An Interview with a Proactive Researcher
Dear Diary,
Reactive versus Proactive – the continuous tugging of priorities within prospect development. I am so grateful to researcher Emily Glinert, for sharing her experiences and wisdom. I wanted to present this conversation to readers because one day I hope there will no longer be a need for reactive versus proactive but a balance of both as priorities. It is important to prospect and expand the donor base, and it is equally important to complete research requests. We are all very familiar with and used to being reactive members of a fundraising team. However, did you know there were researchers who focused on proactive research?
Q: Can you please describe your role to readers?
Emily: I am a member of Research & Prospect Management (RPM) at the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (WFAA). Within RPM, there are three smaller teams: prospect research, prospect development, and prospect identification. As a prospect identification analyst, my role is focused on proactive research, which means that I am using dashboards and queries to look for potential donors who for a variety of reasons are not currently engaged in gift conversations but have qualities that indicate they might be interested in increased engagement. I then either add the constituent to a pool to begin the qualification process or add a disqualification noting why the constituent does not appear to be a prospect either for a finite amount of time or ever.
Q: So, within your department your role is intentionally structured to be a proactive support system for the fundraising department. What are your thoughts on this intentionality?
Emily: I think it is important that an organization is intentional about proactive research because it so often gets deprioritized due to the number of requests research teams receive from fundraisers. It has allowed us to identify prospects for qualification and make sure there are people in the pipeline, especially during the campaign we just finished. It has also given us the opportunity to work on specialized projects for different units within our organization that we otherwise would not have the capacity to do.
Q: Many prospect researchers have reactive roles – based on the requests of fundraisers they prospect or create research profiles. But since your role is solely crafted for prospecting and proactive research. Can you share some advice or tips on how to incorporate prospecting? How can one manage their time and create opportunities for proactive research?
Emily: If someone wants to incorporate more proactive prospecting into their daily work, I recommend explaining to leadership how proactive research benefits the larger organization (builds a better prospect pipeline, surfaces individuals who otherwise would not be considered, etc.). Next, create a goal related to proactive research and track your progress. This way you can follow the individuals you identified through the pipeline and record the outcomes. It can also be helpful to meet with fundraisers to talk about the people you’ve found and hear their perceptions about whether they consider the person a prospect. You can start small and grow your proactive time slowly – the most important part is to prioritize it and keep going, even when it’s hard to find the time.
Q: What are your top three resources when prospecting for funders?
Emily: The top three resource categories for me right now are a wealth screening tool, social media (Facebook, LinkedIn), and giving data (from our CRM and outside).
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I once wrote about proactive and reactive actions, and I hope this interview with Emily and the additional reading from January 2018, really sets a new perspective on your daily work.
Until next time, September 15th!
