Grateful patient article in the Columbus Dispatch

In the face of declining research funding, some local hospitals are turning to their doctors to be more valuable fundraising allies when well-heeled patients want to donate. Over the past 14 months, Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center has trained about 120 physicians on how to respond appropriately when a patient broaches the topic of charitable giving.  

http://shar.es/11KjB9

Planned Gift Makes Sports Pages

Guy leaves $100,000 to basketball program, gets news story. If the school had known, he could have been stewarded while he was still living!

http://www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/story/providential-gift-why-an-everyman-left-100-000-to-friars-basketball-072414

Job Announcement -- Director of Research and Prospect Relations, University of Pittsburgh and UPMC

Position Information

Date Posted 07/11/2014

Working Title Director of Research and Prospect Relations

Job Classification Administrator IV

Department Name 01097-Medical and Health Sciences Foundation

Job Type Staff

Position Number 0128228

Hiring Range $44,928.00 - $73,632.00

Position Description The Medical and Health Sciences Foundation (MHSF) is the fundraising entity responsible for the joint philanthropic ventures of UPMC and University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences. The Director of Prospect Relations will lead and manage the prospect moves and research functions for the Medical and Health Sciences Foundation, supervising staff and working closely with development officers and leadership as a partner in achieving fundraising goals.

The Director of Prospect Relations will design systems to identify new major donor prospects; set standards for information organization, storage, maintenance and retrieval; and ensure timely delivery of vital prospect data. This position will oversee moves management, donor/prospect rating and screening, and research. Develop and oversee budget, and policies and procedures for the department. Evaluate research tools and emerging technologies and coordinate vendor relations. Ensure adherence to professional standards and ethics of prospect research and HIPAA guidelines.

Education Required Baccalaureate

Overall Related Experience Level Required 6-9 years experience

Additional Education and/or Experience Essential to the Position Bachelor’s degree in library science, business, writing, liberal arts or related field.

Required Licenses/Certifications

Assignment Category Regular, Full-Time

Percent Effort 100

Scheduled Work Hours 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

If Varied Work Schedule, Please Specify

If Part Time, Actual Standard Weekly Hours

Campus Pittsburgh

University Benefits The University offers an excellent comprehensive benefits package for all full-time and part-time regular employees including:

• Education benefits and a retirement plan with employer match

• Group medical insurance, life insurance, and optional vision and dental insurance

• Free transit service within Allegheny County for employees of the Oakland campus (Port Authority Transit)

• Time off benefits including vacation, sick and personal time

For more information regarding the University’s benefits package, please visit www.hr.pitt.edu/benefits

Interested candidates should submit online applications, including cover letter and resume, via PittSource (https://www.pittsource.com/postings/search) for the position of Director of Prospect Relations; Department: 01097-Medical and Health Sciences Foundation; Position Number 0128228.  (The working title for this position is Director, Research and Prospect Management).

Resource: International Wealth Lists Site

From the wonderful folks at the Helen Brown Group comes a very helpful resource with links to wealth lists worldwide.  This resource can be helpful when prospecting, looking for links to the top philanthropists, and more.

 

http://www.helenbrowngroup.com/resources-2/wealth-lists/

APRA MidSouth members at 2014 APRA International Conference

For APRA MidSouth folks or any APRA International members that live in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama or Mississippi, please add a comment below if you are going to the 2014 conference in Las Vegas. Perhaps this will help MidSouthers connect and meet each other.  Thanks!

Does the Refresh App Hold Promise for Prospect Research?

Finding new potential donors is a large part of what we do as prospect researchers, but we are also called to prepare leadership for meetings with prospects. I just read an article about a new app, called Refresh, might just help in this regard. Basically, the app finds what it can through social media and then provides a bit of context for it. For example, it might present the schedule for the Baltimore Orioles if your prospect is a fan. While the concept is new and the risk for incorrect or irrelevant connections is high, I can only imagine the promise of this technology in the future. Do you think it has a place in prospect research?

Full Disclosure of Political Giving

Even though I’m no lawyer (I don’t even play one on TV), I wanted to delve into yesterday’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. Personal politics aside (don’t get me started…), I think the decision, at least to my somewhat simplistic understanding of it, might be a net positive for prospect research. I’m not so sure it’s a great thing for democracy, but I’m looking for a silver lining here.  

According to an opinion piece by Stanford law professor Nathaniel Persily in today’s New York Times (sorry if this is behind a pay wall), the Supreme Court’s ruling “struck down as a violation of the First Amendment the aggregate limit of $123,200 that an individual could divide up among candidates and parties.” Persily’s thinking seems to be that if you set aside whether giving that much money is good or not, at the very least it will now be disclosed. He puts it much more elegantly:  “Any court decision tackling [the problem of undisclosed gifts] (even unintentionally) should be welcomed, if it levels the playing field between those who exercise power openly and must face the voters and those who can never be held accountable.”  My take is that people who might give large gifts secretly to Super PACS thanks to the Citizen’s United case might now give large gifts directly to candidates  and be required to disclose those gifts. Because of legal limits, publicly available political giving has always seemed to skew on the low side, making it difficult to estimate the donor’s wealth. The folks at DonorSearch have found that political giving, especially in the $10,000-$15,000 range, correlates well with the capacity to make very large gifts. It will be interesting to see how the disclosure will work and if it will give prospect researchers a more accurate gauge of donor wealth. Please chime in if you have insights to share.

Mitch Roberson, President, APRA MidSouth

president@apramidsouth.org

Using Pinterest for Prospect Research

A colleague sent me this article about using Pinterest for research.  It was written from a marketing perspective, but I wonder if there are applications to prospect research.  Please chime in if you use Pinterest in your development work.

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/blog/2014/03/why-you-should-be-a-savvy-researcher-in-pinterest.html?ana=e_nsh_rdup&s=newsletter&ed=2014-03-20

SEC Filings for Humans

One of my awesome colleagues found a very cool site to look up SEC filings. It’s called Rank and Filed. Scroll down on the first page and it talks about how they gather data from EDGAR, index it and return it to the user in a format to help investors research, investigate and discover companies.  It’s super easy to navigate and search.  The really handy and easy to use part is under Data Export.  You can look up Investment Advisors and it tells you how much in assets they have under management.  Check it out at Rankandfiled.com.

Review of Prospect Research for Fundraisers

I recently had the pleasure of reading Jennifer J. Filla and Helen E. Brown’s book, Prospect Research for Fundraisers – The Essential Handbook (Wiley, 2013).  The authors, each renowned consultants, lean on their considerable experience to provide clear philosophy and how-to’s for this evolving field.  A passage midway through captures the book’s essence:

In the past, prospect research was known almost exclusively for simply gathering data.  This was in the form of printing reports from the database or compiling information on prospects.  Prospect research pushed information out in the development arena.  Like gift entry and other advancement services, a prospect researcher would not always have had regular interaction with the frontline fundraising staff.  The information was often collected in the same way:  without too much consideration for changing needs.  Today, the prospect researcher has evolved into the position of development partner.  Inundated with information, the development department relies upon prospect research to provide strategic information and work in partnership with frontline fundraisers to provide real-time data.  More than in the past, prospect researchers are recognized as fundraisers too, understanding development principles and directing front-line staff to exactly the information they need.  Prospect research also creates and maintains donor relationship management systems and introduces and assimilates new technologies to provide an organization with competitive advantages (page 124).

Filla and Brown have a steady vision for the work of prospect research that they hold high on each page.  They take us to insights on every facet of the work – from understanding the different levels of research needed, and when, to the ‘hows’ of creating a donor relationship management system.  In the International prospect research chapter, they give exceptional strategy and thought using lessons from work with Habitat for Humanity.  The final chapter reviews trends and suggests the future landscape of prospect research.  This chapter is worth acquiring the book alone as the authors delve into content curation and look at cutting edge resources beneficial to researchers.  They address social media and how data visualization is a powerful resource.

I commend acquiring Prospect Research for Fundraisers to any development operation!  These ladies have assembled a crisp, ever-relevant handbook of ideas.  It is surely useful to the one-person development professional as much as a large research shop – such as the staff of fifteen researchers I help to lead at Vanderbilt University.  The book even includes seven appendices including resources for codes of ethics, researcher skill sets, and relationship management concerns.   

Geoff Little, Secretary/Treasurer, APRA MidSouth

secretary@apramidsouth.org