Apra Canada 2018 Conference Sessions

Prospect development professionals work hard for their organizations, for the success of their fundraising teams and for the profession itself. Despite this, prospect researchers face an ongoing struggle to demonstrate the value of their work. Using the Apra Advocacy Toolkit as a guide, this session will help you to “make your case” for the value you bring to your organization including management metrics and value added, impact reports, self-advocacy, advocating for your team and your profession, and setting the stage to being an effective and strategic leader in the fundraising world.

This presentation is designed to challenge prospect researchers to contemplate opportunities and areas for innovation in fundraising. Examples of harnessing data sets, data visualization, understanding donor behaviour, and asking challenging questions will be shared while linking these new ideas to the particular skillset that prospect researchers bring to their organizations.

Learn how to walk before you can run (into trouble) from veteran researcher John Hermans. This beginner’s boot camp will teach new researchers all the needed essentials to research foundations, corporations, and individuals with the resources to run an efficient shop. New researchers will learn how to work with their fundraising teams to determine time efficient reactive research methods and how they can work proactive research into their busy schedules. Working within single person to full team research shops will be discussed.

Prospect research has typically looked at external giving to determine a prospect’s inclination to give. Through external giving we can determine affinity, preferences in recognition, and preferred giving levels. However, is there more that could be learned from this section of the prospect research profile? By taking a closer look at external giving we could glean more about why people give and identify trends in giving to help inform prospect cultivation. In this workshop, we will look at different ways to analyze external giving to extract the most value from this information and discuss how external giving could be visualized...

This session will provide an overview of the key terms to know in connection with the transactions that raise capital in the Canadian market. This session will cover: Key participants: issuers, regulators, stock markets, underwriters and agents. Main types of securities: equity, debt and convertible instruments. Main types of securities offerings: private placements, bought deals, primary, secondary, fully marketed and best efforts offerings. Key terms in transactions: prospectus, offering memorandum, commission, discount and over-allotment option.

Prospect Researchers are asked to identify corporate prospects. Sometimes a partnership with a corporation poses a risk to the non-profit’s reputation and credibility. This presentation will go over the corporate screening tool used at Evergreen to assess the risks of partnering with a corporation.

While Executive Search/Recruitment Research and Prospect Research utilize vastly different techniques, there are several basic and overlapping principles, including: identifying the “Best and the Brightest”, understanding networks and how relationships developed, utilizing career history as indicators for predicting giving, creating a targeted strategy to maximize reach and efficiency, and maintaining a sense of urgency. This presentation shares perspectives and insight from those who have transitioned from the Recruitment to the Non-Profit sector.

This presentation will be a case study of the process and results of doing major gift prospect modeling for a $20 million social services organization. I will guide attendees through the logical and analytical steps I took in the process of generating major gift prospect data insights, and preparing the major gift model. In addition, the presentation will cover key client perspectives on the excitement and the challenges in this process. Most importantly, I will include preliminary results that show how much the insights and the model benefitted the organization in terms of return on their solicitation efforts.

Is your pipeline about to burst? Is it clogged with suspects waiting to be qualified? This presentation will take you on a journey demonstrating how Carleton’s research team collaborated with development officers to restructure our prospect pipeline to be more active and dynamic through a comprehensive pipeline review and subsequently to expedite prospect qualification through a pilot e-survey project. We will discuss the planning and execution of both projects, approaches taken to prioritize and optimize prospect portfolios, and changes made to prospect qualification process to increase efficiency and unclog portfolio buildup.

A panel of fundraisers discuss how research can support them in their day to day work, how researchers and fundraisers work together and what research can do to support fundraising. Panelists will answer questions from the audience on how to best work with prospect researchers to succeed in their fundraising endeavors. Panelists will also discuss successful relationships with researchers and what they are looking for from their research teams.

In this session gift planners from any size organization will learn to use big data in a way they haven’t before. Learn how you can better target your messaging to influence people within your NFP’s community or encourage them to leave a lasting legacy to a cause that is important to them. Whether through a direct mail appeal, cross fundraising approach or a face to face ask, data can help.

What does it mean when a prospect mentions that they’ve purchased a piece of art? This presentation will guide you through the basics of the global art market, what markets are hot right now, how pieces are priced, and how to determine a prospect’s capacity through their collections. Prospect Research in the Visual Arts differs greatly from other sectors. Gifts of art, exhibition support, and brand alignments are areas we consider. This presentation will also provide a unique view into what it’s like working as a Prospect Researcher in a major arts institution.

Workplace campaigns present a unique set of challenges to the prospect researcher. Given the diversity of workplace campaigns and the varying states of affairs of corporate partners it is hard to be efficient in picking the most effective revenue growth strategies. What criteria should be used to identify and evaluate workplace campaign prospects? What data can be employed as indicators for the successful recruitment of a corporate campaign with engaged employees? How can campaign performance data be used to benchmark against peers and set goals? How can the characteristics of current campaign donors inform the cultivation strategies for new prospects...

Prospects are complex individuals, and development officers are being asked to view them as such. Our role in prospect development is evolving to reflect these complexities, but how do we adjust or establish our metrics to account for these complexities? How intertwined should your shop’s metrics be with the success of frontline fundraisers? How often should goals be adjusted or modified? What do you need to begin tracking now to assess return on investment annually? In this session, Bond will walk through strategies for establishing metrics for prospect development that align with our need to provide value at every stage...

This presentation will give researchers an introduction to the field of data analytics. Key concepts, terminology and tools & techniques will be discussed. Additionally, participants will acquire some new skills, which they can apply in their own shops.

The University of Alberta Prospect Research team is responsible for building and assigning portfolios of prospects for all of the frontline fundraisers in the Office of Advancement. The initial approach to portfolio development, which began almost 10 years ago, focused largely on financial capacity and has resulted in a significant number of identified but unassigned prospects. This approach was expanded in 2014 to include a rating code for Corporate and Foundation prospects, which incorporated a blend of affinity and gift capacity. This presentation will provide an overview of our current approach to redefining our prospect pool and portfolio recommendations using...

The slides from Jennifer's presentation can be found here.

The slides from Jennifer's keynote can be found here.

At Sunnybrook Foundation, the role of Researcher has evolved beyond the traditional profile to help proactively lead Advancement action and strengthen prospect relationships. From small to large shops, Researchers need to see themselves as strategic partners and an extended member of the Advancement team. In this presentation, Lauren and Sandra will discuss their day-to-day partnership, the importance of going beyond just bringing profiles to the table, and how to drive action and be a strategic ally.

International prospect research is a growing area of interest for many North American non-profit organizations. Having been a prospect researcher at two West coast post-secondary institutions with large numbers of alumni and friends across the Pacific, I often compile profiles and assess major giving capacity for constituents in East Asia. In this presentation, I will offer some contextual language and cultural information to facilitate prospect research into constituents in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, as well as Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asian countries. I will also share a large categorized list of online resources with which to conduct the research.

Over the years discussions about technology have become more prevalent in prospect research circles. Are we doing enough with analytics? Should we be learning programming languages? Are there tools we aren’t utilizing? At this point there seem to be more questions than answers. In this session, a panel of technology experts from outside of prospect research will give brief lightning talks about relevant projects and then answer any technology questions. A range of subject matter expertise will be present, including data science, master data management and more. This session will be moderated by Meghana Jakate.

Faced with a large spreadsheet of planned giving prospects, how do you refine those names down to the best individual prospects? Although planned giving prospects tend to ‘fly under the radar’ in many respects, they share some common behaviours and characteristics that can help to reveal their planned giving propensity. Using a model created at the University of Toronto, we will discuss profiles of the best gift planning prospects as well as various prospecting and research projects that participants can tailor to their specific not-for-profits.

At Western University, the Prospect Management & Research team provides research that identifies potential controversies and issues on specific individuals and organizations that are in solicitations. These requests typically come from the VP, Donor Relations (in regards to potential University naming opportunities) and the Secretariat’s Office (in regards to University awards, honors, and potential volunteer recruitments). This presentation will provide an overview of this process, including the history and context, and the methods and sources the Research team uses in completing these requests.