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July 16, 2020 By Helen Brown Leave a Comment

Data insight made easy: using RFM scoring to find great prospects

This week’s article is from the keyboard of my colleague, Kenny Tavares, Senior Researcher and Data Insight Consultant. I asked Kenny to share his knowledge today on one of the most straightforward fundraising analytics projects we offer (which you can also do at home!) – RFM analysis. ~Helen


As fundraisers, when we think about data analysis today, we’re likely to drift into the world of complex modeling practices that predict what donors are most likely to give based on a wide variety of factors. Go to any conference and you’re bound to hear about the wonder of Big Data. But if you work in a smaller organization with fewer resources, you may have walked away feeling like none of this was for you. Let’s face it, just in terms of time spent, these projects seem inaccessible.

However, we all need to understand our donors better. The data we keep can unlock critical new insights for our organizations. Data analytics has benefits for all of us, so we all must find ways to sort through the information we have so we can make better decisions. But how to do it?  Let’s start by assessing our top donors using three important metrics: an RFM analysis.

What is RFM?

Created for the purpose of corporate direct marketing, RFM is an analytical method used to determine an organization’s best customers — or in our case, donors. It has been around for more than 40 years, but a popular method for performing RFM analysis is credited to Arthur Middleton Hughes in his 1994 book Strategic Database Marketing: The Masterplan for Starting and Managing a Profitable, Customer-based Marketing Program. In the book, Hughes describes the method of binning three attributes into five ranges, which I will briefly describe in a moment.  These attributes are:

  • Recency (R): In our case, how recently a donor has made a gift
  • Frequency (F): How often a donor makes a gift
  • Monetary value (M): How much a donor has given

For fundraisers, these three areas are important because of what we know about donor affinity:

  • Donors who have given recently are more engaged than lapsed donors
  • Donors who give regularly are more engaged than infrequent donors
  • Donors who make larger gifts on average are more engaged than donors who make smaller ones

Because it’s easier to retain donors than to acquire them, understanding who your best donors are is a no-brainer.  Having a better feel for your donor pool allows you the opportunity to solicit them is a more efficient, cost-effective manner.

At this time, when predictive analysis has become more and more accessible, you might be asking “Why should I perform an RFM analysis?

It’s simple

To perform an RFM analysis, all you need for each donor is a constituent ID, the number of gifts they have made, their lifetime giving and the date of their most recent gift.  Compared to more complex predictive modeling, the threshold for performing this task is much lower, making this project manageable for most organizations. However, if your giving records are inaccurate or incomplete, now would be a great time to address that issue.

Once you have your data, you’ll need to score your records based on the three categories.  For each category, divide your dataset into fifths, giving the best fifth a score of 5, with the subsequent fifths scored from 4 to 1.  For instance, if you sort the last gift date in descending order, your top fifth – the donors who have given most recently, would receive a score of 5. Repeat the process with the total number of gifts (frequency) and lifetime giving (monetary).  In the case of lifetime giving, you may prefer to divide that figure by the number of gifts and use the average gift for your scoring.  Once you’ve scored each variable, combine them to create your final score.  The easiest way to do this would be to adjoin the three numbers to create the final score (ex. 555, 444, 333, etc.).

Now that you’ve scored your records, sort them by their final score and check out the results.  Perhaps you’ll find some surprises.  It’s all good if it improves your understanding of your donor pool.

It’s strategic

RFM analysis operates on the Pareto principle, or the 80/20 rule. For our purpose, it would suggest that 80% of our gifts come from 20% of our donors. Knowing your 20% is critical. Keeping this group happy will obviously have long term benefits for your organization, as long as you don’t give them too much attention. But don’t stop here; there are other donors to consider.

Now, you might be asking “What about the remaining 80%?” It’s a good question, because it doesn’t make sense to cast them aside. Take the time to become familiar with the other segments and develop strategies for these groups as well.  For instance, how can you motivate new donors to give again? How can you encourage loyal donors to increase their giving?  How can you re-engage lapsed donors? Knowing these subsets allows you to better target them based on their behavior. Ultimately, you can craft your message to these groups more efficiently.

It’s predictive

As I mentioned, our three variables, and what they tell us about the donor, make RFM analysis an exercise in predicting which group of people are most likely to give again. That said, it does lack the flair of a more sophisticated predictive model, which would entail the use of many more variables. However, the usefulness of your RFM analysis is ongoing. The more you learn about your top donors, the more adept you’ll become at identifying similar prospects. You may not be as quick as an algorithm, but your institutional knowledge is extremely valuable. Take the time to consider the following about your best donors:

  • How old are they?
  • What is their marital status?
  • Where do they live?
  • Where do they work?
  • In which industry do they work?
  • What are their job titles?
  • How large was their first gift?

I could go on, but you get the point. Exploring the data on your top givers will improve your ability to recognize and efficiently target promising new donors.

Conclusion

Your ability to analyze the information you have available is a critical component to retaining donors and discovering prospects. Regardless of resources, we all need a way to recognize what the data tells us. Applying RFM analysis is a great place to start; it might even whet your appetite for other data strategies. Once you start using analytics to discover insight in your data, you’ll find answers to questions you might not even have thought to ask!

Filed Under: Fundraising Analytics Tagged With: data analytics, data science, HBG Data Insight, Kenny Tavares, RFM

July 9, 2020 By Helen Brown Leave a Comment

Exciting Announcement: HBG Data Insight!

I hope you had a safe and relaxing Fourth of July weekend! Our town cancelled its annual fireworks show this year, but various neighbors randomly filled the gap in their own way (ahem) so we still got to peep some here and there. Same with you?

The celebration here at HBG continues this week: We’ve been working on something very special over the past year, and today I have some exciting news to share – cue more fireworks!

As we all retool and strategize to be successful in this new normal, the project we’ve been developing could not have been ready at a better time. We are delighted to announce a new initiative here at The Helen Brown Group specifically designed to help nonprofits identify and get the information they need on their best donors.

We’ve formed a new unit called HBG Data Insight (DI).

While the unit is new, you’ll definitely recognize the DI team as long-time HBG talent. Tara McMullen-King is the new unit’s Lead Consultant, and senior staffers Kenny Tavares and David Hargadon are the DI Consultants filtering and transforming data into insight.

Why HBG Data Insight? Why now?

Over the years we’ve been frustrated seeing nonprofit colleagues unintentionally left stranded by talented specialists who provide analytics services…but then move on. The nonprofit pays a lot of money for the work and they may get a fantastic group of new prospects, but when the analytics consultant goes away to their next job, then what?

Circumstances change quickly – especially these days – and algorithms have a very limited shelf life.

And all of the AI and machine learning and data science and screenings in the world won’t tell you which living, breathing, human being amongst the list of hundreds is genuinely interested in your cause and has a personal connection to your nonprofit. Or which ones have family wealth. Or have made multiple philanthropic gifts through a DAF. Data insight and screenings alone just can’t do that.

We decided it was time for a practical, integrated, affordable, solution.

So over the past year, we partnered with a group of our dedicated consulting clients to beta-test a unique service: data insight married with prospect development:

Data insight plus research.

Data insight plus due diligence.

Data insight plus prospect management.

We found that most wanted all four woven together: insight, research, due diligence, and prospect management to take advantage of new opportunities and ideas as they arose.

We’ve helped our clients use their own data to answer these questions (and quite a few more):

  • Who are our most likely donors right now?
  • How should we prioritize our prospect pools?
  • How can we segment our wealth screening results to find top prospects faster?
  • Do we have the right people in the right portfolios?
  • Are we allocating our frontline fundraisers in the right way?
  • Can we better predict what our fundraising goals should be next year?
  • If we can’t do events now, what is our next-best option of engagement?
  • Where are our best planned giving prospects?

Our insight services range from descriptive analysis projects and RFMV analyses, up to and including predictive modeling. For some we have integrated wealth screening information that they had; for others we helped them get the most out of a new screening. We’ve even gathered a proprietary set of additional data to help us surface more prospects.

When you work in an integrated way, insight questions like the ones above can rotate and be added to continuously as new questions arise.

Marrying ongoing data insight with the rest of prospect development and the frontline team makes sure that you’re introducing the right – vetted – prospects into the pipeline continuously.

Don’t just take our word for it, here’s information from a survey of nonprofits done by IBM.

  • 78% of nonprofit leaders with analytic capabilities reported higher effectiveness in performing their missions.
  • Nonprofits using analytics had more efficient operations and increased staff productivity.
  • However, the survey found that 48% of non-profits indicated that technology was a primary barrier to advancing analytics, and 41% indicated that talent was their primary barrier.
  • Nearly three quarters said that budget was one of top three barriers to using analytics.

Honestly, that last bullet point just floors me. It doesn’t have to be that way.

What does partnering with HBG Data Insight look like?

As I mentioned, our goal is to help clients affordably make data-informed decisions. To do that, we primarily use an integrated, dedicated, prospect development approach, which is something we’ve specialized in since 2005.

We provide expert consultants for a contracted number of hours each month for at least three months. That commitment allows us to keep our price-point lower and bring clients real value. It also allows us – together – to customize what happens during those hours to exactly what you need.

Don’t need the whole burrito of data insight plus prospect research? No problem.

If you already have internal prospect research capacity, that’s great. Our data insight team can work with you on a project basis, too, and we’d be happy to partner with your researcher (or research team) to provide results they can build on.

Check out our website to see more detailed information on the services we’re offering. If you have an insight project in mind that isn’t listed there, we’d be happy to talk it through with you.

HBG Data Insight: Practical. Integrated. Affordable.

Filed Under: Fundraising Analytics, News Tagged With: data analytics, data insight, David Hargadon, fundraising analytics, fundraising data science, HBG Data Insight, Kenny Tavares, Tara McMullen-King

May 7, 2015 By Helen Brown Leave a Comment

Are you ready for analytics?

If you’re a regular reader, you know that each month we feature special guests writing about their favorite topics. This month we welcome HBG Senior Researcher and member of the HBG Analytics team, Tara McMullen to share her thoughts about one of her favorite subjects!
Vintage typewriter

Sometimes it’s hard to get started with a new program or type of technology because we don’t know what its power is. We don’t know what it can DO, so we stick with the old familiar way of doing things. But these days, doing things the same old way can leave your progress lagging and your program looking a little old-fashioned.

Sometimes the basic principles are good, they just need a little updating.

Maybe you are thinking about undertaking a campaign and aren’t sure if you have the critical mass or the right prospects to meet your goal.

Or maybe you are looking to create a prospect management system, and want a way to sort prospects into various stages in the pipeline.

Or maybe you are trying to find new potential volunteers for your board. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Campaign Success, Fundraising Analytics, Non-profit trends, Strategic planning, Wealth screenings Tagged With: analytics, APRA, Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement, data analytics, fundraising analytics, prospect research, Tara McMullen

April 23, 2015 By Helen Brown 2 Comments

Bookmark These 3 Great Analytics Software Resource Lists

London Eye by Scott Liddell

London Eye, by Scott Liddell, www.scottliddell.com

There are tons of free and fee-based analytics tools. Some are designed for complete novices and others are meant for only the most experienced data scientists.

Wherever on that spectrum you and your team feel most comfortable, there are software tools to help you get the answers you need from the information layers in your database.

New analytics and data visualization tools are being developed every day. Where can you find out which program(s) you should use? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fundraising Analytics, Non-profit trends Tagged With: Capterra, ComputerWorld, data analytics, Predictive Analytics Today, prospect research, Scott Liddell

September 19, 2013 By Helen Brown 1 Comment

Fundraising Analytics ABCs – Visualizing Data

What are the best representations of information that you’ve ever seen? For most people, they’re the ones that are the simplest to understand. The ones that display information clearly and move people to action. Or inaction:

Even in a different language, if we understand the context, the message is still clear.

That’s what good data visualization does. It takes information and lays it out in the simplest of terms to get across what needs to be communicated.

KISS

There’s no getting around the fact that data analytics is intimidating for most of us, and that it produces a lot of really interesting factoids that can move people to action. But when you’re trying to get across complex information, there are still ways to keep messaging simple. In fact, the more complex the information, the more imperative it is to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Or, in the words of Joey Cherdarchuk, director of operations at DarkHorse Analytics, Data Looks Better Naked.

THE MASTER AT WORK

If you haven’t seen Hans Rosling’s fascinating TED Talks using his free software GapMinder or watched his fascinating holographic data visualization on YouTube, you really should take the time to be impressed. And inspired.

Even if you’re not a data analytics person, watching Dr. Rosling will help you think about presenting information better, whether you’re a frontline fundraiser, researcher, social media guru, consultant or …just about anyone. Okay, go watch those two videos and then come back and we’ll talk more about available resources for visualizing data.

RESOURCES

Now that you’re inspired to do something different, let’s talk about what’s available for manipulating and showing off the great conclusions (or continuing questions) that your data is begging you to share.

Enter the graph, the moving chart, the GIF, the mini movie, the podcast, and the interactive illustration, to name a few, all made possible by recent entries into the market from companies including (in alpha order) Advizor Solutions, a flexible visualization tool that is especially good for looking at annual giving results and gift officer portfolio performance; Factary, whose product Atom allows you to visualize relationships between people, organizations and entities; Rapid Insight, a modeling and illustration package; and Tableau Software, an interactive visualization tool that allows for on-the-fly graphic shifting and drill-down-into-the-data capability.

What’s free?

NodeXL, which adheres to Excel like an elbow-length glove to allow you to manipulate and visualize relationships and social media interactions. Hans Rosling’s Big Data manipulator, GapMinder, which he uses in the aforementioned videos, is also completely free to download. And there are lots of others.

Where are some examples of visualizations?

Here is a terrific collection of resources from Andy Kirk, a UK-based freelance data visualization design consultant. And Mike Bostock of The New York Times has pulled together a great compilation of compelling visualization tools.

Finally, we’d like to leave you with a quote by David Schmitt, head of Performance Strategy and Planning Analytics in the finance division at the Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG). Schmitt’s team is responsible for communicating information about IHG’s financial performance in a way that is entertaining, compelling and clear. You wouldn’t think that corporate financials would lend themselves to music videos, but that’s one of the tools Schmitt’s group has used to visualized data. For him, “data isn’t the point; numbers aren’t the point—it’s about the idea.”

It looks like our Excel pie chart days are probably over, thank goodness. We’d love to hear about any tools, resources or sites that you’ve found to help you visualize data, too! Please share them here in Comments, so that all of us can check them out.

Filed Under: Fundraising Analytics Tagged With: data analytics, data mining, data visualization, donor modeling, fundraising analytics, Marianne Pelletier, prospect research

September 12, 2013 By Helen Brown 3 Comments

Fundraising Analytics ABCs – Donor Modeling

Chances are good if you are in the fundraising field that you have heard the term “fundraising analytics.” You’ve probably also heard the terms “data mining,” “donor modeling,” “reporting” and “prospect identification,” too. Do these terms mean the same thing? What are the differences among them?

I asked Marianne Pelletier, who leads the HBG Analytics team, to help me put together a series of short articles designed to make sense of these terms. In each, she will describe the method and give examples of how they can be used. To continue our series, we describe the questions that Donor Modeling can answer.

Let’s begin with a case study:

A museum is in the planning stage to launch a major fundraising campaign. Their last campaign was over 5 years ago, and while they had a number of significant gifts, the coming campaign will require many more major gifts in order to be successful. After developing a table of gifts for the campaign, it quickly becomes apparent that there are huge gaps that need to be filled with prospects at every level. Significant prospect identification needs to happen.

To score the museum’s database and identify the top prospects, the museum decides to use a technique called predictive modeling, also referred to commonly as donor modeling.

What is donor modeling?

Donor modeling uses statistics tools to score a group of records using a variety of methods, including regression analysis, clustering, decision trees, neural networks and support vector machines (SVMs) amongst lots of others. Let’s take a look at just one of them, regression analysis.

Regression analysis uses calculus to find the slope of a line, which helps us visualize trends in the data. For example, we could see (based on a number of factors) which groups of people in the museum’s database have the most capacity to give as well as affinity, or connection to, the museum.

Here’s a standard matrix that is often built for major gifts programs. After downloading records and using regression analysis to score the group studied, prospects would be shown along the slope of the red line based on their relative affinity with the museum and their capacity to make a major gift.

Affinity, or “how much they love the museum” might be measured by the number of times someone attended events, or donated in consecutive years, or bought tickets to special exhibits, amongst other things. Capacity, or “how much they can give” might be found through primary or secondary research, such as a visit, prospect research or an electronic screening.

A graphic describing the relative level of a group of prospects’ affinity using a number of hearts (ranked on a scale of 1 to 3) and the relative level of their  gift capacity (ranked 1 to 3) by dollar signs might look something like this:

In this example, the top-right box represents those with greatest capacity and affinity for the organization, and the bottom-left box shows those with the least.

If you were the chief development officer at the museum, whom would you want to approach first? Your answer is likely to be those in the top right group. Unfortunately most of the time that group is also the smallest population among the scored groups, and are usually the donors you know fairly well.

Whom to select next, then? Often, two of the largest groups, represented by the larger boxes, are the $$$ ♥♥ and the $$♥♥♥ groups.  And of those, it might be hard to decide which to choose.

So, your next donor modeling study might be to look at the museum’s past track record with each of these two groups. What is your level of success in cultivating each group? What motivates them to become major gift donors?

Donor modeling helps answer those questions. The characteristics of top level donors are compared to various segments of the pool, and their scores help bubble up the best future prospects.

What else can you use donor modeling for?

Although it’s most often used to identify major gifts prospects, donor modeling can also rank groups like these:

  • Annual giving prospects who are most likely to renew
  • People who are likely to be good board/volunteer candidates
  • Planned giving prospects
  • People who would be great prospects for a specific project or campaign (like a library fund, or for endowment)
  • People who would be most likely to accept a request for a visit
  • Top level annual giving prospects
  • Prospects best suited for a particular gift officer or volunteer

Donor modeling can even help determine the best ways to acquire new members for a member recruitment campaign. It’s a powerful tool to help your organization identify new donors, whether you’re in a campaign, thinking about a campaign, or just looking for new donor prospects.

What do you need to know?

Our series on the ABCs of fundraising analytics continues next Thursday, September 19 with a look at data visualization.

Do you have questions about donor modeling or would you like to see it at work at your organization? Contact us at info [at] helenbrowngroup [dot] com for more information.

 

Filed Under: Campaign Success, Fundraising Analytics, Prospect identification Tagged With: data analytics, donor modeling, identifying new donors, identifying prospects, Marianne Pelletier, predictive modeling, prospect identification, prospect research, regression

September 5, 2013 By Helen Brown 4 Comments

Fundraising Analytics ABCs – Data Mining

Chances are good if you are in the fundraising field that you have heard the term “fundraising analytics.” You’ve probably also heard the terms “data mining,” “donor modeling,” “reporting” and “prospect identification,” too. Do these terms mean the same thing? What are the differences among them?

I asked Marianne Pelletier, who leads the HBG Analytics team, to help me put together a series of short articles designed to make sense of all of this. In each, we will describe the method and give examples of how they can be used. To begin our series, we discuss data mining.

Let’s begin with a case study:

The fundraising team at a university is having a problem with donor retention. Every year the university must acquire a significant number of new donors to offset the nearly 50% of donors they lose from the previous year. They need to find an answer to the question “why are we losing so many donors, and what can we do to keep them from leaving?”

They decide to use a technique called data mining to find out.

What is data mining?

Sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. In those situations, it may be best to explore a little to see if we can find answers (and perhaps even see the questions we need to ask). Think of it as discovering what’s in a new mall by walking the length of it: data mining is like shopping in the data mall. What will we find when we look in each store?

Data mining sifts data back and forth until it finds natural breaking points, puts together associated characteristics and then lays out what it finds. For example:

“The donors who give the highest gift amounts are married male alumni. They’re in their 50s. They live along the east or west coast. They have a job and children that we know about.”

Data mining delves deeper to find relationships between many characteristics

The good news is that data mining also names the characteristics for the second best segment, and the third best, and so on, so a university could use it to find out various solutions to their attrition problem. The characteristics they see might look like these:

“The donors who stop donating tend to leave between their 5th and 6th years of consistently donating to the annual fund” So we can work harder to retain them before year 5!

“The donors who stop donating tend to be married alumni males in their thirties” What special incentives can we offer to that group since we know that married men in their 50s tend to be our largest donors later on?

Data mining can also be used for:

  • Determining the best solicitation methods for donor acquisition, renewal, or upgrade
  • Measuring the characteristics of event attendees who later become donors
  • Understanding the clusters of members/grateful patients/families/alumni/docents who respond better to e-mail, direct mail, phone calls, or social media
  • Finding the best pattern for the cultivation/giving ladder
  • Adding or dropping solicitation methods, or venues
  • Assessing timing, including how long it takes to successfully solicit gifts at different levels

What else can data mining do?

Have you ever walked into a store that has section after section of fun things for purchase? A department each of clever t-shirts, gifts that your best friend would love, beautiful hand-crafts, and more – things that are so perfect that you’ve picked up an armful of things and you need to find a basket to dump them all in.

Data mining is like that. It can also be for:

  • clustering like-minded, or like-attributed prospects for a cultivation dinner
  • breaking long-held “truths” about your donor base, such as “our best athletics prospects are male football alumni.” What if that’s not actually true?
  • looking at what statistics calls “interactions” – the combination of characteristics that make good prospects, members, volunteers, trustees, etc. For example: Married prospects and/or prospects living in rural areas show a mild relationship to loyal giving. However, prospects who are married AND live in rural areas show a strong relationship to loyal giving.
  • determining which group responds best to email and which to social media.

What do you want to know?

Our series continues next Thursday, September 12 when we will discuss Donor Modeling.

Do you have questions about data mining or would you like to see how it can work for your organization? Email us for more information at info [at] helenbrowngroup [dot] com.

 

Filed Under: Campaign Success, Fundraising Analytics, Prospect identification Tagged With: analytics, data analytics, data mining, donor attrition, donor modeling, fundraising analytics, Marianne Pelletier, prospect research

September 2, 2013 By Helen Brown 13 Comments

What if fundraisers reported to the Director of Strategic Information?

Are you hearing a lot of talk lately that fundraising is becoming more data-driven? That we need to show the return on investment of donor dollars? We’re all hearing this train coming down the track and it’s fueled by top volunteers who are used to seeing that kind of business intelligence in their company board meetings. In the past few years they’ve come to expect to see it when they sit at the nonprofit board table as well.

It’s good business, and it makes sense

We all want to cultivate prospects that have the highest likelihood to become donors. And we need to be careful with our most valuable resources – time and money. So it makes sense that business intelligence methods are edging into fundraising work as well. Ten years ago, we didn’t hear much about analytics in fundraising, but in the past five years more and more shops are hiring fundraising analysts – internally or outsourcing the activity to companies like mine.

Earlier this month, Forbes magazine published an article called “Does Your Organization Need a Chief Analytics Officer?” (link here). The article describes two very interesting case studies highlighting how Caesars Entertainment and KeyBank are using analytics to create stronger relationships with their customers and creating more revenue.

Ruben Sigala, the new CAO of Caesars:

“The data we collect is a treasure trove that enables us to treat every guest well, but treat every guest differently,” says Sigala. “And centralizing the function has enabled us to get a lot more creative about how to reward customers across properties and functions, and how to drive more revenue for Caesars.”

By substituting a few words, it’s easy to see how that could translate to fundraising, isn’t it?

At Cleveland-based KeyBank, one of the top 20 largest banks in the country, they’ve done something really interesting: the marketing team and the analytics team both report to the Chief Analytics Officer. What would that look like translated to fundraising? Major gifts officers would report to the Director of Strategic Information.

Will that happen in your shop? I’m sure the marketing folks at KeyBank wouldn’t have thought it possible 10 years ago.

Regardless, the big takeaway here is that fundraising analytics is here to stay. These tools are incredibly nimble and powerful and are having a tremendous impact on the organizations – large and small, for-profit and nonprofit – that are using it. And if you are unfamiliar with the terms or how data analytics can help you, stay tuned to this space.

Over the next few blog posts, HBG’s chief analytics consultant Marianne Pelletier and I will go over, in English, what analytics are and what these tools can do for you and your organization. If you have any questions at all, or are interested to see how we can help, don’t hesitate to be in touch.

First in the series, this Thursday we’ll discuss Data Mining.

Filed Under: Campaign Success, Research Department Success Tagged With: data analytics, data mining, donor modeling, Marianne Pelletier, prospect research

December 26, 2012 By Helen Brown 2 Comments

12 Great Ideas for Prospect Research in 2013

Resolving to make better use of prospect research in 2013 – or just interested in some new ideas for the coming year? Here are some suggestions to inspire you!

January

Are your organization’s fundraisers taking trips to warmer climes for events and meetings with snowbirds next month? Now’s a good time to do some simple data mining to find great prospects for fill-in visits while there.

February

Now is a good time to do an electronic screening of some or all of your organization’s new donors from the previous year. Which ones have the most potential to be major donor prospects? Develop a strategy to engage newly identified prospects by May.

March

What did your fundraising division do exceptionally well in 2012? Where do you need to do some work? Use analytics in-house, or have an independent audit done to measure last year’s fundraising/research performance. Set targets for using research throughout the year based on the priorities and needs you identify.

April

Tax season is here! Which of your prospects have giftable stock options? Several free and fee-based sources allow you to create alerts to keep current throughout the year on directors and executives of public companies who are required to report their stock and options holdings and sales.

May

Take a lesson from political fundraising: Targeted emails based on click-throughs and web usage have meant huge gains in involvement and donations during the last two presidential campaign cycles. Can you use market research techniques for prospect research purposes to discover what your annual fund donors are specifically interested in supporting?

 

 

June

For many educational organizations, June is the time to research parents of incoming students. How well do your data transfer systems integrate for ease of access to allowed information? Do you have a plan to manage this time-sensitive research? Create a process document for this important activity so that your best practices are repeated every year.

July

This is the month to declare independence from all of the prospects in your tracking system that have not budged (despite your best efforts) on the pipeline in the past year. All of the great new prospects you identified back in February should now be in your relationship management system. Draw up plans for new ways to engage them in the fall.

August

The beautiful waterfront of Baltimore, Maryland will be the location for the annual conference of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement on August 7-10. The APRA conference is the place to be for prospect researchers and front-line fundraisers who want to learn cutting edge techniques and resources. Come prepared to learn – this is a no-fluff conference, and every aspect of research is covered, from the ABC’s through complex algorithms.

September

Back to school means making sure you have up-to-date information on your very top prospects, and on all of the new prospects you’ve identified over the year. Get ready now for those year-end solicitations so you’re not faced with a December research profile queue crush.

October

Find creative ways to use social media and relationship mapping to identify potential board members and other top volunteers. Who amongst your constituents have high Klout scores? Which ones are hubs on a relationship map? Find and use tools that help you pinpoint influencers who can be advocates and help you engage with a new circle of donors.

November

Does your organization put on a lot of events this time of year? If event briefings are part of the research priorities that you set back in March, now may be the time to update your event briefing template(s) and policies for information access – not overload. Plan now so that the right people are getting the right amount of information on time and within budget.

 

December

Before you renew research subscriptions for the coming year, take a look at the fundraising operating plan and talk with colleagues about priorities ahead. Will the chief fundraising officer be traveling internationally to meet with donors? Maybe it’s time to look into international research resources, training, or outsourcing options. Are you about to launch a campaign? You might need to budget for screenings or analytics now.

What resources will you need to be successful next year? Great success with prospect research is all about being prepared. Happy New Year!

Filed Under: Campaign Success, Career development, Effective searching, Fundraising Analytics Tagged With: APRA, Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement, data analytics, data mining, electronic screenings, event briefings, Klout, obama campaign, political fundraising, prospect management, prospect research, relationship management, Social Media, social scoring, wealth screening

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David’s career in prospect research began in 2009, as a graduate research assistant at the Shippensburg University Foundation. In 2011, He became a development researcher for the University of Virginia. In 2015, David became assistant director of prospect research at the University of Baltimore, serving for 3 years. Recently, he was the director of development for Trees Forever. David Joined the Helen Brown Group as a research assistant in January 2020. He earned a B.A. in Theater at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a M.A. in Applied History at Shippensburg University. David is a member of APRA and APRA Great Plains.

Kenny has worked in development since 1999 and has been involved in prospect research since 2002.

Prior to joining The Helen Brown Group, he was the director of donor and prospect research at the United Way of Massachusetts Bay. Kenny is a member of APRA and NEDRA.

Tara first began her career in development in 2002 supporting the Major Gifts department at Simmons College, and ultimately went on to serve as Assistant Director of Prospect Research. Since that time, she has also worked as a Senior Research Analyst at MIT, as Associate Director of Prospect Management and Research at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and as Director of Development Research at Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP).

Tara originally joined the Helen Brown Group team in 2007 and served as a Research Associate and ShareTraining coordinator until 2008 – she rejoined the company as a Senior Researcher in 2013 and was promoted to her current role in 2018.

She has been an active volunteer with NEDRA for many years and served on the board of directors from 2010-2016. During her time on the NEDRA board, she served in many different roles, including terms as Vice President, Secretary, Chair of the Website and Technology Committee, Chair of the Volunteer Committee, and as Chair and Editor of NEDRA News. She is currently a member of the NEDRA Bootcamp faculty. In addition, Tara has also been involved as a volunteer with Apra, serving stints on the Membership Committee, Chapters Committee, and Bylaws Task Force.

Angie began her career in development in 1999 at Virginia Tech in Corporate and Foundation Relations and later in prospect research at the University of Connecticut Foundation.

A graduate of the University of Tennessee at Martin, her experience includes grants management at the University of South Carolina, program evaluation for South Carolina Research Authority and human resources analysis for Nissan North America.

She returned to development in 2007 and worked in various prospect research positions at Vanderbilt University, including Associate Director. She was named Director for Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s research office in 2015, and joined The Helen Brown Group in 2016.

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Josh began his career in development as the Phonathon Coordinator at Keene State College. He then worked at non-profit consulting firm Schultz & Williams in Philadelphia.

He started his research career at the University of Pennsylvania as a Research Assistant in 2005. He then moved over to the Wharton School of Business, where he became the Associate Director, Research and Prospect Management. Josh joined the Helen Brown Group in 2016.

Josh is also a Colorado licensed Realtor and graduate of Lehigh University.

In March 2017, Kristina joined the Helen Brown Group as a Research Associate. Before joining HBG, she was the Research Manager at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and an Associate Manager of Prospect Research at City Harvest, a food rescue organization. Kristina started her non-profit career as a legal assistant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004.  She is a member of Apra and Apra Greater New York. She was Apra Greater New York’s Director of Programming from June 2014 to May 2016. Kristina graduated from The University of Chicago and the Bard Graduate Center.

Grace began her career in development in 2001 as Executive Assistant to the Chief Development Officer with Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), a Harvard Medical School-affiliated academic medical center.

In 2003, she became a prospect researcher for the BWH principal and major gifts team and spent the next 11 years in various research positions with BWH, culminating as Assistant Director of Prospect Research. She has been affiliated with The Helen Brown Group since January 2014.

Heather began her career in 2002 as a prospect research coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and then moved to Carroll College in 2004.

In 2005, Heather began working on her own as a freelancer and eventually started her own consulting firm, Willis Research Services, in 2007. She joined The Helen Brown Group in 2012.

Heather is a member of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement and the Montana Nonprofit Association.

Jennifer began her career in development at her alma mater, Wheaton College, where she was an administrative assistant for the major gifts department.

She joined The Helen Brown Group in March 2008. She earned a master’s degree in library science from the Southern Connecticut State University in May 2009. Jennifer is a member of APRA and NEDRA.

Rick has been a member of the Helen Brown Group team since 2005. Prior to joining HBG, Rick was director of research at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. Rick has worked in development since 1996, both in prospect research and major gifts fund raising. His experience includes the University of Vermont, Phillips Exeter Academy and St. Paul’s School.

Rick is past president of NEDRA and is a member of and frequent volunteer for APRA.

Josh began his career in development as the Phonathon Coordinator at Keene State College. He then worked at non-profit consulting firm Schultz & Williams in Philadelphia.

He started his research career at the University of Pennsylvania as a Research Assistant in 2005. He then moved over to the Wharton School of Business, where he became the Associate Director, Research and Prospect Management. Josh joined the Helen Brown Group in 2016.

Josh is also a Colorado licensed Realtor and graduate of Lehigh University.

Mandi has worked in prospect research and management since 2006. She began her development career as a research analyst in development research at City of Hope, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center in Los Angeles. From there, she became the manager of prospect development at Huntington Memorial Hospital, a community hospital in Pasadena, CA. Most recently, she was the associate director of prospect research and management at Occidental College, a private liberal arts college in LA.

Mandi has a BA degree in print journalism from Southern Methodist University and a master’s degree of library and information science from UCLA.

She joined the Helen Brown Group in May 2019.

Kelly began her career in development in 2008 as an administrative assistant in Major Gifts at Wheaton College.

In 2010, she became a research analyst at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the Division of Development & Jimmy Fund as part of the prospect identification team. Kelly joined The Helen Brown Group in 2013.

She is a member of APRA and NEDRA.

Jayme began her career in development in 2008 at the Rutgers University Foundation, where she spent the next seven years, first in prospect management and then prospect research. She spent several years at Monmouth University as their senior prospect research analyst, working with the fundraising staff, university president, and top leadership. She has worked as both a volunteer and consultant for non-profits in the areas of research and writing.

She earned a bachelor of arts degree from Drew University and a master of communication and information sciences from Rutgers University. She is a member of APRA.

Jayme joined The Helen Brown Group in April 2019.

Julie has managed finances for The Helen Brown Group since its founding.

In her spare time, she is an editor for the PBS series Masterpiece at WGBH. Julie was nominated twice for an Emmy award for her work on the PBS show Zoom.

Heather began her career in development in 2001 as a prospect researcher for National Wildlife Federation (NWF). She was with NWF for more than thirteen years, including nearly five years as director of research and analytics. Heather is a former secretary of the board of directors of APRA-Metro DC.

She joined The Helen Brown Group in October 2014.

David began his career in development at The Gunnery school in northwest Connecticut in 2011, where he worked in database management and prospect research. Subsequently, he joined the College of Saint Rose as a development research analyst before leading Albany Medical Center Foundation’s prospect research efforts as Associate Director of Prospect Research. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Siena College and is a member of APRA and CASE.

Michele began her career in development in 2012 when she joined the UC Berkeley corporate and foundation relations team as a development analyst. She spent a year and a half at Cal before returning to UC Davis as a prospect analyst. She was with the prospect management and relations team at UC Davis for almost three years prior to joining the research and relationship management team at George Washington University as a Senior Prospect Analyst in 2016.

Michele received her BA in creative writing from Florida State University and her MA in higher education leadership from CSU Sacramento. She currently resides in Northern Virginia, is a member of Apra International, and serves as the social media chair for Apra Metro DC. Michele joined The Helen Brown Group in July 2018.

Angie has worked in development since 2002, partnering with a wide range of nonprofit institutions. She began her professional career at Vanderbilt University in research and prospect development.

She has also worked with a number of community nonprofits in front-line fundraising, grant-writing, and event management. Angie holds an MPA in Nonprofit Management from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and a BS in Journalism from Middle Tennessee State University. She resides in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a member of AFP Nashville and APRA MidSouth, where she has been active on the executive team.

She joined The Helen Brown Group in October 2015.

Maureen has been a part of the non-profit world since 1991. She started out in annual giving at Harvard Law School and continued her career as director of annual/special gifts at UC Santa Cruz.

In 1999 she made the switch from front-line fundraising to serve as director of prospect research/management at Bentley University and in 2001 began her role as administrator for the North American Foundation for the University of Manchester. She became part of the HBG team in September of 2011.

Helen has been a development professional since 1987. Her previous experience includes The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Albert Einstein Institution, Boston College, the Harvard School of Public Health and Northeastern University.

Currently she works with a variety of clients to establish, benchmark and re-align research departments; identify major gift prospects; and train researchers and other fundraisers through on-site and web-based training services.Helen is a former member of the board of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA) and is past president of the New England Development Research Association (NEDRA). In 2006 she received the NEDRA Ann Castle Award for service to the prospect research community.

Helen is Special Advisor on Fundraising to the North American Foundation for the University of Manchester and is a member of the board of directors of Factary Ltd. (Bristol, UK). She is a member of NEDRA, APRA, the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP), Women In Development, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and Researchers in Fundraising (UK).

Helen is a frequent speaker and has led seminars for a number of professional associations, including Action Planning, AFP, APRA, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), NEDRA, RIF, the Planned Giving Council of Central Massachusetts, the Georgia Center on Nonprofits, the International Fundraising Congress and Resource Alliance.

Helen is also co-author (with Jen Filla) of the book, Prospect Research for Fundraisers (Wiley & Sons, 2013).