World is home to more than 10 million millionaires

CNN.com reports today (6/25/2008) that "The number of people around the world with at least $1 million in assets passed 10 million for the first time last year, according to a report. And their bank accounts are growing even faster."

Read the article.

Wealth Report 2008

The Capgemini World Wealth Report was recently released. According to the report, the "high net worth population [has risen] to over 10 million, with assets reaching $40.7 trillion, as average HNWI wealth surpasses $4 million for first time."

View the report.

The Greatest Givers

BusinessWeek has launched a special report on individual and corporate philanthropy in America.

The report includes the following articles:
The Most Elite Club in the World
The 50 Most Generous Philanthropists
The Greatest Givers
How Companies Dig Deep

Additionally, there are also various videos to watch, including a video interview with Sandy and Joan Weill, two philanthropists who gave $435 million to charity in 2007 alone, about what motivates they give.

Click here to read the report.

Online Giving

The following link from the 6.12.08 Chronicle of Philanthropy provides access to a chart illustrating how much select groups of charities have raised in via the internet over the past five years. [Subscription required]

Net Household Wealth Slid 2.9% in Quarter

In the 6.6.08 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Kelly Evans reports that "Stock-market losses and falling home values in the first three months of this year led to the largest quarterly drop in the net wealth of American households since 2002."

Read this article.

TNS Reports Another Record-Breaking Year for Millionaire Households

TNS has released results from its annual Affluent Market Research Program (AMRP). For the sixth consecutive year, TNS found that the number of millionaire households has increased significantly. Key findings from the survey include:

• - Millionaire households (households with $1MM+ net worth, not including primary residence) increased by 5.9 percent from June 2006 to June 2007, reaching an estimated 9.9 million
• - The mean age of the U.S. millionaire households is 66 with an average net worth (NIPR)of $4.6MM
• - The single most important financial goal of surveyed millionaires (56 percent) continues to be "assure a comfortable standard of living during retirement"
• - Retirement and education are top of mind for this population, with most often cited financial event in the past year of "rolled over a retirement account (13 percent);" followed by "paid for a child's education (9 percent)" and "paid for a grandchild's education (8.5 percent)."

View the full summary report.

Upcoming Conference

Mid-Atlantic Researchers Conference 2008
June 11-13, 2008, Lewisburg, PA

In a workshop on Data Mining and Campaign Analytics, Josh Birkholz will discuss how data mining is becoming a central strategy of sophisticated fundraising organizations, the importance of incorporating statistics into your organization, and how analytics provides actionable campaign decision support.

Pamela Poland will also present two sessions at this conference:

Prospect Management and Tracking Fundamentals
Prospect management and tracking system allows an organization to concentrate on those prospects who offer the greatest potential to the organization, to manage complex portfolios with simple processes, to communicate with constituents in a unified manner, to prioritize major gifts prospects, and to keep on track with cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of prospects and donors. Learn the basic elements of effective prospect management and tracking in this dynamic session.

Strategic Prospect Management, Beyond the Basics
As the competition for philanthropic dollars increases, the need to optimally prioritize prospect pools and to leverage our resources, both effectively and efficiently grows in turn. In this interactive session, prospect management best practices, key issues, and trends will be examined. Learn helpful approaches to pipeline and portfolio management, cultivation and solicitation strategies, performance metrics and other issues. Participants will have the opportunity to take away helpful approaches that can be applied to the specifics of their institutions.

Conference details

Blackbaud Acquires Kintera

It was no secret that Kintera was struggling. While their Sphere product was innovative, and their purchase of P!N in 2004 brought one of the most well-known wealth screening services under their umbrella, it was an uphill battle for Kintera to turn a profit and hold its share price. The stock price was under $1.00 a share for most of the year. In the recent past, they had a shakeup at the top of the organization, and had large layoffs of staff.

Yesterday, it was announced that Blackbaud has purchased Kintera.

That is not surprising, given the normal modus operandi of Blackbaud. Just as the purchase of Target Software and eTapestry before, the acquisition of Kintera allows Blackbaud to bring an innovative prodcut under its wing while eliminating competition for its core non-profit services. This time, bringing Sphere allows it to fully develop and integrate the market for their all-encompassing CRM and accounting services, while eliminating a competitor for Blackbaud Analytics and NetCommunity.

While the business deal does make sense for Kintera and Blackbaud, it comes with a price for the non-profit world. Now, there seems to be only three choices for wealth screening, and fewer viable product options that non-profits can choose to reach out to their donors and prospects.

Beyond Blogs

An interesting article from the May 22, 2008 edition of Business Week:

"The year was 2005, and the story was "Blogs Will Change Your Business." It marked our plunge into the world of bottom-up media, of news as a "conversation." Many people at the time-including a good number at this magazine and throughout the business world-considered blogs to be a publishing tool for trivia, banality, venom, and baseless attacks. This was all true, the article conceded.

But in the helter-skelter of the blogosphere, we wrote, something important was taking place: In the 10 minutes it took to set up a blogging account, anyone with an Internet connection could become a global publisher. Some could become stars and gain power. That was already happening. In this new world, any business that hoped to "control" information-and that included just about everybody-was in for a wild ride. This promised a seismic shock in our own media world. No mystery there. But it also posed challenges for businesses in practically every realm. Every e-mail or memo could be blogged. Every employee, no matter what rank, could become a voice for the company, either publicly or cloaked, some gaining more power than the entire public relations department. "Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out," we warned, adding: "Catch up...or catch you later.""

Read the full article.

Wealthiest Angelenos

Increasingly, rich foreigners are making a home in LA. "Whether they're building Persian Palaces in Beverly Hills or investing $100 million in downtown skyscrapers, the evidence of foreign money is all over L.A." Also in the special report is the Business Journal's annual ranking of Wealthiest Angelenos. Although a good deal of money has been vaporized, there are still 39 billionaires who live there.

Read the 5/19/08 Los Angeles Business Journal special report on the wealthiest "Angelenos" or directly navigate to the rankings.