Helen Brown Group

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Prospect Research Confessional

By: Kristina Gropper, Senior Consultant

Let me set the stage…

Kristina Gropper

Kristina Gropper

You are at cocktail hour at your cousin’s wedding. Your partner is on a mission to find a probiotic soda for you, and you’re left alone with your aunt and uncle, whom you have not seen in ten years. The conversation shifts to your job, and they want to know what you wound up doing with your liberal arts degree. Your palms start to sweat. When you reply “I am a prospect researcher now” it’s received with blank stares. You decide to elaborate. “I use internet resources to look up information about philanthropists and then synthesize my findings to write up reports for my nonprofit.”

This explanation elicits an immediate response! Your uncle replies, “Oh, so you are a Googler. Well, don’t look me up, I have no money!” Your aunt exclaims this all sounds “jeepers creepers!” Your partner comes to rescue you with the probiotic soda…. but you feel like you have been punched in the gut!  Your confidence is shot; and you feel a wave of shame and embarrassment. Tail between legs, you awkwardly take a sip, and wish you were anywhere else but here. Sound familiar?

For Prospect Development Pride month, I decided to write about how others sometimes respond to learning more about our chosen profession, and how we can reframe our role and gain a sense of empowerment. I reached out to my colleagues at HBG and wanted to share their insights as well. It seems like the common reaction from people outside of our field falls into one of two camps: distrust or intrigue.

Distrust

Sometimes our conversations about prospect research leave others feeling uneasy and suspicious. Some people are understandably concerned about their own personal data. We are asked questions like: “Can you see someone’s bank account?”, “How much can you find out about ME?”, “Can you see my medical records?”, “What about my family’s personal information?” and “Have you researched ME?”

Early on in my prospect research career, I shared insight on our profession and received some responses that fell into the distrust camp with lots of scrutiny and follow-up questions. At one point I started telling people I help nonprofits raise funds by writing reports, or that I work in fundraising. I stopped telling them about individual research and focused on the corporate and foundation work.

Intrigue 

In my personal experience intrigued people ask: “So interesting, how do you do that?”, “How did you fall into that job?” or “Wow, that sounds fascinating.” Several HBG colleagues were told our job sounds like that of a private investigator.  These conversations tend to go organically and stay positive. We veer the conversation into the types of organizations that use prospect research, how to prospect, data analysis, and due diligence.

A new perspective…

In more recent years, my response to questions about what prospect research is has become more nuanced. I have built confidence by reminding myself and others how much I love what I do. Not only do I enjoy prospect research as an intellectually stimulating endeavor, but I also love the idea of supporting nonprofits. By reframing prospect research as an integral tool to help nonprofits succeed, my confidence has soared. Another thing I now like to emphasize is that researchers abide by the APRA Code of Ethics that we take seriously and that we only look at publicly available information. Responding in this new way has emboldened me and provided an overwhelming sense of pride in our profession.

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It’s Time: Highlighting Six Changes

Two weeks ago, I attended my last Apra Board Meeting, immediately followed by the 2023 Apra Prospect Development Conference.  As a team building exercise, we kicked off our board meeting with “6 Word Memoirs.”  As one might expect in a group of about a dozen people, the tone and tenor of our memoirs varied – some professional, some personal, some serious, some funny, some focused on being “in the moment”, others focused on lifelong characteristics.  Mine was as follows:

This Year.  Many Changes.  Reflective.  Bittersweet.

For those who do not know me, 2023 has been a year of change.  About 6 weeks prior to the conference, I started in my current position at The Helen Brown Group.  And, after 6 years of being on the Apra Board, my term was coming to an end.

As such, my mood was very, well, reflective.  As you might imagine, a 6-year board tenure could feel like both a short and long amount of time.

On the one hand, some things within Apra and within our profession have not changed over the past 6 years – and maybe they never will.  We are still debating whether the full prospect profile is “alive” or “dead.”  We are still complaining about database conversion projects.  Most of us are planning, in, or about to finish some type of large capital campaign.  You get the idea.

On the other hand, over the past 6 years our industry has changed, evolved and grown substantially!  Like many of us, I don’t always like change.  But, change is not only a constant, it is also necessary.  I have learned to embrace the later.

Also like many of us, I often have trouble seeing the forest through the trees.  So, since the themes of change and sixes have both been on my mind, I thought: it’s time to highlight 6 “trees” that have sprouted in our industry’s “forest” over my 6 years on the Apra Board.

 

1. COVID – COVID had a transformative impact on almost every aspect of our lives – professional and personal. Did I really need to mention this?  Probably not.  However, it was so impactful that how could I not mention it?  Enough Said.

 

2. ChatGPT, AI and similar – do I think ChatGPT or AI is going to replace our profession?  No.  Do I think they are going to change the way we do our work.  Absolutely.

Some of us are old enough to remember when the Internet was rumored to replace our profession and it obviously didn’t.  We are still here!

However, I think we’d all agree that the way we work is significantly different – more efficient and faster – than the days of library visits, stacks of books and lots of phone calls to request information.  My suspicion is that this era of technology innovation will have the same type of impact, forcing (in a good way!) us to evolve.

 

3. DAFs – Did Donor Advised Funds exist 6 years ago?  Yes.  In fact, there’s a great blog post by my colleague Jayme Klein here that reviews the history of DAFs.

However, in the past few years the importance of DAFs and their impact on our industry really started to explode.  In fact, according to the National Philanthropic Trust, DAFs grew 28% in 2021 alone.

Those who follow GivingUSA have also noticed that over the past couple of years there has been a decline in individual giving alongside an associated increase in foundation giving.  Most experts attribute a portion of this shift directly to the impact of DAFs.

If donor giving patterns are changing, our industry must learn to adapt and keep up with those changes.

 

4. Data Governance and Privacy Landscape – while FERPA and HIPAA certainly existed for way longer than my six-year looking-glass, we now have an alphabet soup with GDPR, CCPA, PIPEDA and VCDPA added to the mix. This, of course, is an evolving landscape with legislation pending (or already in effect) in other states and countries.

Sites like The Nonprofit Alliance can help us track legislation.  However, knowing about the law is only ½ the battle.  Perhaps the bigger challenge will be in the nimbleness and complexity needed to adhere to all of variations across so many laws.

 

While my first 4 are broad and impact the entire philanthropic landscape, I wanted to reserve my last 2 specifically for Apra, since my tenure on the Apra board was the inspiration for this post.  Of course, many trees have sprouted within Apra over the past 6 years.  I’ll highlight two:

 

5. Apra’s DEI Data Guide – In 2021, Apra published its first version of a new DEI Data Guide (spoiler alert: an updated version is due to be published later this year, along with a brand new asset on data minimization!). The Guide’s purpose is to serve as a resource for best practices in the ethical collection, storage, and usage of DEI data.

Sure, Apra was talking about DEI 6 years ago.  And, Apra has always prided itself on providing an ethical guidepost for the philanthropy profession.  It even has an entire section of its website focused on Ethics and Compliance.

But talking about something and having text on a website does not make it a seminal cornerstone of a professional association.

It is to this end that the importance of the DEI Data Guide cannot be understated, especially as Apra is a community that lives, breathes and thrives on using data to advance philanthropy.

In quick stead, the Guide has also served as a launch pad that helped elevate Apra as “The Leader” in assuring the proper collection, use and protection of donor data across the entire philanthropic sector.  In fact, the Guide has been promoted in efforts by AFP, CASE, aasp, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy, just to name a few.

 

6. Due Diligence – Okay, full disclosure: I was having a bit of trouble picking this last one. There was so much to choose from that I really couldn’t decide!

My mind was quickly made up when I read Heather Willis’s Intelligent Edge post last week on Comprehensive Due Diligence Research.  Of course!

Due diligence has always been in the back of a researcher’s mind.  I distinctly remember an example from my time as a Prospect Researcher at Boston University when a colleague realized that a prospective donor was possibly connected to a terrorist organization.  Yikes!  What to do?  We talked about it and made some ad hoc decisions on how to handle next steps.  We had no formal policy or procedure in place.  This was twenty years ago.

Now, Due Diligence is a practice of its own with guideposts and guardrails to follow.  We’ve come a long way, baby!

In addition to Heather’s great insight, also check out Apra’s Due Diligence Toolkit, published in 2020, along with about a dozen other resources in Apra University, all published in the last few years and including a 2021 webinar featuring HBG’s very own Michele Borucki and Jayme Klein! (note: some links require an Apra membership).

 

Each one of my “sixes” is worth a full blog post on its own!  But for now, I’ll leave you with these brief thoughts on each as I set my sights on building my next 6 Word Memoir…

 

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Making remote work work

They’re calling it “The Great Resignation.” Millions of folks who have worked from home productively through the pandemic aren’t ready to give up their new quality of life for employers who will require them to go back to an office. According to the US Labor Department, a record 4 million people quit their jobs – and that’s just this past April.

For some professions it’s really not an option. It’s difficult for a surgeon and her team not to be in the presence of the patient, although not impossible, apparently.

But for fundraising, it’s a no-brainer. Old school ways of insisting that everyone has to be in the office all the time are losing their credibility. And for good reasons.

Keeping great staff [Read more…]

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Opportunity of a lifetime

As I watched the Inauguration ceremonies over the past couple of days and saw those heartbreaking and beautiful flags on the Mall, it made me think about where we are now and how unbelievably changed we are from just a year ago.

If you had known a year ago what you know now, what would you have done differently? What have you found to be more important than you expected? What did you think was important then that you’ve now easily discarded? What do you wish you’d taken advantage of sooner?

One easy thing for me is that I would have made my ‘temporary’ home office a lot more comfortable sooner. I finally did that over the holiday break, but I wish that I’d done it back in July when it settled in my bones that this pandemic really wouldn’t be over as soon as we’d all hoped. Looking back, in some ways it felt like much of last year was just suspended time.

On the other hand, when I was craving lost community last spring I reached out to some folks that I’d always wanted to talk with but hadn’t had time (or hadn’t made time) to reach out to before. Some lovely new personal/professional friendships have bloomed, and it’s been a source of joy in this time of disconnected connection.

Did you do that, too? Did you make new connections over this past year, or re-forge old ties that had gotten frayed?

What about professionally? What did you do that challenged you to learn something more? Did you jump into the deep end and do something scary like take on a role you weren’t totally sure you were qualified for? Or speak at a virtual conference? Or survive being furloughed? Or…what?

What did you do this past year that your January 2020 self would be astonished to know about you? What did you learn about your priorities?

Here at HBG we launched a new Data Insight unit that I’d been inching toward for probably five years. In July, I just said “GO.” No more waiting. No more wondering “are we ready yet?” And now, every Friday my smile is goofy and wide with pride listening in on the DI team strategizing about new screening and analytics projects they’re working on, sharing data sources they found that week, or discussing how they want to visualize key discoveries for a client. It’s keeping me learning, too, and pushing myself and my team to pursue opportunities for services that will offer unique value (more on that this summer!).

Mid-summer, I couldn’t seem to resolve to the reality of fixing up my home office, but we launched a whole new business unit. I guess I discovered my priorities.

This year I’ve been impressed by leaders like Jay Frost and Jason Briggs who prioritized education and community and brought real innovation to our sector. Both of them jumped into the void with great speaker series and new, innovative forms of conferences to keep us connecting and learning. I’m honored to be speaking at the PyroTalks Fundraising Intelligence Conference next month on due diligence, and I hope you will join me.

And the Apra chapters! Wow. The pandemic has shown their resiliency and super-creative thinking to bring great programming that expands their reach and attracts membership beyond their geographical borders. My own chapter, NEDRA, runs research boot camps that will be available to newbies from Alabama and Albania to Nebraska, New England, and Zimbabwe, and they’re offering 11 full scholarships to their annual conference in May, including a brand-new one to support an initiative to bring more diversity, equity, and inclusion to prospect development.

Although the vaccine is slowly rolling out now, we’re probably going to be in the same physical situations for at least another eight or nine months, and possibly another year. Where do you want to be then?

Now is a really great time to break out of time suspension, take stock of where you are, and think about where you want to be personally and professionally this time next year. What do you need (or need to know) to take that next step? What certification or Coursera class or connection with a mentor will help pave the way? This is the opportunity of a lifetime to do that.

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Credit where credit is appreciated

On occasion, a prospective client will ask “How much money has your company helped your clients raise?”

That’s a tricky question, because the truly honest answer is, “I don’t know.”

Some clients hire us simply to provide profiles and we don’t usually hear what happens after the fact.

If we’re working with clients on a dedicated basis – meaning that one of our team works with them side-by-side over a period of months or years – it’s a lot easier. We can trace the donations of the people we’ve identified for them and come up with a figure. Or, as happens more frequently, the fundraiser we’re working with calls to celebrate the donation – and that’s like the sun beaming through after a full week of rain. Pure joy.

We also do prospecting projects, of course, by hand and through our Data Insight team. But again, we rarely hear the long-term results of those projects 18-24 months down the road (the usual time from identification through cultivation to gift).

We would love to hear, of course, but as is the way of things, our clients are focused forward, not back.

And also, (going back to the original question), when you work in prospect development you’re entirely at the mercy of the action and skill of the fundraiser, dean, executive director, volunteer, etc., to convert that prospect to a donor. You could identify the Gates Foundation for a world-class malaria and TB charity with a connection to a program manager, but if the fundraiser doesn’t act on the prospect, that research work had zero impact.

Of course, prospect development often does have a huge impact, and there are lots of ways we can measure it, including…

  • Number of new prospects identified
  • Number of prospects identified who went on to make a gift (and why? what did they have in common?)
  • Estimated capacity of newly-identified prospects
  • Number of reports completed
  • Number of prospects rated and assigned

…and more. But those ways are presented in statistics, produced at our desk, provided monthly or annually in a report. Not the most super-exciting reading for the recipient, nor is the report something that generally causes the reader to call the research manager to exclaim their praises. But, you know, those stats can be kind of a big deal.

What we need, especially now, are examples of ways to communicate and celebrate the impact of prospect development.

Many times staffers will hear exciting news about a big gift in office kitchens or hallways before the monthly announcement at the all-staff or major gifts meeting. But with a pandemic going on and all of us working remotely, those moments of shared joy aren’t happening. We’re cut off from colleagues, physically isolated, and working in a vacuum. It’s hard for those moments of celebration to happen. Which means it’s even harder for staff to stay motivated and feel part of the big picture.

So especially now, when those gifts happen, how can leaders share them? How can fundraisers help prospect development folks feel valued? How can PD managers keep their teams motivated? We need to find every way we can. And honestly, the endorphins that flow with sharing that kind of joy is good for all of us, sharer and recipient alike.

How does your team creatively share celebrations now? How do you as a manager make sure that your team stays inspired – and credited – for their part in making those moments of success happen?

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Silver linings

So here we are, week nine hundred and twenty-whatever, working from home, wearing a mask when we’re out, socially distancing, all that good stuff. We’re w-a-a-y past the novelty and deep into the “Seriously I cannot binge-watch yet another series” portion of this Pandemic-a-thon. And that’s if we’re lucky.

[PSA: Now is the time when it’s really easy to break down and do something that honestly doesn’t seem like it would be that risky but three months ago would have freaked you out. Don’t. You’ve made it this far and we’re all counting on you to keep being a strong link in this virtual chain. Also you’re awesome and cherished].

But, yeah, this is still 17 kinds of awful. I’ve been trying to keep a gratitude list to stay positive, and I wanted to share with you some positive things I noted that wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for this pandemic.

For one thing, no one is saying “It’s impossible for prospect development folks to work from home!” anymore. There is an element of “be careful what you wish for” here, but if you’re one of the millions who’ve discovered that working from home really is a wish come true, well, there’s good thing #1 to come out of this.

Another good thing happened a couple of weeks ago. My university held a virtual stewardship event for donors to the student COVID emergency relief fund, and one of the speakers said “of course, we’d ideally be all together now so we could thank you in person.” Since my university is across an ocean, the likelihood of my being there in person would be approximately nil, but because the event had to be virtual, there I was, one happy square among many on several pages in a Zoom room. How many great opportunities will nonprofits be able to take advantage of to engage with distanced constituents (who want to be more engaged) because we’re separated?

And speaking of the benefits of virtual gatherings, here’s another good thing: All of the free and low-cost webinars this spring were great, right? Especially in the beginning when we were trying to figure out how permanent or temporary this was all going to be. But if you’re like me, right about now you’re longing to be part of a real discussion again with other prospect development folks. Conversation. Back and forth, not just being talked at.

We’re not alone. Coffee talks are springing up everywhere. Last week Apra-MN had a great coffee hour conversation featuring Janna Lee and Mark DeFilippis on the topic of the legality of using FEC data in prospect research. Lori Lawson (who helped write the guidelines on this for APRA) was able to chime in from her home in Florida. Bonus!

Next month Apra-MN will host another interactive kaffeeklatsch on the topic of New York real estate, and they’re also doing evening happy hours just for conversation. Apra-Carolinas and Apra-PA are also hosting social gatherings…maybe your chapter is doing something, too? If not, volunteer to lead one yourself! It’s great that distance doesn’t have to be a factor – we can share a beverage and talk to peers everywhere! (oh, and hey: chapter membership chairs? Members don’t need to be in your geographic area anymore! Just saying.)

What other good things are happening because of this very bad thing that you can think of?

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Portfolio spring cleaning

Photo by Arbitrarily0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Not that you would know it from the weather in Boston, but it’s spring out there. I washed my windows last weekend and wow, what a difference! I’m really looking forward to seeing the sun shine through them when it eventually makes an appearance.

My next task is to get rid of this huge cd rack that has been sitting in the corner of my living room since cds were a thing. There must be at least 750 cds on this rack, which is just one part of the problem.

  • There are too many of them
  • We haven’t played any of them in years (some of them never)
  • Since computers don’t have cd drives in them anymore, I have nothing to convert them with
  • We have a sentimental attachment to them
  • Someday they may be worth a lot of money (but seriously, probably not)
  • They’re taking up room we could be using for a desperately-needed additional seat

As I was standing there staring at it last evening, it occurred to me that our cd rack is a metaphor for many under-performing major donor prospect portfolios.

  • Most portfolios have too many prospects in them
  • We haven’t connected with some of those prospects in years (or ever)
  • We don’t have enough time or fundraisers to help convert many of those prospects into donors
  • We have a sentimental attachment to these prospects
  • Someday they may give us a large gift (but seriously, probably not)
  • Prospects that are never going to give (or won’t give anytime soon) are taking up the place for new prospects with higher capacity, interest, and likelihood to give.

So what to do? Well, it’s time for some spring cleaning, isn’t it?

I’m no Marie Kondo, but I do like to keep things simple if I’m going to get some tidying accomplished. When trimming portfolios, I put prospects into three categories: A, B, and C.

  • A – the keepers. They’re definitely or probably going to give in the next year-to-18 months.
  • B – prospects for reassessment. If you don’t have a prospect management director, ask your research team or your research consultant to give you a candid, unsentimental, strategic assessment. You probably don’t need heavy-duty research. The goal should be a simple “Keep in portfolio, they’re an A” or “Move elsewhere, they’re a C.”
  • C – these are the ones to remove. The folks who may be lovely to have lunch with but who will never make a major gift. Move them out of your portfolio to your colleagues in stewardship, annual fund, gift planning, or whatever other department/section that makes the most sense (if your organization is large enough to have them).

But whether your development shop is large or just you, it doesn’t matter – prospects that will never donate at a major gift level should be moved out of your major gift portfolio.

The goal should be to get rid of every prospect that isn’t going to move forward in the 0-24 months. I know – it’s really hard. You’ve become attached to people you’ve formed good relationships with, but when you do this you’ve moved them to a better place for them, for your nonprofit, and for your performance goals.

Once you’re finished you’ll have room for all of those new prospects that your research team or research consultant have found for you that they’ve been excited to move into your portfolio.

Which is great, right?

Say, now that we’ve cleaned out your portfolios, can I get some help schlepping these cds to donate to the library?

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So you say you want a revolution, well, here goes….

Our month-long #ResearchPride focus on prospect management closes today with advice from one of the mountaintop gurus on the topic, Lisa Howley. It would be impossible to overstate Lisa’s expertise and generosity in sharing her knowledge over the years, and I’m delighted that she agreed to close out the month for us here on the Intelligent Edge to talk about creating a roadmap for solid prospect management success. ~Helen

We all want to change the world. Or at least our prospect management (PM) systems. It’s a common refrain by prospect management practitioners and gift officers alike. Walk down the hallway in any development office and you may hear someone scream in frustration ‘the system is broken!’

It can be daunting to be tasked with fixing a broken prospect management system. Sure, staff have been sharing their woes, and you have been compiling issues. But where to start? [Read more…]

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Growing your corporate fundraising through better data tracking

Last week’s article about improving our use of interest codes to more effectively identify, engage, and steward donors got me wondering about doing the same sort of thing for companies that support our nonprofits. I asked Amanda Jarman, (aka the “Fundraising Nerd”) to share her perspective on the topic this week. Companies are made up of people, of course, and Amanda uses the term “biographic data” to help us consider tracking the many interconnections between companies, the people within companies our nonprofits are connected to, and our nonprofits themselves.  Thanks, Amanda!  ~Helen

Paying attention to the “biographic” data you track about companies can help you step up your corporate fundraising game. This is data that lives in the biographic section of your database, along with names, addresses, communication preferences, and the like – but instead of being related to an individual, it’s related to a company.

There’s a variety of information you might track about companies, including:

  • Contact people
  • Other important employees (such as alumni or volunteers, for example)
  • Matching gift information
  • Size/annual revenue range
  • Sector and/or SIC code
  • Subsidiaries
  • Funding priorities – company (philanthropy and sponsorship)
  • Funding priorities – company foundation

Just like with any data management process, your data coding needs start with your business needs. Depending on the type of corporate giving you are pursuing and the complexity of your fundraising program, you may need to only track some of this information, or you may want to collect all of it.

Here are some other types of data you may want to consider collecting as well:

Corporate Sponsorship Programs

Sponsorship is one of the most common types of corporate giving. If you have an active corporate sponsorship program, you’ll definitely want to keep track of the names and contact information of your primary contact(s) for sponsorship requests and stewardship.

Matching Gift Programs

Many companies match their employees’ giving to your organization. If you have an active matching gift program, you may choose to store information about a company’s matching conditions. This helps to project matching gift revenue and also helps you inform your donors about their employer’s matching program. You may choose to track an employer’s match rate (1:1, 1:2, etc.), match dollar limit, and any funding limitations related to your organization (e.g. some corporations do not fund athletics programs). In addition to tracking information about the employer’s matching program, be sure to link constituents like alumni, volunteers, members, and friends to employer records.

Corporate Major Giving Program

If your organization raises major gifts from corporate donors, consider tracking annual revenue range to help you prioritize among corporate prospects. You may also track likelihood to give and funding priorities (i.e. which of your programs the corporation prefers to give to).

This is similar to the kind of information you might track about individual major gift prospects to prioritize and focus your asks on the best philanthropic match between your organization and your prospective donors.

Corporate Partnership Program

Some organizations partner with companies beyond giving, e.g. hosting employees as volunteers, co-hosting other types of events, and/or developing programmatic partnerships like sponsored research. If your organization has a strong corporate partnership program, then linking individual constituents to their employer’s record is essential. This way, you can see the companies – and people – with which you already have a firm connection. These companies are great fits for employee volunteer or giving days.

Complex Organization with Multiple Funding Priorities

If your organization is complex and/or has multiple funding priorities, you may need to track information to help you align corporate donors with your program areas. Consider tracking business sector, either using your own categories or SIC  or NAICS code, which are used to categorize businesses by industry.

This is particularly important in the prospecting stage. As you begin to develop relationships with corporate funders, you will start to uncover the company’s funding interests which may or may not be related to your organization’s overall sector, but to one or more of your programs or research strengths.

Corporations with Multiple Locations

Many corporations have multiple locations, multiple philanthropic interests, and even multiple corporate foundations and giving programs. For example, one corporation may have several subsidiaries and branch locations, with matching gift programs, sponsored research, and corporate foundations or giving programs related to each one. To get a full picture of the corporation’s giving and relationship with your organization, it is helpful to link subsidiary and branch records to a corporate headquarters record.

Getting started

To get started with tracking corporate biographical data, first determine which of these data points will support and enhance your fundraising priorities. Next, assess your database: how can this data be stored? Do you need to customize your system?

Finally, determine how you will collect this information and keep it updated. You may choose to purchase SIC/NAICS code and/or matching gift program data from a vendor. You can also decide to survey your constituents about their employment, and/or purchase employer information about your constituents. Some information-gathering may have to be done the old-fashioned way, with a researcher, intern, or student hand-entering the information.

No matter which way you decide to do, enhancing your company “biographic” information is a great way to strengthen your organization’s capacity for fundraising success.

For more donor data management tips and tools, Amanda Jarman can be found at www.fundraisingnerd.com.

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Still Interested? Expanding the Use of Donor Interest Codes

Following the close of UC Berkeley’s last capital campaign in 2013, the campus recognized that the fundraising community needed a better way to understand the interests of current and potential donors if they were going to meet the goals of their next campaign.

The University Development and Alumni Relations team was also given a new priority to identify prospects interested in multidisciplinary institutes, such as the Berkeley Food Institute and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science.

So in 2014, Mallory Lass and Abbey Myszka of UC Berkeley’s Prospect Development team led a working group (which included multiple advancement operations partners) to examine and overhaul their interest coding. They had no idea it would be a project they would still be shepherding nearly five years later!

After hearing their presentation at the Apra conference, I was so interested in their project that I asked Mallory and Abbey to tell us more about it in a blog post so you could hear about it, too. I’m delighted that they said yes! ~Helen

You may have attended our 2016 APRA presentation Got Interest? Improving the Utilization of Donor Interest Codes and are thinking to yourself, “But I thought they finished that project…?!” You would be correct – and it’s also a project that found new legs.

When we first undertook a complete overhaul of our interest coding, the project entailed creating a new data table that was hierarchical in structure (this allows us to capture parent/child/grandchild level data which we can use broadly or narrowly), reviewing data integrity on the nearly 30K existing codes, and creating new processes and a new culture around the way we thought about and documented interest codes.

The focus of this project was our constituents’ outside philanthropic interests, but after talking to other EllucianAdvance users and other institutions such as University of Chicago that were also undertaking their own interest code projects, we realized the value of exploring internal philanthropic interests as well. This would lead us to code interests down to program level specificity. A whole new phase was born!

Since then we have taken ownership of prospect related interests and see this as an ongoing data stewardship and data acquisition project that may never see its “end.” That is both daunting and exhilarating.

The bulk of our efforts over the last five years have been focused on building and maintaining two distinct interest code areas: one to reflect outside philanthropic interests and one for internal interests. Sometimes those overlap, too.

For example, a donor to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art would get an outside philanthropic interest code for Art and Museums, but, depending on other circumstances, might also be coded for an internal interest in the Berkeley Art Museum.

In conjunction with our development and database management teams, we steward the creation of new codes (interesting new additions include cryptocurrency, cannabis, and astrophysics) which makes our data reactive to changing needs, to new research and, in a lot of cases, anticipatory.

For example, we created a code for an interest in cannabis in January of 2017 and in January of 2019, UCB announced a New Cannabis Research Center to explore environmental and social impacts of legalization.

This forward-looking focus helps us to pose questions, think about, and define the structure we have been working to implement over the last year. One question we worked on was “How do we best incorporate outside data sources into our prospect-interests ecosystem?” We discovered that this involves determining the integrity of the outside data source, assessing the value-add to our internal database, and deciding whether the data should be mapped to outside or internal philanthropic interests.

External data: The Federal Election Commission

We started with Federal Election Commission (FEC) data because it was easy for our analytics team to capture and studies show that people who contribute to political campaigns are more likely to also contribute to charitable causes.

FEC data includes individual giving to political action committees, and the subject matter of those PACs is what was mapped to our interest code area. Based on political giving data identified and matched by the Prospect Development analytics team, we have been able to add over 166K interest codes on 72,920 entity records.

Internal data: past giving 

Our crowdfunding team is another great source of data we can use to map a data set to our internal philanthropic interests. For example, donors who gave to a Cal Band initiative to purchase new lockers would be coded for an interest in Cal Band. We are also assessing how we can leverage eGiving and donor survey comments.

What the future holds

After attending a CARA presentation where James Sinclair from the University of Southern California explained mapping foundation funding priorities directly to campus programmatic needs, we have begun thinking about the feasibility of using foundation data for interest codes as well. The potential to leverage outside data sources for this project is almost limitless – this project might never end!

If you would like to talk to Abbey and Mallory in more detail about this project feel free to contact them by email at amyszka {at} Berkeley dot edu  or  mlass {at} Berkeley dot edu. If you’re working on your own interest-coding project, tell us about it!

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