The Research Specialty Discussion is scheduled for Tuesday, September 8, 2020 from 3:00-3:45 EST. Here is the agenda. To join us use this link https://www.google.com/url?q=https://umich.zoom.us/j/99707184765&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1596025987373000&usg=AOvVaw2a2RKEDOA-zrid1_Xw-GvW
We haven't partnered with them. We had a call with a rep at WealthQuotient. Cool concept but felt like we could do something similar in-house for relationship mapping if needed using RelSci, etc.
Hi, Lindsey. We partnered with WQ earlier this year in Michigan Medicine and are currently working through the first round of our "HUB" conversations. I'm happy to share our experiences, how we use them in complement to our other tools, and our planned next steps.
Anyone know where to access Newspaper Archive for free? Or perhaps a similar online resource for viewing/searching print newspapers/publications?
Our team had previously accessed Newspaper Archive for free via an obscure source--the Boyd County Public Library in Kentucky (https://www.thebookplace.org/access-newspaper-archive/). It was a favorite resource for researching family history, employment, etc. It recently became unavailable, so wondering what else people are using. Thanks for any tips!
Do you have access to the University of Wisconsin's library and those databases? If they don't have Newspaper Archive you could try Factiva or one of the ProQuest news databases. I've heard of Newspaper Source too, but have never used it.
What's an underrated, free resource relevant to prospect research? In 2-3 sentences, tell us the name of the resource and how you use it. Brownie points for dropping a link in the chat!
25 min -- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Presentation and Q & A -- Kelli North
Kelli leads all of University of Michigan's DEI work as it relates to prospect development, and will share insights and best practices applicable to our work.
15 min -- Benchmarking Brainstorm -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Action item coming out of the 11/4 FORUM Large Group Meeting: brainstorm ideas for benchmarking topics. These should be questions we would like to ask of FORUM colleagues to understand their institutions' policies, strategies, structure, etc. for benchmarking purposes. Ideas will be added to the Forum Benchmarking post, or emailed to Michele Miller by 1/8/21. (More info on the Forum Benchmarking post).
5 min -- Data/Resource Sharing -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Consider contributing further to the data/resource sharing discussion and/or volunteering to serve as data/resource sharing platform facilitator.
5 min -- Wrap-up -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Goals:
· Learn how peers are leveraging free prospect research resources, and perhaps identify new resources to use in our own work.
· Improve practices to enhance DEI.
· Identify benchmarking topic recommendations.
· Awareness of data/resource sharing opportunities.
What's an underrated, free resource relevant to prospect research? In 2-3 sentences, tell us the name of the resource and how you use it. Brownie points for dropping a link in the chat!
· Jessica: SECDatabase (not free), like Intelligize but cheaper ($150 per user). Feature where you can type up insiders name and pulls in Form 4s. https://www.secdatabase.com/default.aspx
· Janet Weimar: BatchGeo.com. Easy free mapping. Drop in Excel spreadsheet (city, state). Info goes public so be careful what you put in. Sarah Luckey agrees.
· Viv Chappell: https://opencorporates.com/ OpenCorporates -- They claim to be the largest open database of companies in the world, and pull in basic company data from primary public sources -- info like incorporation date, directors and officers, agent address, Patent and Trademark information, and the source material links. You can search by company or officer name. Good for helping learn more about a person's businesses.
25 min -- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Presentation and Q & A -- Kelli North
Kelli leads all of University of Michigan's DEI work as it relates to prospect development, and shared insights and best practices applicable to our work.
· Has become her specialty. Degree in social work. Interest in social justice and equity.
· What do we mean by DEI?
o Distinction between prospecting for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives vs. diversifying our prospecting. False assumption that people of color want to give to DEI initiatives.
o Diversity of diversity. Not just race and ethnicity.
o Theoretical vs. practical. Think about how to be action-oriented.
o "30%" problem. U of Michigan has race/ethnicity data for 30% of database only. Don't have some of the data points we want.
· U of M
o Structure is decentralized.
o DEI Strategic plan is public on website.
· U of M current projects:
o Identity & Affinity Data Acquisition and Usage Policy
· Apra may be embarking on one of their own
· U of M has been at this for about 1.5 years. Challenges:
§ Questionable requests, i.e. list of wealthy people of particular race in particular geographic location.
§ Shared a story about unintended consequence of using identity data: LGBTQ advocacy center had contacted a donor because she was linked to a same sex spouse--but she was not publicly out. Donor very upset. If you see a data point in system, what's an ethical way to use it? We don't want to tokenize.
· Formed committee with members from services teams. In communication with fundraisers and leadership to ensure it would fit within cadence of everyone's work, awareness of intent (not intended to be limiting, penalizing; it's about showing our best intentions).
· Policy:
§ Only put identity items in database that are self-reported. Surveys, communications, etc.
§ Keep track of where the identity info came from--source must be provided. If it came from a vendor, we need to know where THEY got it from. If they can't say the source, don't use it.
§ If there's an identity-based request, must need to know the strategic reasons. Can't just be based on identity.
§ Leadership and office of general counsel buy-in up front.
§ Next steps: Grant project will be pilot of policy. Structural Racism Grant. Received from the Office of DEI. Hard assets are rife with bias, generational wealth not as present in some hard assets, like real estate due to redlining for example.
· Looking for other data points to round out the picture; going to vendors with concerns and asking what they're doing to mitigate bias, if there are other data points they can provide. Will provide a test population to screen with the new data points.
· Timeline: Feb 2021
o Diversifying portfolios/Fundraising for DEI
· Other data points of interest:
§ Student involvement data
§ Board memberships
§ Professional associations/chambers of commerce
§ Networks of people we already know
§ External giving
o DEI & Campaigns
o Grant to look at alternate wealth screening methods to get rid of bias
o Diversifying portfolios
o Fundraising for DEI
o DEI & Campaigns (ended campaign but may gear up for another)
o Development Professionals of Color. Strategic goals.
· Meet and greets with donors of color, feedback on their interest, how to improve
· Subcommittees
· Lessons learned
o Subject can make people uncomfortable
o Many people still in planning stages of DEI efforts
o Ground your work in practicality.
· Context/action better than theory/lecture
o Education as advocacy
· Race Forward training (expensive but helpful racial equity training to build knowledge base of staff)
· Language and terms guide related to identity/affinity, current event-related terms
· History of your institution. Curated list of things that happened at university that could have impacted student experience. Example, senior society that's prestigious, but has history of using Native American artifacts in ceremonies and giving members names.
o Participation and buy-in
· Get fundraisers and staff involved early so that they feel ownership of the process.
· Give people space.
o Kelli contact info: northkm@umich.edu
· Loves talking to other people about this so feel free to reach out.
o Q&A:
· Dan Zarlenga: Screening. Other data points?
§ Kelli: Has been disappointing so far talking to vendors. Lots of "we're working on it, but not ready yet." Most useful: Windfall data points (do they give externally, yes/no; do they have a trust, yes/no). External giving/board membership (philanthropic involvement).
· Can you share the Language & Terms Guide?
· Kelli: Yes
· Viv: More info on guidelines/how you have conversations with requestors in response to requests asking you to use identity data?
§ If they want to request a specific identity category like race, sexual orientation, etc., should have clear business purpose. No fishing to add a person to our board (tokenize). Inquire why do they need that particular piece of info…wants the back and forth between researcher and requestor. Don't want it to be shallow/tokenizing. Must have a business purpose.
§ It is Development-wide standard for decision-making. So applies to reporting, research, etc.
· LaTonya Foster: Can you share more about the Development Professionals of Color? Anchored in existing goals of org, or new areas of interest on their own, and if so who do they work with? A bit of both happening at OSU.
§ Kelli: Both. At first, there were disparate groups working on facets of plan. Silos. DEI director within Development took initiative to organize the DPOC Committee group. Advocacy, education and community pillars handled by subcommittee, but overall group has 2-3 year strategic plan.
15 min -- Benchmarking Brainstorm -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Action item coming out of the 11/4 FORUM Large Group Meeting: Brainstorm ideas for benchmarking topics. These should be questions we would like to ask of FORUM colleagues to understand their institutions' policies, strategies, structure, etc. for benchmarking purposes. Ideas will be added to the Forum Benchmarking post, or emailed to Michele Miller by 1/8/21. (More info on the Forum Benchmarking post).
Viv: How are our institutions working to enhance DEI?
Rachel: Yes, two areas--what people are doing in HR-type internal space to improve their orgs? What are people doing in prospect development/research work?
Heather McPhail: Employment data
5 min -- Data/Resource Sharing Reminder -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Consider contributing further to the data/resource sharing discussion and/or volunteering to serve as data/resource sharing platform facilitator.
-Sharing resources as-is vs. a shared data set that FORUM members update and maintain
-For example, U of M's Mega gifts of $20M+. What would that look like to maintain that as a group resource? Would each institution take on one of the resources?
-Janet: How are you using that list?
-Rachel: Our community is interested. As we move more towards fundraising for specific objectives rather than based on affinity, they want to know where big gifts are coming in, for what, and from whom? Goes out weekly in form of a newsletter to Development community. Do a year-end analysis for trends in mega gifts.
-Heather: Use it for questions around namings, or benchmarking on other questions, i.e. "how much are people giving to Engineering?"
-Viv: Logistics of sharing it internally at our orgs but accessible to FORUM group? (to prevent duplicative work of updating the resource in two places)
-Heather: Agreed, challenge of keeping it updated on their schedule.
5 min -- Wrap-up -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
-March 9 meeting: Innovation and best practices. Jessica, Betsy and Sarah are leads.
-Happy new year and wishing you a restful holiday!
Goals:
· Learn how peers are leveraging free prospect research resources, and perhaps identify new resources to use in our own work.
· Improve practices to enhance DEI.
· Identify benchmarking topic recommendations.
· Awareness of data/resource sharing opportunities.
Meeting Leads: Sara Elsasser, Betsy Schmidt-Gullet, and Jessica Szadziewicz
Notes: Viv Chappell
Action Item Summary:
· FORUM Research Speciality Group members: Please fill out this survey if you haven't yet. The survey requests your input to inform the June FORUM Research Specialty Group meeting discussion around KPIs in Prospect Research. We want to be sure we are covering the topics of interest to everyone.
Ice breaker
If you didn't have to work/have a day job, what would you do?
Topic: Innovation/Best Practices Related to Principal Gifts Research
-Optional pre-meeting podcast. Ben Porter, Associate Dean of Alumni Relations and Development at Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, developed the principal gifts checklist concept and discusses it on this podcast.
-Sara presented slides and group had a discussion around the principal gifts checklist, and what various institutions are doing to support principal gifts.
-Note: Due to copyright of the principal gifts checklist, Northwestern can't share the check list. A book on the subject is available here, and the podcast linked above unpacks the concepts and many key points.
-Sara Elsasser works with Ben Porter at Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management.
-Dan and Brock have experience working with him at Northwestern University.
-Sara: Ben happy to talk to us more as this group if desired. Today, he's talking with another university.
-John just started working with their principal gifts team to define pipeline for principal gifts. Wanted to group the constituency into 4 categories:
-Active. Ongoing gift discussion.
-Developing. Capacity, inclination, interest but need cultivation.
-Watch. Capacity, some affiliation. Younger/cold relationship.
-Aspirational. No history of connection, but hope to interact with in future.
-Brock: context for check list from working with Ben:
-Some subjectivity (i.e. "What's deep engagement"?). End-user is Development officer that knows the prospect.
-If you wanted to apply a score at scale to people in database, then we'd have to define some categories further.
-Another commenter: Originally thought about principal gift model--but advised it wasn't possible because principal gift population is so small, it wouldn't be statistically significant.
-Sara E.:
-Have used it for a model, but took slightly different approach.
-Applying the check list at Kellogg:
-Major gifts model (research priority, distribution of new leads). A lot of major gifts model takes components of the check list.
-Pipeline management (action planning)
-Betsy: When someone fills it out, what do you do with it? Tried implementing this, but sometimes how DoD completes it doesn't match Research perspective. Is it stored somewhere?
-Sara E.: Use it for prospect strategy review. Fill out in advance of those sessions. Talk through any misalignment.
-Dan: DoD Will start ID'ing potential prospects due to the University relationship criteria--but then they come to the research team to confirm capacity.
-Brock: Bottleneck at principal gift level. Brock IDs people with principal gift potential, and then next step is a meeting with a high-level leader. But VP of development/president doesn't want to meet with people until they are a principal gift-level prospect. How are others dealing with this?
-Sara: For her Dean, she loves to meet people. Prior admin. wanted to meet the prospect when they were ready to make ask--that's a problem when you want a high-level leader involved earlier in cultivation.
-Heather:
-Spent 3 years ID'ing ultra-high net worth people. Working to exclude people in there to build confidence in leads.
-Discovery hasn't been org's biggest strength.
-Strategies:
-$30M+ in assets. Research went through 2,500 people and did wealth validation on all.
-Anyone who pops going forward, they validate.
-Went through list one by one to see if they are good prospects--got rid of people with no connection/giving, got rid of old parents that have no current connection. Excited to exclude people.
-Update their records--family connections, etc.
-Brock: Doing a version of that:
-Coming up on end of campaign, in some number of years will do another campaign. In spring cleaning mode.
-Sitting down officer by officer, lists of $1M+ that have been visited but are still unassigned. Asking why, and updating records accordingly.
-DQ'ing is a win.
-How are prospect strategy meetings set up?
-Rachel: Cat herder. We help figure out next steps on strategy. Fundraisers don't seem to get that piece of it.
-John: How do you handle the young entrepreneur? Example of a constituent at University of Toronto: He's a billionaire. No liquid assets, no foreseeable liquidity event on horizon. Laser-focused on growing business. What impact can a researcher make on cultivation strategy?
-Sara: Greater relations between alumni relations team and principal gifts team. Have an alumni relations prospect list. Try to make annual giving prospect, get them used to giving. Always on radar for alum relations team to engage through events, student/faculty-run opportunities, etc.
-Heather: Next gen prospects--brought this cohort together to meet president. Get them in door, treat with respect.
-Dan: Implemented "Future Prospect Rating" at Northwestern to track these. Created a founders pledge--entrepreneurs without current liquidity, make pledge of future earnings (IPO, future acquisitions)
-Viv in chat: We've recently implemented something like what Dan mentioned--a pledge for entrepreneurs.
-Jessica: Building a future-giver type view.
-Rachel: Diversity angle too. Thinking about other ways for people to give to university, like through their networks. Time, treasure, talent are all important.
-Viv: How many have a researcher 100% dedicated to principal gifts?
-3 of 8 total institutions responded affirmatively: The Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati, and University of Chicago.
-Sarah Luckey: Will be sending a survey link to the Research group today, for your input on the June FORUM Research Specialty Group meeting discussion around KPIs in Prospect Research. We want to be sure we are covering the topics of interest to everyone, so please take a few minutes to provide your answers.
The Research Specialty Discussion is scheduled for Tuesday, September 8, 2020 from 3:00-3:45 EST. Here is the agenda. To join us use this link https://www.google.com/url?q=https://umich.zoom.us/j/99707184765&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1596025987373000&usg=AOvVaw2a2RKEDOA-zrid1_Xw-GvW
Thank you for putting together the agenda, Rachel!
Hi All!
Our team was wondering if anyone had partnered with WealthQuotient in the past for prospecting: https://mywealthq.com/methodology/
Please feel free to respond to this comment or email me at lindsey.mucha@kellogg.northwestern.edu
Thanks in advance!
Lindsey
Hi Lindsey,
We haven't partnered with them. We had a call with a rep at WealthQuotient. Cool concept but felt like we could do something similar in-house for relationship mapping if needed using RelSci, etc.
@Viv Chappell Thanks for your note!
Hi, Lindsey. We partnered with WQ earlier this year in Michigan Medicine and are currently working through the first round of our "HUB" conversations. I'm happy to share our experiences, how we use them in complement to our other tools, and our planned next steps.
Upcoming Research Specialty meetings:
-December 8, 2020 at 3pm Eastern Time
-Topic: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)
-Lead: Rachel
-March 9, 2021 at 3pm Eastern Time
Topic: Innovation & Best Practices
-Leads: Jessica, Betsy, Sara
-June 8, 2021 at 3pm Eastern Time
-Topic: Advocacy & KPIs
-Leads: KPIs--Viv, Sarah, Rachel; Advocacy--Brock, Dan, Erin
Anyone know where to access Newspaper Archive for free? Or perhaps a similar online resource for viewing/searching print newspapers/publications?
Our team had previously accessed Newspaper Archive for free via an obscure source--the Boyd County Public Library in Kentucky (https://www.thebookplace.org/access-newspaper-archive/). It was a favorite resource for researching family history, employment, etc. It recently became unavailable, so wondering what else people are using. Thanks for any tips!
Do you have access to the University of Wisconsin's library and those databases? If they don't have Newspaper Archive you could try Factiva or one of the ProQuest news databases. I've heard of Newspaper Source too, but have never used it.
@jszadziewicz Thank you for the suggestions!
Feel free to join us for the upcoming Research Specialty Group Discussion!
It's scheduled for Tuesday, December 8, 2020, 2:00-3:00 p.m. Central Time. Zoom link and agenda below.
Zoom link: https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/91948229623?pwd=UkpuNUVCSkYySnZXbEVCMFk5eVR3UT09&from=msft
FORUM Research Specialty Group
12/8/20 Agenda
Meeting Lead -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Notes -- Viv Chappell
10 min -- Icebreaker -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
What's an underrated, free resource relevant to prospect research? In 2-3 sentences, tell us the name of the resource and how you use it. Brownie points for dropping a link in the chat!
25 min -- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Presentation and Q & A -- Kelli North
Kelli leads all of University of Michigan's DEI work as it relates to prospect development, and will share insights and best practices applicable to our work.
15 min -- Benchmarking Brainstorm -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Action item coming out of the 11/4 FORUM Large Group Meeting: brainstorm ideas for benchmarking topics. These should be questions we would like to ask of FORUM colleagues to understand their institutions' policies, strategies, structure, etc. for benchmarking purposes. Ideas will be added to the Forum Benchmarking post, or emailed to Michele Miller by 1/8/21. (More info on the Forum Benchmarking post).
5 min -- Data/Resource Sharing -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Consider contributing further to the data/resource sharing discussion and/or volunteering to serve as data/resource sharing platform facilitator.
5 min -- Wrap-up -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Goals:
· Learn how peers are leveraging free prospect research resources, and perhaps identify new resources to use in our own work.
· Improve practices to enhance DEI.
· Identify benchmarking topic recommendations.
· Awareness of data/resource sharing opportunities.
FORUM Research Specialty Group
12/8/20 Meeting Notes
Meeting Lead -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Notes -- Viv Chappell
10 min -- Icebreaker -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
What's an underrated, free resource relevant to prospect research? In 2-3 sentences, tell us the name of the resource and how you use it. Brownie points for dropping a link in the chat!
· Dan Zarlenga: Research Bookmarks they keep updated. https://sites.northwestern.edu/ardresearchbookmarks/
· Jessica: SECDatabase (not free), like Intelligize but cheaper ($150 per user). Feature where you can type up insiders name and pulls in Form 4s. https://www.secdatabase.com/default.aspx
· Janet Weimar: BatchGeo.com. Easy free mapping. Drop in Excel spreadsheet (city, state). Info goes public so be careful what you put in. Sarah Luckey agrees.
· Viv Chappell: https://opencorporates.com/ OpenCorporates -- They claim to be the largest open database of companies in the world, and pull in basic company data from primary public sources -- info like incorporation date, directors and officers, agent address, Patent and Trademark information, and the source material links. You can search by company or officer name. Good for helping learn more about a person's businesses.
25 min -- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Presentation and Q & A -- Kelli North
Kelli leads all of University of Michigan's DEI work as it relates to prospect development, and shared insights and best practices applicable to our work.
· Has become her specialty. Degree in social work. Interest in social justice and equity.
· What do we mean by DEI?
o Distinction between prospecting for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives vs. diversifying our prospecting. False assumption that people of color want to give to DEI initiatives.
o Diversity of diversity. Not just race and ethnicity.
o Theoretical vs. practical. Think about how to be action-oriented.
o "30%" problem. U of Michigan has race/ethnicity data for 30% of database only. Don't have some of the data points we want.
· U of M
o Structure is decentralized.
o DEI Strategic plan is public on website.
· U of M current projects:
o Identity & Affinity Data Acquisition and Usage Policy
· Apra may be embarking on one of their own
· U of M has been at this for about 1.5 years. Challenges:
§ Questionable requests, i.e. list of wealthy people of particular race in particular geographic location.
§ Shared a story about unintended consequence of using identity data: LGBTQ advocacy center had contacted a donor because she was linked to a same sex spouse--but she was not publicly out. Donor very upset. If you see a data point in system, what's an ethical way to use it? We don't want to tokenize.
· Formed committee with members from services teams. In communication with fundraisers and leadership to ensure it would fit within cadence of everyone's work, awareness of intent (not intended to be limiting, penalizing; it's about showing our best intentions).
· Policy:
§ Only put identity items in database that are self-reported. Surveys, communications, etc.
§ Keep track of where the identity info came from--source must be provided. If it came from a vendor, we need to know where THEY got it from. If they can't say the source, don't use it.
§ If there's an identity-based request, must need to know the strategic reasons. Can't just be based on identity.
§ Leadership and office of general counsel buy-in up front.
§ Next steps: Grant project will be pilot of policy. Structural Racism Grant. Received from the Office of DEI. Hard assets are rife with bias, generational wealth not as present in some hard assets, like real estate due to redlining for example.
· Looking for other data points to round out the picture; going to vendors with concerns and asking what they're doing to mitigate bias, if there are other data points they can provide. Will provide a test population to screen with the new data points.
· Timeline: Feb 2021
o Diversifying portfolios/Fundraising for DEI
· Other data points of interest:
§ Student involvement data
§ Board memberships
§ Professional associations/chambers of commerce
§ Networks of people we already know
§ External giving
o DEI & Campaigns
o Grant to look at alternate wealth screening methods to get rid of bias
o Diversifying portfolios
o Fundraising for DEI
o DEI & Campaigns (ended campaign but may gear up for another)
o Development Professionals of Color. Strategic goals.
· Meet and greets with donors of color, feedback on their interest, how to improve
· Subcommittees
· Lessons learned
o Subject can make people uncomfortable
o Many people still in planning stages of DEI efforts
o Ground your work in practicality.
· Context/action better than theory/lecture
o Education as advocacy
· Race Forward training (expensive but helpful racial equity training to build knowledge base of staff)
· Language and terms guide related to identity/affinity, current event-related terms
· History of your institution. Curated list of things that happened at university that could have impacted student experience. Example, senior society that's prestigious, but has history of using Native American artifacts in ceremonies and giving members names.
o Participation and buy-in
· Get fundraisers and staff involved early so that they feel ownership of the process.
· Give people space.
o Kelli contact info: northkm@umich.edu
· Loves talking to other people about this so feel free to reach out.
o Q&A:
· Dan Zarlenga: Screening. Other data points?
§ Kelli: Has been disappointing so far talking to vendors. Lots of "we're working on it, but not ready yet." Most useful: Windfall data points (do they give externally, yes/no; do they have a trust, yes/no). External giving/board membership (philanthropic involvement).
· Can you share the Language & Terms Guide?
· Kelli: Yes
· Viv: More info on guidelines/how you have conversations with requestors in response to requests asking you to use identity data?
§ If they want to request a specific identity category like race, sexual orientation, etc., should have clear business purpose. No fishing to add a person to our board (tokenize). Inquire why do they need that particular piece of info…wants the back and forth between researcher and requestor. Don't want it to be shallow/tokenizing. Must have a business purpose.
§ It is Development-wide standard for decision-making. So applies to reporting, research, etc.
· LaTonya Foster: Can you share more about the Development Professionals of Color? Anchored in existing goals of org, or new areas of interest on their own, and if so who do they work with? A bit of both happening at OSU.
§ Kelli: Both. At first, there were disparate groups working on facets of plan. Silos. DEI director within Development took initiative to organize the DPOC Committee group. Advocacy, education and community pillars handled by subcommittee, but overall group has 2-3 year strategic plan.
15 min -- Benchmarking Brainstorm -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Action item coming out of the 11/4 FORUM Large Group Meeting: Brainstorm ideas for benchmarking topics. These should be questions we would like to ask of FORUM colleagues to understand their institutions' policies, strategies, structure, etc. for benchmarking purposes. Ideas will be added to the Forum Benchmarking post, or emailed to Michele Miller by 1/8/21. (More info on the Forum Benchmarking post).
Viv: How are our institutions working to enhance DEI?
Rachel: Yes, two areas--what people are doing in HR-type internal space to improve their orgs? What are people doing in prospect development/research work?
Heather McPhail: Employment data
5 min -- Data/Resource Sharing Reminder -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
Consider contributing further to the data/resource sharing discussion and/or volunteering to serve as data/resource sharing platform facilitator.
-Sharing resources as-is vs. a shared data set that FORUM members update and maintain
-For example, U of M's Mega gifts of $20M+. What would that look like to maintain that as a group resource? Would each institution take on one of the resources?
-Janet: How are you using that list?
-Rachel: Our community is interested. As we move more towards fundraising for specific objectives rather than based on affinity, they want to know where big gifts are coming in, for what, and from whom? Goes out weekly in form of a newsletter to Development community. Do a year-end analysis for trends in mega gifts.
-Heather: Use it for questions around namings, or benchmarking on other questions, i.e. "how much are people giving to Engineering?"
-Viv: Logistics of sharing it internally at our orgs but accessible to FORUM group? (to prevent duplicative work of updating the resource in two places)
-Heather: Agreed, challenge of keeping it updated on their schedule.
5 min -- Wrap-up -- Rachel Brandell-Mayers
-March 9 meeting: Innovation and best practices. Jessica, Betsy and Sarah are leads.
-Happy new year and wishing you a restful holiday!
Goals:
· Learn how peers are leveraging free prospect research resources, and perhaps identify new resources to use in our own work.
· Improve practices to enhance DEI.
· Identify benchmarking topic recommendations.
· Awareness of data/resource sharing opportunities.
3/9/21 FORUM Research Specialty Group Meeting
Meeting Leads: Sara Elsasser, Betsy Schmidt-Gullet, and Jessica Szadziewicz
Notes: Viv Chappell
Action Item Summary:
· FORUM Research Speciality Group members: Please fill out this survey if you haven't yet. The survey requests your input to inform the June FORUM Research Specialty Group meeting discussion around KPIs in Prospect Research. We want to be sure we are covering the topics of interest to everyone.
Ice breaker
If you didn't have to work/have a day job, what would you do?
Topic: Innovation/Best Practices Related to Principal Gifts Research
-Optional pre-meeting podcast. Ben Porter, Associate Dean of Alumni Relations and Development at Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, developed the principal gifts checklist concept and discusses it on this podcast.
-Sara presented slides and group had a discussion around the principal gifts checklist, and what various institutions are doing to support principal gifts.
-Note: Due to copyright of the principal gifts checklist, Northwestern can't share the check list. A book on the subject is available here, and the podcast linked above unpacks the concepts and many key points.
-Sara Elsasser works with Ben Porter at Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management.
-Dan and Brock have experience working with him at Northwestern University.
-Sara: Ben happy to talk to us more as this group if desired. Today, he's talking with another university.
-John just started working with their principal gifts team to define pipeline for principal gifts. Wanted to group the constituency into 4 categories:
-Active. Ongoing gift discussion.
-Developing. Capacity, inclination, interest but need cultivation.
-Watch. Capacity, some affiliation. Younger/cold relationship.
-Aspirational. No history of connection, but hope to interact with in future.
-Brock: context for check list from working with Ben:
-Some subjectivity (i.e. "What's deep engagement"?). End-user is Development officer that knows the prospect.
-If you wanted to apply a score at scale to people in database, then we'd have to define some categories further.
-Another commenter: Originally thought about principal gift model--but advised it wasn't possible because principal gift population is so small, it wouldn't be statistically significant.
-Sara E.:
-Have used it for a model, but took slightly different approach.
-Applying the check list at Kellogg:
-Major gifts model (research priority, distribution of new leads). A lot of major gifts model takes components of the check list.
-Pipeline management (action planning)
-Betsy: When someone fills it out, what do you do with it? Tried implementing this, but sometimes how DoD completes it doesn't match Research perspective. Is it stored somewhere?
-Sara E.: Use it for prospect strategy review. Fill out in advance of those sessions. Talk through any misalignment.
-Dan: DoD Will start ID'ing potential prospects due to the University relationship criteria--but then they come to the research team to confirm capacity.
-Brock: Bottleneck at principal gift level. Brock IDs people with principal gift potential, and then next step is a meeting with a high-level leader. But VP of development/president doesn't want to meet with people until they are a principal gift-level prospect. How are others dealing with this?
-Sara: For her Dean, she loves to meet people. Prior admin. wanted to meet the prospect when they were ready to make ask--that's a problem when you want a high-level leader involved earlier in cultivation.
-Heather:
-Spent 3 years ID'ing ultra-high net worth people. Working to exclude people in there to build confidence in leads.
-Discovery hasn't been org's biggest strength.
-Strategies:
-$30M+ in assets. Research went through 2,500 people and did wealth validation on all.
-Anyone who pops going forward, they validate.
-Went through list one by one to see if they are good prospects--got rid of people with no connection/giving, got rid of old parents that have no current connection. Excited to exclude people.
-Update their records--family connections, etc.
-Brock: Doing a version of that:
-Coming up on end of campaign, in some number of years will do another campaign. In spring cleaning mode.
-Sitting down officer by officer, lists of $1M+ that have been visited but are still unassigned. Asking why, and updating records accordingly.
-DQ'ing is a win.
-How are prospect strategy meetings set up?
-Rachel: Cat herder. We help figure out next steps on strategy. Fundraisers don't seem to get that piece of it.
-John: How do you handle the young entrepreneur? Example of a constituent at University of Toronto: He's a billionaire. No liquid assets, no foreseeable liquidity event on horizon. Laser-focused on growing business. What impact can a researcher make on cultivation strategy?
-Sara: Greater relations between alumni relations team and principal gifts team. Have an alumni relations prospect list. Try to make annual giving prospect, get them used to giving. Always on radar for alum relations team to engage through events, student/faculty-run opportunities, etc.
-Heather: Next gen prospects--brought this cohort together to meet president. Get them in door, treat with respect.
-Dan: Implemented "Future Prospect Rating" at Northwestern to track these. Created a founders pledge--entrepreneurs without current liquidity, make pledge of future earnings (IPO, future acquisitions)
-Viv in chat: We've recently implemented something like what Dan mentioned--a pledge for entrepreneurs.
-Jessica: Building a future-giver type view.
-Rachel: Diversity angle too. Thinking about other ways for people to give to university, like through their networks. Time, treasure, talent are all important.
-Viv: How many have a researcher 100% dedicated to principal gifts?
-3 of 8 total institutions responded affirmatively: The Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati, and University of Chicago.
-Sarah Luckey: Will be sending a survey link to the Research group today, for your input on the June FORUM Research Specialty Group meeting discussion around KPIs in Prospect Research. We want to be sure we are covering the topics of interest to everyone, so please take a few minutes to provide your answers.
-Survey link here.