Web searching can be a lot like hiking. Sometimes it’s a pristine path along the coast with stunning views over the channel, other times it’s a bracken-laden jungle where you can’t even see your feet. I’ve been on both kinds of paths, and I much prefer the former. [Read more…]
I admit that sometimes I cringe a little bit when I watch [some] other people search.
Not all people, mind you. Not professional (and natural-born) researchers. I actually love seeing how they search differently than me – the terms they use and how they use search engines and deep-web sources. I always learn something. It’s fun to share techniques and watch them get from point A to point B efficiently. [Read more…]
I went back to the place where I got my first job in fundraising last weekend. Luckily for me, it was also my alma mater.
My college degree was in English Literature and I just loved researching and writing papers. But after I graduated from Carolina I took a job with a catering company that provided low-cal meals for a clinical diet and fitness center. (To this day, I can remember how many calories are in a third of a cup of corn…half an apple…a piece of pita…)
At 22, I was still trying to work out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and since I’d been a waitress and sous-chef to help pay for college, catering worked while I figured things out. [Read more…]
When I was a kid, we went to the Bloomsburg Fair every year, rain or shine. The Fair has been a magical place for generations of kids (no matter their age) and a place of hope as well. It’s been held in late September since 1855, and hundreds of thousands of people come every year for miles around, making it the biggest fair in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
It’s an agricultural/exhibit fair, and my mom tells me that during the Great Depression, many folks relied (some fairly desperately) on winning cash prizes for things they grew, bottled, jarred, knitted, sewed and showed at the Fair. Slightly more recently, the Bloomsburg Fair was the place where Taylor Swift made her concert debut. So I suppose it’s always been a place where dreams (and money) are made.
Every year as we [Read more…]
Keeping track of one or two major gift prospects isn’t too difficult, but when there are scores of donors you need a system to make sure that no one gets forgotten.
Imagine your horror to discover that a loyal donor [Read more…]
In fundraising when we are trying to measure how close a prospective donor feels to our organization or cause we call it their inclination to give (or to be involved as a volunteer). Sometimes it’s also described as a prospective donor’s affinity or interest.
Over the weekend I realized that I had just launched right into this series on ratings assuming that they are a given in every fundraising office. That everyone is already clear on the types of ratings that are out there and how they are used in a relationship management system for fundraising.
In my early days as a prospect researcher, I used to be a “Just the facts, ma’am” kind of researcher and report writer. A “here’s what I can see. I have no idea what the rest looks like so I can’t even guess for you” kind of gal. I was so afraid to be wrong.
Except I already was wrong.
We’ve been dead wrong in our calculations of gift potential for major donors.
We don’t have the right information. And we’re using what we do have the wrong way.
Let me set the stage: normally when we’re calculating a major donor’s capacity to give we look at their total visible assets and calculate that they will give 5% of that over five years to charity. Where does that ratio come from? The IRS, the Chronicle of Philanthropy and Giving USA are the three big resources for philanthropic giving information in the US.
The 5% figure we’ve been using isn’t real
Over the weekend, a friend and fundraising consultant emailed me to ask: “Do you typically see prospects rated for a campaign at 5% of visible assets per year or 5% over 5 years?” I shot back, “Over 5.” He sent back a speedy “thanks!”
I had a quick image of him looking at the still snow-topped mountains over the screen of his laptop, working on a campaign plan for a client. I pulled on my oven mitts and eased a steaming pork pie out of the oven and started setting the table.
