Although the holiday season is a little way off (wait, no, Thanksgiving is only three weeks away!!) it’s never too early for those of you in academic institutions to start thinking about Early Decision/Early Admission students and the parents that come with them. In April, parent research kicks off in earnest in every academic prospect research department, and having a plan (and a budget) now will be something your future self will thank you for. This week’s article by my colleague, Mandi Matz, captures lots to think about – and prepare for – in your parent research. ~Helen
Mandi Matz
With the holidays on the horizon and many of us thinking about our families near and far, I thought it might be a nice time to talk about parents. Specifically ideas for researching them if you work at a school, college or university or other organization where parents are or could be donors.
I’ve spent several years of my career working at and with educational institutions where parents are a key, and often untapped – or certainly untapped to their full potential – constituency. Although researching parents can be overwhelming and time consuming, it also can be one of the most valuable projects you complete for your institution.
Here are some tips and tricks for researching parents that I’ve learned along the way. Obviously, many of them apply to prospect research in general. But if you’re responsible for researching parents at your organization, I hope they will be helpful to you specifically.
Wealth screening
The way you conduct your parent research will depend on the time and resources you have available. If you’re a solo researcher in a small shop, a wealth screening from an outside vendor may be the perfect solution as it can give you a quick way to determine the parents at the top of your pool. There is no lack of vendors to choose from – Kindsight, Donorspace, Donorsearch and ResearchPoint to name a few. While I’m not advocating for any of these products in particular, you may already have access to at least one of them, so use what’s at your disposal.
As a corollary, do your best to understand the screening product you’re using so that you can verify the results most effectively and efficiently, which is especially critical if you have limited time. Recently, we at HBG met with a representative from one of the products we use to have a refresher course on some of its features. Although I’ve used this product nearly every day of my professional life for years, it was eye opening to me how much I learned from the session. It was a good reminder that resources have features you may not be using, and they are always coming out with enhancements. If you don’t have time for a meeting with a product representative, many resources have online tutorials and trainings about their latest and greatest features. Fully understanding your screening tool can also help you understand the results and interpret them for your gift officers.
If you use an outside vendor to screen your parents and you don’t have a lot of – or any – time to verify the results, don’t worry. You’re giving your gift officers new prospects, which likely makes them happy, and anything you can provide is better than nothing. Your colleagues can always ask for more research later if they need it. In many cases, you just need to give them enough to get them started. Most vendors will provide a summary of the screening that may be fine to start with if you’re short on time. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
Before I worked with the Helen Brown Group, I managed the research department at a small liberal arts college. Our main project every year was to screen the parents of the incoming class, which we began in earnest in May and finished in July. I had one researcher dedicated to this project full time, and they did the research manually. In this scenario, we provided medium-depth research into the new parents’ education, career, real estate, giving to other organizations (especially educational institutions), affiliations and wealth indicators.
Planning, planning, planning
While this project made for a busy time for my team during the long, hot summer, one of the most important things I learned from it is the importance of planning. I recommend that to the extent you can, work with the stakeholders involved in the project – including your Admissions office, your vice president and your gift officers – to map out the project as much as you can before it begins.
Of course, your ability to do this will depend, again, on the time and resources you have available, as well as your organizational culture. But if you can take the initiative and plan ahead, it can make an overwhelming project a little less so. At the liberal arts college, I made a point to arrange a meeting with Admissions soon after the winter break to discuss the timelines for the project, when my team could anticipate getting data and what that data would look like. Those timelines didn’t always hold, but having an open line of communication and a general plan was always helpful.
After I met with Admissions, I arranged a meeting with my vice president, gift officers and our events department to discuss their timeline and expectations and how the results my team found would be used. The college hosted an annual parent dinner that coincided with new students moving in. Thus, the point of the project was to determine which parents should be invited to that event. Knowing from our events team when invitations needed to be mailed helped us determine our ultimate deadline.
But parent research need not revolve around an event. At your institution, the point of the project may be just to get parents assigned into portfolios so that your gift officers can begin trying to engage them. Either way, this information is important to know so you can adjust the project’s timelines and deliverables accordingly.
Researching – and advising – with strategy
Not every parent will be unknown to you as you may find some who have a second or even third child coming to your institution. In that case, don’t forget to look in your database, where you may find valuable information – including information that can help you provide context and, sometimes, a reality check – about certain parents.
For example, at the liberal arts college we had a father who was a member of a famous band. The band was long broken up, but this parent was still on the radar. With a second student coming to our institution, interest in him was renewed. In our research, we made sure to include that although he certainly was a top parent in terms of wealth and capacity, he was not someone we recommended spending time pursuing. He had never given, never responded to any outreach and never attended any events. Remember, your gift officers and other colleagues rely on you not just for information, but also for the analysis and expertise you can provide.
Finally, think about the big picture. Whether you screened your parents through a vendor or manually, did you notice any trends or patterns in the results?
- Are the families from particular states or geographic areas? If so – and your institution is such that your gift officers are assigned to certain regions – should that regional alignment be re-evaluated?
- Is there a commonality in the parents’ careers? If so, is there a further screening you can do based on occupations or companies where your parents work?
- Who are the parents whom, while they may not be major gift prospects, could be ideal for your annual fund?
- Based on the results of your screening, are there other segments of your constituency that you want to examine further? For one client I worked with at HBG, the result of their new parent screening led them to then do additional screenings of legacy families and grandparents. Those constituencies were later targeted with specific mailings that resulted in some new and nice gifts.
When I worked at the liberal arts college, the new parent project, although it was a lot of work for my team and me, was my favorite project of the year. I always thought of it as Christmas in July because at the end of the project, we were giving our gift officers the “gift” of new prospects. What could be better as prospect researchers? Let the holiday season begin!
