3 Reasons For Prospect Research Before The Economy Improves

Nonprofits are coming around to the notion of prospect research is to fundraising what the research and development (R&D) department is to a for-profit corporation, according to Tony Glowacki, CEO at Bethesda, Md.-based WealthEngine.com.

As prospect research services are made more available, more nonprofits are starting to use them, Glowacki said. “That value proposition is taking a stronger hold in the market,” he said. It’s important to look at prospect research regardless of whether stock or real estate markets are down.

Full-text article is available via The NonProfit Times, 5.28.09.

Millionaires No Longer Feel Wealthy

A new study by Fidelity Investments finds that millionaires don’t feel wealthy anymore, largely because of the global financial crisis.

Full-text blog post by Frank Rich is available via The Wall Street Journal, 5.6.09.

Giving by Richest Britons Up 8% in 2008

Britain’s top 100 philanthropists gave the equivalent of a combined $315.5-million last year, an 8 percent increase from 2007, Third Sector Online reports, citing the Sunday Times’ annual Giving List.

It's a Lousy Time to Sell Your Business

Get ready to face a sour market if you're hoping to sell your business. In the first quarter of 2009, the number of sold small businesses fell 36% compared to a year earlier, according to marketplace site BizBuySell.com.

Full-text article by Emily Maltby is available via CNNMoney.com, 4.27.09.

New York's Million-Dollar Property Steals

Manhattan's luxury apartment market is feeling the squeeze, with some prices down 20%.

Full-text article by Evelyn Rusli is available via Forbes, 2.16.09.

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.

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.

The World's Billionaire Women

When it comes to the ranks of the world's billionaires, the fairer sex is still very much the rarer sex. In 2008, Forbes counted 99 female billionaires, 16 more than last year, but still representing slightly less than 9% of the world's 1,125 billionaires. Just making it into the ranks of this uber-exclusive club is enough to turn these women into some of the most envied people in the world.

Find out who the world's richest women are.

2007 Windfall Report: America's 50 Richest Paydays

You won't find Oprah Winfrey on the list. Nor will you find the legion of hedge-fund managers who routinely collect hundreds of millions in any given year. That's because they're all just getting paid to do their day jobs. This is a list of people who enjoyed windfalls thanks to large transactions: stock cash-outs, I.P.O.'s, sales of companies, real-estate deals and even inheritances.

Peter Newcomb's list of the 50 players (and one lucky canine) whose bottom lines got the biggest boost last year is available via Vanity Fair, 3.2008.

WSJ: Survey of CEO Compensation

JoAnn Lublin, of the Wall Street Journal, explores CEO compensation and benefits. Ms. Lublin argues that "directors are increasingly exercising more clout in setting CEO compensation. And in some cases, the boss is actually feeling a little pain."

Read this 4/14/08 Wall Street Journal article.

NOZA-Private Foundation 990 searchable database launched

NOZA now provides free access to a database of 990-PF tax returns. According to the NOZA website (http://www.noza990pf.com), this project was started several years ago by Grantsmart and contains publically-available data received from the IRS. You can also search NOZA's companion database containing more than 1,000,000 foundation grant records (also free), by visiting http://www.nozasearch.com.

For more information, visit the NOZA website.

Upcoming Webinar

04/10/2008

It "Takes a Village": Developing Prospects for Research and Non-Research Professionals

Click here to register.

The critical points of collaboration and the essential nodes for information handoff strategies between research officers and fundraising officers must be as smooth and flawless as any relay team. This session will explore many ways in which the entire development team can facilitate prospect development. Passing the baton, however, requires knowledge of fundraising and research. This Webinar explores the dialogue and practices that will facilitate mutual understanding of the roles of front-line fundraisers and internal support teams. Learn techniques and technologies to enhance the collaboration to build effective, donor-centric major gift efforts.

Date: April 10, 2008
Time: 12:00 Noon Central Time
Duration: Approximately 1 hour
Cost: No charge for current clients of Bentz Whaley Flessner, $195 for non-clients
Deadline: Registration (and payments for non-clients) must be received by 5 pm April 9

Full participation in these webinars is applicable for one (1) point in Category 1.B-Education of the CFRE International application for initial certification and/or recertification.

India Dominates Billionaires' List

The most surprising news in Forbes's latest Global Billionaire list isn't that Bill Gates has been toppled as the world's richest man ... the biggest surprise is the rise of the Indian rich - four of the top eight billionaires in the world are from India.

Read more on this in the the Wall Street Journal's 3/6/2008 Wealth Report.

Check it out

Check out the 3/24/08 issue of Forbes magazine. The issue has lots of articles and information on the topic "Billionaires: The Richest People in the World."

Inc. Magazine/Inc.com's 2008 Executive Compensation Guide

The Executive Compensation Guide is a comprehensive database of salaries across a variety of categories.

The Middle-Class Millionaire: The rise of the new rich and how they are changing America

Authors Russ Alan Prince and Lewis Schiff have authored a new book titled, The Middle-Class Millionaire: The rise of the new rich and how they are changing America. They write on the rise of middle-class millionaires and how they are becoming more influential and describe how this new group is importantly different from the mainstream middle class and from the traditional wealthy.

Read more about this book.

'Slate 60' Recognizes Most Generous Philanthropists of 2007

Slate magazine has announced its list of the sixty Americans who gave the most to charity in 2007. To view or download the complete list, as compiled by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, visit the Slate website.

Top 10 richest men and women under 30 years old

MSN has produced a list of the 10 richest men and a list of the richest 10 women under 30.

View the Top 10 richest men under 30 list.

View the Top 10 richest women under 30 list.

The Decline of Inherited Money

Click here to view a Wall Street Journal "Wealth Report" discussion on the decline of inherited money.

Prospect Research Resource Recommendations

The Rich 100: Canada's Wealthiest People [Canadian Business Journal, 1.14.08]
Best & Brightest of 2007 [Esquire, 11.01.07]
The 2007 Silicon Alley 100 [Silicon Alley Insider, 2008]

The Chronicle Releases it's Philanthropy 50 List of the Most-Generous Donors of 2007

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that America's most-generous donors committed to give away a total of $7.3-billion in 2007, according to our just-released ranking of the 50 top philanthropists of 2007. Twenty of the donors made gifts or pledges of at least $100-million.

Read more and view the list.

New online tool helps prospect for wealthy clients

NOZA offers unique glimpse into individualized giving patterns.

Read this 12/10 Investment News article by Davis D. Janowski.

The Greatest Givers

BusinessWeek has launched a special report on individual and corporate philanthropy in the U.S. The report includes articles on "The Most Elite Club in the World," "The 50 Most Generous Philanthropists," "The Greatest Givers," and "How Companies Dig Deep," among others.

Access the full report here.

Wealth Report: Mukesh Ambani Becomes World's Richest Man

India's Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited, has become the world's richest man.

Read this 10.29.07 article about Mr. Ambani and view a list of the five richest people in the world on the Stock Market Views website.

Money in New York: The Patron Gets a Divorce

This article explores the philanthropic generosity of Leonard Riggio, one man who made Dia:Beacon, one of the largest museums to open in this country since the Museum of Modern Art in the late 1930s, possible.

Click here to read this 10.14.07 New York Times article by Joe Nicera.

Book: Business Success Is Not Duty Free

WSJ article on Conor O'Clery book about Chuck Feeney, co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers. The article talks about Feeney's philanthropic arm, Atlantic Philanthropies, an organization that has given away about $4 billion to date.

Read the 9.26.07 Wall Street Journal book review.

Income Inequality Widens

An article by Greg Ip from the Wall Street Journal on how the boom in financial markets parallels the rise in share for the wealthiest Americans.

The richest Americans' share of national income has hit a postwar record, surpassing the highs reached in the 1990s bull market, and underlining the divergence of economic fortunes blamed for fueling anxiety among American workers.

Widening Gap: The wealthiest Americans' share of national income has hit a postwar record, surpassing the highs reached in the 1990s bull market, and highlighting the divergence of economic fortunes blamed for fueling anxiety among American workers.

Click here to read this 10.12.07 article.

Millionaires by the Millions

Paul B. Brown, a columnist for the New York Times, writes about millionaires in the U.S.

Click here to read the 10.20.07 article.

The World's 100 Most Powerful Women

Forbes released its special report on the world's 100 most powerful women.

Click here to read the 8.30.07 Forbes special report.

U.S. Trust to Launch National Marketing Campaign Recognizing Today's Wealthy as the Architects of Their Own Success

U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management is launching a national advertising campaign, which spotlights the changing profile of today's wealthy individuals and families. The $25 million campaign marks the first major advertising initiative for U.S. Trust since its acquisition by Bank of America Corporation earlier this year.

The brand-building effort represents the most extensive private wealth management advertising campaign that either legacy organization has ever undertaken. National and local print and broadcast advertisements will debut across the nation beginning on October 8.

Full-text press release via Bank of America, 10.3.2007.

How the Rich Hide Their Wealth

This ABC News item talks about how the rich go to great lengths to shield assets from the public.

By Scott Mayerowitz
ABC News Business Unit
Sept. 21, 2007

There are hundreds of people in the world whose names you might never know but who own millions -- if not billions of dollars.

These wealthy individuals often go out of their way to hide their assets from scrutiny -- sometimes from the public and sometimes from their own government.

Read more.

Carnegie Corporation Shifts Its Grant-Making Approach

By Ian Wilhelm

The Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced it is changing its grant making and simplifying how it categorizes its giving.

After a yearlong review, which included discussions with grant beneficiaries, outside academic experts, and others, the foundation said it wanted to make its efforts more strategic.

Read the full 10/3/07 article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

New Philanthropy Capital

Another example of senior figures in the securities industry shifting their focus to the charitable sector. James Garvin, former co-head of equity capital markets at UBS is now a director at New Philanthropy Capital, a research firm that applies the discipline of equity research to advise wealthy individuals and foundations on making effective charitable donations.

Full-text article by William Wright available via Financial News, 9.28.07.

Community Foundations

Community foundations saw an increase in grants, assets, and donations in 2006. Two studies report on community foundation trends: Columbus Foundation and Council on Foundations.

Full-text article (includes synopsis of surveys) by Sue Hoye is available via Chronicle of Philanthropy, 9.20.2007.

Forbes 400 List Published

Forbes has just released its latest rich list - the Forbes 400 list reveals the 400 richest Americans.

"One billion dollars is no longer enough. The price of admission to this, the 25th anniversary edition of the Forbes 400, is $1.3 billion, up $300 million from last year. The collective net worth of the nation's mightiest plutocrats rose $290 billion to $1.54 trillion."

Read more of this Forbes Magazine special report.

Why do people give?

By Alan Clayton

At first glance this seems the simplest question of all. Why do people give?

The answer is rather important, perhaps even the be-all-and-end-all for anyone who wants to be any good at fundraising. Familiarity with the answer is crucial to appreciating the core benefits of our 'product', to understanding donor motivations, to appreciating the skilful combination of need plus solution that is so important for effective fundraising. Regardless of how and what you want to communicate, the individual donor's reason or reasons for giving should be firmly at the root of every communication we produce.

Read more of this article from the Resource Alliance website.

Penetrating New Constituent Groups

Learn how to integrate high-tech and high-touch approaches to expand your fundraising base in this article published in the fall 2007 AHP Journal and co-authored by Bentz Whaley Flessner consultants Josh Birkholz and Chris Cannon.

Read the article.

Inc. List Of 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies

Inc. the magazine for entrepreneurs, released their list of 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies. This is handy information to have for any research shop, just in case one of your prospects happens to be a principal in one of these companies.

Read the list here...

New online fundraising resource

Check out fResource, available at http://www.fresource.info/. fResource lets fundraisers and researchers around the globe share their knowledge about fundraising products, tools, and resources. According to Third Sector Daily, Mathew Ide, director of fResource.info, said that fResource.info is "the world's first prospect research community and it's the first time that fundraisers' prospect tools have been listed in one place. A lot of the information we have on the site is unknown to most fundraisers."

Executive Pay Rises 4.6%

The September 20, 2007 issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy analyzes the results of the annual study of compensation paid to the leaders of the nation's biggest nonprofit groups.

Compensation growth for CEO's outpaced inflation, survey finds
By Noelle Barton and Peter Panepento

Compensation for the leaders of the nation's largest nonprofit organizations rose at more than twice the rate of inflation last year, even in the face of intensifying public and government scrutiny, according to The Chronicle's 15th annual survey of executive compensation and benefits.

Read more on the Chronicle of Philanthropy website.

Bonuses For Hedge Fund Managers Clipped

The credit crunch will affect the bonus structure of hedge fund managers. However, if you have prospects that run hedge funds, don't fret about their ability to give. The bonus increase will only be between 1 and 9 percent, as opposed to a projected bonus increase of up to 20 percent. This article from Investment News has more details.

By Aaron Siegel
September 11, 2007

Turmoil in the credit markets have taken a bite out of the bonuses for hedge fund managers this year, according to a report.

Cash bonuses paid out to hedge fund managers are seen increasing between 1% and 9% from the previous year, marking a "substantially lower" increase than predicted before the credit crunch, according to the 2008 Hedge Fund Compensation report, which was released yesterday by Glocap Search LLC, Institutional Investor News and Lipper HedgeWorld.

Read more

Bentz Whaley Flessner Occasional Paper - Advancement Services

Click here to access Bentz Whaley Flessner's Winter 2006 Occasional Paper regarding Advancement Services. Included are articles on "Re-Tooling Advancement/Development Services," "What is Data-Mining?," "Trends in Prospect Research," and "The View from Here: Campaign Planning as seen by Advancement Services."

New Tool Helps Identify Executive Pay Issues: Business Community Gains Online Access to WorldatWork Executive Rewards Questionary

As CEO pay continues to be the most scrutinized area of executive compensation, WorldatWork has created a new tool that poses 225 questions boards of directors will need to address before they approve compensation plans.

Scottsdale, AZ (PRWEB) September 11, 2007 -- As CEO pay continues unabated as the most scrutinized area of executive compensation, WorldatWork has created a new tool that poses 225 questions boards of directors will need to address before they approve compensation plans. The WorldatWork Executive Rewards Questionary clearly identifies every essential factor for rewarding executives and directors.

Originally designed for its members, WorldatWork has recently made the tool available to the business community at large - CEOs, boards, compensation committees, HR practitioners and consultants. Currently available free of charge, the tool may be accessed on www.worldatwork.org/execcomptool.

Read more

Hedge funds post shock losses

This Financial Times article lists some of the big hedge fund managers who have not fared well recently. The article also talks about some managers who have done well, despite the recent stock market turmoil. This article will be an interesting read for researchers.

By James Mackintosh

Some of the grandest names in the hedge fund world suffered last month having failed to anticipate the turmoil in the markets and failing to produce the absolute returns they promise investors.

The list of badly-hit hedge funds in August reads like a Who's Who of the best-known on Wall Street, according to investors.

Read more of this 9/10/07 Financial Times article.

Finding that Millionaire Next Door

This article talks about the impact of custom data modeling to gain a more in-depth understanding of major-gift prospects.

By Natalie Ghidotti

Moving a donor from a small annual gift of $60 to a $650,000 endowment gift is not an easy task. But that's exactly what the Cleveland Institute of Music did after taking its prosepct research program to the next level.

Read more of this May 1, 2007 article from The NonProfit Times.

Prospect Research: What You Don't Know - and How it Can Hurt You

You must research prospective major donors before you meet with them or else you may be leaving money on the table.

By Margaret King

A few years ago, one of my clients requested rush research on a prospective donor. The client, a development officer at an independent school, explained that the headmaster was planning to meet with a parent to ask for a gift. He believed that the prospective donor had the capacity to make a $300,000 gift, but the development officer thought the number might be higher.

The completed research supported my client’s feeling; the school revised its strategy and asked for a $1 million gift. The meeting was a great success — the donor agreed to make a gift totaling $1.3 million over a three-year period!

Without understanding the donor’s capacity to give, my client would have received a much smaller gift, and the donor might not have felt as connected to the school.

Prospect research should be considered the invisible yet indispensable arm of a major-gifts program. It helps you understand a prospective donor’s giving capacity, among other things.

Unfortunately, many nonprofit development offices are not using research to understand the giving capacity of their prospective donors because they believe they can’t afford to set up a research department. As my client’s story illustrates, you can’t afford not to have some level of research.

What is it?
Prospect research typically is a multifaceted process of retrieval, analysis and dissemination of biographical and financial information. This information can be at the core of identifying, cultivating and soliciting major-gift prospects. It often uncovers:
• shared values,
• prospective donors’ friends and
• associates who can help form a basis for institutional involvement.

To develop donor profiles, researchers consult biographical and general reference books, scan journals and newspapers, and search computerized databases, and unpublished public records to cull the necessary information. As I’m sure you can imagine, the Internet plays a big role in research.

Read more of this article, published on 8/1/2007, from Fundraising Success.