Wanted: a passionate, inquisitive, analytical, proactive thinker with a well-developed sense of curiosity, good judgment, the capacity to persevere, and strong computer skills.
That’s what Lori Bennett, CFRE, looks for today in a prospect researcher. She is the manager of advancement research and prospect management at the University of Alberta and president of the Canadian chapter of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA). Fifteen years ago when she started out, as one of the first official prospect researchers in Canada, the position in many organizations was little more than a clerical one. Today, prospect researchers are a recognized and important part of the fundraising cycle, a partner with front-end fundraisers. Prospect researchers are not just digging up names of new prospective donors but strategizing with the rest of the team about cultivating, soliciting, and taking care of donors.
The prospect researcher’s role
In a nutshell, prospect researchers identify potential new major gift donors and provide a complete picture of those donors by searching publicly available sources. That complete picture includes the financial capacity of the person, so that at solicitation time the right dollar amount is proposed. It also involves the person’s interests and passions – or what Pat Hetherington, coordinator of development research and privacy officer at St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation in Toronto calls ‘the door opener’. The prospect researcher uncovers what might motivate this person to donate. Prospect researchers feed this information to the development officers and foundation board volunteers, who will later approach these identified people. “At the most basic level, we provide information so deals will be successful,” says Hetherington.
As an extension of their research work, prospect researchers find themselves heavily involved in information management. All the gathered information needs to be stored so it is easily retrievable, especially considering that major gift donor cultivation is usually a long-term process. The time from initial research to solicitation to major gift donation once took seven years, Bennett remembers. In her experience, “front-end fundraisers come and go. So we have to supply the organizational memory to build the long-term relationship with a potential donor.” Someone also needs to track the relationship as it unfolds and maintaining the tracking system is becoming part of many prospect researchers’ jobs.
Catalysts for growth
The prospect researcher’s role is changing and growing for a number of reasons. Definitely, the movement towards major gift programs and the increase in the number of capital campaigns spurred the interest in, and need for prospect research. Research provides a competitive edge. It helps, too, when people like Jon Dellandrea – the University of Toronto‘s vice-president and chief advancement officer who headed the Canadian-first of raising more than $1 billion for a university – publicly advocate that you cannot fundraise without research. Furthermore, potential major gift donors now expect extensive research prior to ‘the ask’. Usually it is the same wealthy people who are approached for a multitude of different campaigns. According to Hetherington, “longstanding and savvy donors say they have expectations that we’ve done our homework on them. That way we’re not wasting anyone’s time.”
Hetherington and Bennett both highlight the formation of the Canadian chapter of APRA in 2000 as a major benchmark in the evolution of the field. Creating a professional association of prospect researchers means access to professional development, networking, and research geared to Canadians. It also means that members are recognized and called upon as experts. For instance, in conjunction with other fundraising professional associations, APRA was highly involved with privacy legislation consultations.
Privacy legislation – another evolutionary benchmark
When Bennett started out in prospect research, she recalls no talk of privacy issues; however, today privacy is a priority. She considers the provincial privacy laws and the year-old federal PIPEDA legislation as solidifying what researchers already do to comply with the APRA code of ethics. In Bennett’s words, “there is a natural connection between prospect research and privacy laws. I think all researchers need to step up and become the privacy officer in their own organization.”
Lawyer Jeffery McCully, president of PrivacyConsult, agrees that prospect researchers need to ‘step up’ when it comes to privacy considerations. “The bottom line,” McCully says, “is that it is vital to determine the threshold question first – despite the type of organization. What is the nature of activity it carries on? If it is commercial, PIPEDA applies. Researchers, carrying on traditional prospect research for non-commercial institutions, can legally comply by accessing publicly available info. However, a recent case holds that entities to which the privacy act applies cannot collect, use, or disclose business e-mail addresses, even if those addresses are public. So, charities, hospitals, and universities should review their information management practices for legal and very practical reasons.”
Not the exclusive domain of larger organizations
It may sound like prospect research is just for larger national charities and institutions, like hospitals and universities. Yet, Hetherington and Bennett will tell you that much of what they do is scanning the daily newspapers and business magazines for names of prospects or the names of current donors in the news. Both encourage smaller organizations to take up this practice. Another accessible source of information is a research library where librarians can direct you to free sources of publicly available information.
In fact, there is a great affinity between librarians and prospect researchers. Their research skill sets are similar and their educational backgrounds are the same: a masters degree in library and information science. Peter McKinley, a consultant and researcher, recently introduced a pioneering graduate-level prospect research course in the Masters of Library and Information Science program at the University of Western Ontario. The goal of the new course is to provide the sector with newly graduated researchers who come equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in fundraising organizations. The affinity between libraries and prospect research is also the reason that McKinley will be partnering with the business librarian at the London Public Library for an upcoming one-day workshop on research techniques and resources for smaller charities that do not have a prospect researcher on staff.
Certainly, the conditions are right for the field of prospect research to continue evolving. Competition for major gift donors, the need to navigate the specifics of privacy legislation, new professional development opportunities, and networking within a professional association are the catalysts. A recent APRA Canada survey found that 55% of the 69 respondents had been in the field for less than three years. These new prospect researchers have a lot to be passionate and curious about.
Louise Chatterton Luchuk is a freelance writer and consultant who combines her love of writing with experience at the local, provincial and national levels of volunteer-involving organizations. For more information, visit www.luchuk.com.
