Advanced Research
101 Initial Private Offerings: The New Public Market for Private Companies
David Lawson, Vice President Market Strategy, Kintera Inc.
Wednesday, August 20
9:00am – 12:00pm
All of the new public company regulations — and their associated costs and scrutiny — are making it much less attractive to go public or even to stay public. With more successful companies staying private, the public equities market is beginning to serve their needs. For research, this means there will be unprecedented financial information available on private businesses. Come and learn what is available, how to obtain it and most importantly how to use it to evaluate your private company prospects.
102 Creating Customized Prospect Ratings to Maximize Fundraising Potential
Lisa Howley, Director of Prospect Management, John Hopkins Institutions
Wednesday, August 20
9:00am – 12:00pm
Become an integral player in increasing your organization’s fundraising efficiency and gift potential by harnessing the power of prospect ratings. This workshop will demonstrate how to create prospect ratings customized to your organization using a variety of current methodologies. Attendees will then learn how to best utilize prospect ratings in order to maximize prospect pool and campaign gift potential, partner with relationship managers on prospect portfolio prioritization and strategy and advance your role as a key player in your organization’s fundraising efforts.
111 Planning and Implementing a Successful Prospect Screening
Amanda Jarman, Development Research & Prospect Manager, Portland State University
Pamela Poland, Senior Associate, Bentz Whaley Flessner
Wednesday, August 20
1:30pm – 4:30pm
Although conducting a database screening requires careful planning, the ultimate success relies on a great implementation plan. How do you prevent the data from sitting on a shelf and prevent development staff from drowning in too much data? This session will cover initial planning for your screening, migrating data points to your constituent database, qualifying the results, disseminating prospect leads and evaluating your successes while avoiding common pitfalls. You will leave prepared to create an implementation plan unique to your development goals and culture.
112 Balancing Your Research Portfolio — Setting Prospect Identification Goals
Christina Pulawski, Principal, Christina Pulawski Consulting
Wednesday, August 20
1:30pm – 4:30pm
“You can never have too many prospects” is one of the most pervasive fundraising myths. Prospect identification is a key component of research’s contribution to the fundraising cycle, but the volume of identification activity is rarely in synch with needs. In some shops, there’s never enough time to undertake these projects; in others it’s research’s sole function with scores of prospects being neglected for qualification or follow-up. In this session we’ll look at data, tools and methods for balancing the various aspects of research work in your shop to ensure that the full complement of information needs for your institution are being addressed. We’ll focus on setting relevant goals for prospect identification and how to choose from various types of projects or activities to meet those goals.
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Data Mining/Prospect Identification
103 An Introduction to Data Mining
Marianne M. Pelletier, CFRE, Director of Advancement Research & Data Support, Cornell University
Wednesday, August 20
9:00am – 12:00pm
This workshop is designed for beginners in prospecting using statistics and will demonstrate the techniques used in donor modeling and data mining. Discussion will center on quick-to-learn and quick-to-use techniques for prospect identification through statistics. The following concepts coupled with in-session exercises will be addressed: understanding what data says and how to read it; using mean, median and mode to spot trends in prospect behavior and characteristics; key charting techniques for pattern finding among best donors; developing a correlation score (basic statistics) for modeling top prospects; and implementing a simple score plan that works.
113 Using Data Mining to Drive Fundraising
Lawrence Henze, Managing Director, Target Analytics, A Blackbaud Company
Jennifer Key, Statistician Architect, Target Analytics, A Blackbaud Company
Wednesday, August 20
1:30pm – 4:30pm
Join this seasoned team of data mining experts in an interactive workshop that focuses on the potential rewards, pitfalls, challenges and opportunities of data mining. Attendees will walk away with a better understanding of what the term “data mining” really means, what internal data mining techniques to try out now with basic office tools for immediate results and which projects might be better left to a outside vendor. Glean new and innovative ideas to segment data internally to increase annual giving as well as to identify additional major gift prospects that will keep your development officer’s pipelines brimming with new prospects.
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Healthcare
104 Fundraising Post HIPAA
Nancy Gregovich, Consultant, DeLauro & Associates Consulting
Wednesday, August 20
9:00am – 12:00pm
The HIPAA Privacy Rules have not changed since they became enforceable April 14, 2003. After more than five years, many development offices remain confused about what is and is not permitted and, consequently, have over-restricted practices. In this session, HIPAA expert Nancy G. Bowers will focus on understanding those topics that the Privacy Rules actually address as well as those gray areas that require interpretation, extrapolation and policy development based on compliance risk tolerance and best practices. Topics will include access to daily patient census information, grateful patient programs and physician involvement in fundraising.
114 Effective Prospect Research in the Hospital and Healthcare Sectors
David Eberly, Director of Prospect Development, Children’s Hospital Trust Boston
Barbara Fanning, Director, Research Services, SickKids Foundation
Wednesday, August 20
1:30pm – 4:30pm
Research in the hospital and healthcare fundraising environment presents unique challenges and opportunities. This workshop will cover topics including prospect identification and screening in patient, health association member and donor populations; using research profiles in healthcare fundraising; researchers’ role in physician relations and volunteer recruitment; reporting and analysis; and emerging privacy issues and their impact on research. Presenters will focus on best practices from a range of organizations — from community facilities to large academic teaching institutions — and will encompass hospital, medical research and healthcare membership organizations.
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Campaigns
105 Prospect Research in a Campaign
David Lamb, Senior Consultant, Blackbaud Analytics
Wednesday, August 20
9:00am – 12:00pm
Death and taxes … and campaigns. You can’t avoid them. A capital campaign can bring unique demands and pressures on a prospect researcher. Effective prospect research is a vital component of any successful campaign. This session will cover how a campaign should affect the activities of prospect researchers, the systems required to manage prospect information in a campaign and the resources available for helping identify the prospects needed for the campaign.
115 Campaign Reporting
Rob Scott, Executive Director of Development Services, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Wednesday, August 20
1:30pm – 4:30pm
This workshop will explore the ins and outs of campaign reporting, from nucleus fund to campaign wrap-up. Participants will learn about the specific needs of different audiences, marrying campaign goals to reporting and the conceptual basis of a campaign reporting environment. The speaker will place particular emphasis on areas usually assigned to research operations, but will touch upon all aspects of campaign reporting. Participants should bring case statements and similar materials for hands-on examination.
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Member and Cause-Related Organziations
106 City Researcher, Country Researcher — Large Shop Skills Transferred to a Small Shop
Liz McHugh, Vice President for Prospect Research, Scottsdale Healthcare Foundation
Wednesday, August 20
9:00am – 12:00pm
Do you have research experience in a large organization and are now in a one-person shop? This interactive workshop will explore the processes necessary to achieve success by retooling your large-shop skills and experiences, prioritizing the many new aspects of your job and achieving success with fewer resources.
116 Redeeming Time: Strategic Planning for the Research Operation
Mark DeFillippis, Associate Director, Prospect Development, The Nature Conservancy
Jon Thorsen, Director of Advancement Services, The Nature Conservancy
Wednesday, August 20
1:30pm – 4:30pm
Strategic planning is a process more frequently embraced in concept than in practice. Developing an annual operating plan is a useful but limited exercise that usually results in an immediately outdated diagram. Implementing a strategic planning process that goes beyond the annual review creates clarity among staff and clients, measures the effectiveness of work and responds more flexibly to the inevitable unplanned demands. In this session, the speakers will discuss ways to make strategic planning a critical, ongoing part of the research operation.
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Trends
107 Surviving and Thriving in the Flat Philanthropic World
Jon Duschinsky, Director, Resources Non-Profit
Wednesday, August 20
9:00am – 12:00pm
In the last few years the world has not just shrunk, it has pancaked. Are we equipped to deal with this new global society? What does a flat world mean for us and, more importantly, for our donors? How can we deal with the communications overload when it is actively challenging our capacity to prioritize and process information, causing huge changes in the way we think, act and donate? Join this open, honest and challenging session to look closely at the forces at work in creating the global philanthropic world of tomorrow. Together we will try to answer some of these questions and understand what the flat philanthropic world will mean for you and your organization.
117 Philanthropic Giving — Emerging Trends and Recent Studies
Eva Aldrich, Associate Director, Public Service and The Fund Raising School, Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University
Wednesday, August 20
1:30pm – 4:30pm
Using the most recent research data available, this session will address the drivers and predictors of philanthropic giving and the current patterns of individual, corporate and foundation giving. Hear the latest findings from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University about trends in philanthropic giving and fundraising strategies including results from national studies about intergenerational giving patterns and giving by high net worth households.
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Prospect Management
108 Creating and Implementing a Prospect Management System
Josh Birkholz, Principal, Bentz Whaley Flessner
Chris Cannon, Senior Associate, Bentz Whaley Flessner
Wednesday, August 20
9:00am – 12:00pm
Explore state-of-the-art approaches to prospect management with two seasoned fundraising professionals. In addition to discussions about prospect management fundamentals, speakers will share twists on the basics, tricks to getting a system in motion and tools of the analytics trade that can maximize your organization’s prospect management. This interactive session will highlight how all members of the team can and should play a role in capitalizing on an innovative system.
118 Major, Leadership and Transformational Gifts — How to Get Key Players in the Same Sandbox
Jennifer L. Soderholm, Associate Vice President of Development, Minnesota Medical Foundation
Deborah L. Mueller, Director of Relationship Management, Minnesota Medical Foundation
Wednesday, August 20
1:30pm – 4:30pm
What determines a transformational gift for any particular institution varies widely. A greater focus on major, leadership and if possible transformational gifts is paramount for all nonprofits. Seasoned professionals with extensive experience in advancement services, prospect research and management, and development will share strategies and lessons learned from their unorderly, unpredictable yet successful early journey along the path to a laser focus on transformational donors and gifts while maintaining the overall emphasis on major gifts, which are and always will be the core of success for organizations. In this in-depth interactive workshop, attendees will attain the tools to create and implement a successful transformational gifts program focus that will maximize outcomes regardless of the institution size. Learn how to make sure you are discussing the right names, and develop written prospect strategies along with next steps that raise transformational gifts and keep everybody on the same page.
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