My grandfather passed away a few months ago, and I am still moved and impressed by the letter my grandmother received from his alma mater as the family was leaving the house for the memorial service. My grandfather was a legacy alumnus to the school – I in fact carried the family mantel for my [...]

Are you missing out on opportunities because you aren’t looking at the bigger picture?  My alma mater has a lot of information about me in their database.  They have my current address, my age, my interests (like that class I took in underwater basket weaving).  They also have quite a bit of unusual information about [...]

There are many reasons why Americans may use a post office box as their primary address.  They may live in a rural area that the post office does not serve.  They may be concerned about identity theft.  Or they may have a home business and prefer not to list their home address in publications. In [...]

How much time should you be devoting to prospect research for a single prospect?  I am frequently asked this question by researchers who have been given a list of urgent “Top Prospects” that is 200+ people long.  Where do you start and how deep should you go in researching each prospect? It is best to [...]

Having worked in several fundraising offices, I know there is always a plan to have someone come into the office to open the mail and process the online donations on December 31st to make sure those last minute dollars are deposited.  Sometimes that person was me. There has been quite a bit of financial reliance [...]

When I was a front-line fundraiser, I used to read the newspaper every morning and clip out pictures of board members, major donors and prospects to keep them in our manila files.  I never knew where I would be and would need to recognize this individual.  It helped with my memory, and certainly helped when we [...]

Occasionally when reviewing the wealth screening results of an organization, I find that there are assets posted that suggest the extreme wealth of a young person.  At these times, the development office may be discouraged once they discover that the assets are identified due to the primary address, last name and sometimes matching first name [...]