Your presence on the internet is your 24/7 doorstep.  If you browse the web looking at your favorite causes’ websites, you may be impressed by the constantly refreshing photos, the pleasing graphics or the 50 sidebar menu items.  However, consider these three tips. 1.       Keep in mind our friends who are colorblind More than 8% [...]

One of the main questions I am always being asked is how many prospects should a major gift officer have in their portfolio?  My initial answer is that it depends on the gift officer and what does the portfolio look like. I remember having two gift officers with very different size portfolios – one with [...]

When I was a major gifts officer, I was given goals so that my vice president could measure multiple levels of my effectiveness.  One measure of course was dollars raised, but other metrics were number of face-to-face visits with individual prospects, number of proposals submitted, number of prospects moved from one category to another (from [...]

A few years ago, USNews.com called the prospect research, “the best-kept-secret” – one of nonprofit’s “hidden heroes.”   Well, I didn’t need a national news source to tell me that!   I first happened upon prospect research as a way to better identify and understand organizational prospects around 1997 or so.  While directing the planned and major [...]

Note from ProspectResearch.com: Katherine Swank’s below post was featured on Phyllis Freedman’s The Planned Giving Blogger. We invite you to visit her blog for best practices and ideas on planned giving and prospect research. Either as parents or children, most of us are familiar with the story of Goldilocks who ventures into the woods and [...]

Note from ProspectResearch.com: Cecilia Hogan has been leading the prospect research effort at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington for more than 15 years. She served on the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA) International board of directors from 1999-2002 and is a former president of APRA-NW. Cecilia is the author of Prospect [...]

In working with some of my clients over the past year, I have to reflect on how important a culture of cooperation is to meaningful and productive implementation of any fundraising program or specific endeavor.  I think our most successful clients have thoughtful and clear processes outlined, coupled with open lines of communication between various [...]

As many of you may know I am the president of APRA.  For those of you who are not familiar with APRA, it stands for the Association for Professional Researchers for Advancement.  I am not only honored to be in this position but I am fortunate to be the president during the 25th anniversary celebration.  [...]

Note from ProspectResearch.com: Roy Jones has more than 30 years of marketing, fundraising and development experience. In addition to consulting and advising some of the nation’s top human services charities, Jones serves on several not-for-profit boards including the Ronald Reagan Institute, Recovery for the City, and the Economic Development Council. We invite you to check [...]

I was honored and excited to be part of Ron Lieber’s New York Times column, Taking Fund-Raising To a New Level. Some of you might now be wondering why, since it did raise some questions about the scope of my passion in support of my vocations – professional fundraising and prospect research. The simple reason [...]