Now is the time when we are flooded with listicles from all major media outlets about the past year . I rather enjoy those, particularly the weird data round-ups. So, I propose we share our own prospect research highlights of 2015!
Here are some of the items that rocked my research cubicle in 2015:
- New data resource (US): Donor Search! My office just started to use it for proactive prospecting and it has been very useful so far. Stay tuned!
- New data resource (international): London City Data Store Free data about London!
- Professional development event: APRA in NOLA
- Professional development presentation: Tie between Preeti Gill and Jen Filla‘s presentation on female philanthropists and Kenny Tavares and Elizabeth Roma’s (Helen Brown Group) podcast on family offices.
- Major news article: The Financial Times‘ series on London housing prices. This series led me to reexamine how my team rates London prospects.
- Academic article: Mesch, Debra, Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm, Una Osili, Xiao Han, Andrea Pactor, “Women Give 2015,” Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthopy. November, 11, 2015. IUPUIScholarWorks Repository. http://hdl.handle.net/1805/7425
- Tweets: I agree with the adage that a good tweet does one of the three e’s i.e. engage, entertain, or educate. Here are my 2015 favorites in each category:
- Educate: Sabine Schuller’s tweet about the international $1M gift report.
- Entertain: Catherine Cefalu’s thoughts on her pending thesis (good luck!)
- Engage: Helen Brown’s conversation about prospect researchers’ wild-eyed dreams.
- Prospect Research Humor: This post by Fundraiser Grrl.
- Book: Preeti Gill’s What About Women? Prospect Development from a Female Perspective
- Office Technology: Slack. My office switched from Gchat to Slack this year, and I’ve liked all of the ways we’ve been able to customize it.