs and had a similar naming convention based on the type of locale of the property.

To help put your new findings in context, you can use a resource like the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s House Price Index (FHFA HPI®) that my colleague Christine Bariahtaris recently shared with our team to better understand the local real estate market.

Being able to learn more about properties and locales across the United States (and sometimes across the world!), is one of my favorite parts of this work. I hope these tips help to make real estate research more efficient and enjoyable for you too!

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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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