Institute Policies

  • Cancellation and Refund Policy
  • Academic Honesty Policy
  • Confidentiality Policy
  • Forum and Peer Review Etiquette

Cancellation and Refund Policy

This policy applies to all educational offerings, including classes, workshops, and courses and other programs.

Prospect Research Institute is committed to providing educational offerings that prepare prospect development professionals for their work in prospect research, fundraising analytics and prospect management.

Customer Satisfaction Guarantee

Our educational offerings are comprehensive and rigorous. You receive all the tools and coaching you need to succeed in the prospect development office.

We are so confident that you will enjoy our full course offerings that we offer this 120 day guarantee:

  • If you attend at least one group coaching call, watch the video lectures, complete and submit your homework and are not 100% satisfied with the depth and quality of information you received, we will give you your money back.
  • Requests for refund must be in writing, within 120 days after the course ends, by submitting an email to jen at prospectresearchinstitute.org. We will send a confirmation email that your request was received.
  • Your refund will be in the same payment form as your original course enrollment payment of credit card or check.

Cancellations

Cancellation requests must be in writing by submitting an email to jen at prospectresearchinstitute.org. The date and time of your email will be used to qualify your request. We will send a confirmation email that your request was received. Your refund will be in the same payment form as your original course enrollment payment of credit card or check.

Our cancellation policy covers the following situations:

Cancelling BEFORE any live meeting and BEFORE logging in to access content:

  • Full refund of course fee, minus merchant account fees (around 3%).

Cancelling AFTER any live meeting or AFTER logging in to access content:

  • No refund; see Customer Satisfaction Guarantee

Academic Honesty Policy

Academic Integrity at the Institute

Excellence requires freedom. Honesty and integrity are prerequisites of this freedom. Academic honesty in the advancement of skills and knowledge requires that all learners and instructors respect the integrity of one another’s work and recognize the importance of acknowledging and safeguarding intellectual property.

As members of an academic community, learners and faculty assume certain responsibilities. One of these responsibilities is to engage in honest communication. Academic dishonesty is a serious violation of the trust upon which an academic community depends. The Institute Academic Honesty Policy is both an articulation of the kinds of behaviors that violate this trust and the means by which that trust is safeguarded and restored. All learners, staff, and faculty in the Institute must abide by the Academic Honesty Policy.

Violations of Academic Honesty

There are many different forms of academic dishonesty. The following kinds of honesty violations and their definitions are not meant to be exhaustive. Rather, they are intended to serve as examples of unacceptable academic conduct.

CHEATING: Communicating with other colleagues or learners in order to get help during an exam or in an assignment where collaboration is not allowed; obtaining an examination prior to its administration; altering graded work and submitting it for re-grading; allowing another person to do one’s work and submitting it as one’s own; submitting work done in one class for credit in another without the instructor’s permission; obstructing or interfering with another learner’s academic work; undertaking any activity intended to obtain an unfair advantage over other learners.

PLAGIARISM: The representation of another person’s work as one’s own. More specifically the use of an idea, phrase, or other materials from a written or spoken source without acknowledgment in a work for which the learner claims authorship.

Examples include: the misrepresentation of sources used in a work for which the learner claims authorship; the improper use of course materials in a work for which the learner claims authorship; the use of another colleague’s work product and turned in as one’s own work; submission of written work such as prospect profiles or relationship management plans, which have been copied from the work of other colleagues, with or without their knowledge and consent.

A learner can avoid the risk of plagiarism in written work or oral presentations by clearly indicating, either in footnotes or in the paper or presentation itself, the source of any idea or wording that he or she did not produce. Sources must be given regardless of whether the idea, phrase or other material is quoted directly, paraphrased or summarized in the learner-writer’s own words.

FABRICATION: Falsifying or inventing any information, citation, or data; using improper methods of collecting or generating data and presenting them as legitimate; misrepresenting oneself or one’s status in the Institute; perpetrating hoaxes unbecoming to learners in good standing or potentially damaging to the University’s reputation or that of the members of its academic community of learners and scholars.

FACILITATING ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: Aiding another person in an act that violates the standards of academic honesty; allowing other learners to look at one’s own work during an exam or in an assignment where collaboration is not allowed; providing information, material, or assistance to another person knowing that it may be used in violation of course, departmental, or institute academic honesty policies; providing false information in connection with any academic honesty inquiry.

DENYING OTHERS ACCESS TO INFORMATION OR MATERIAL: Any act that maliciously hinders the use of or access to course materials

Reporting Cases of Suspected Academic Dishonesty

All cases of suspected dishonesty must be reported to the CEO of the Institute. Typical penalties range from a change in grade for a course assignment to failure of the course itself. Faculty may also require learners to rewrite work as part of their suggested penalty.

Once notified of the charges the learner has 48 hours to decide whether or not to admit guilt and to accept the suggested penalty. If the learner so admits and accepts, then the learner will complete and sign the Academic Dishonesty Incident Report prepared by the CEO.

If the learner does not admit guilt, the CEO will convene an Academic Honesty committee to hear the case. The committee determines if academic misconduct has occurred, determines the penalty, and forwards its report to the CEO and the learner.

Confidentiality Policy

The Prospect Research Institute recognizes that adult learners are often actively employed and wish to apply their learning directly to work situations. In nonprofit fundraising that sometimes includes talking about and sharing information about donors, prospects, and other information about nonprofit operations.

Donor and prospect information is very sensitive data that is developed by nonprofits on a confidential basis. Prospect Research Institute staff, faculty and learners have an ethical obligation to respect the privacy of any and all prospects and donors, and to protect and maintain the confidentiality of all information about prospects, donors, their family members and friends.

It is unethical and a violation of Prospect Research Institute policy to discuss the prospect or donor information included in course materials as examples, or shared by fellow learners, with friends, spouses, relatives, or anyone else. Violations of the Prospect Research Institute Confidentiality Policy are considered very serious, and may result in disciplinary action, including immediate withdrawal from any active courses and revocation of all access to course or other materials.

Prospect Research Institute is committed to upholding the ethical standards of the Association of Research Professionals for Advancement (APRA) and the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP).

Forum & Peer Review Etiquette

Be specific | Be nice |Ask questions

Compliment | Suggest |Correct

Description

The Prospect Research Institute promotes forum discussion and peer review in its courses and programs so that participants can share and learn from one another. Participants may include all kinds of fundraisers, including researchers, relationship managers and analysts from large and small organizations of all types. This diversity creates opportunities for sharing opinions, perspectives and expertise. Please be open-minded and considerate of the viewpoints expressed by all participants, even if these views differ from your own. Remember to ask yourself if you truly understand a question or comment before responding. Try not to assume anything!

Generally you should…

Be specific.

Comments such as “good” or “confusing” do not help participants improve. Specific statements that demonstrate context are helpful. For example: “I’m confused about the executive’s compensation. It wasn’t clear to me what amount of money might be his discretionary income and what amounts might be tied up in stock he can’t gift.”

Be nice.

Personal insults or feedback that gets too personal really has no place in peer review. Mind your word choices! Comments like “you did a terrible job on his stockholdings” or “putting that in a footnote is dumb” will not help a researcher improve. When you have to correct, use a softening statement first. Example: “I like that you want to share your source (softening), but I don’t think that information is useful to the gift officer (respectful disagreement).”

Ask questions.

You may or may not understand the information the researcher is trying to convey. Instead of assuming something is wrong, try asking questions. For example: “Why not paste the picture of her house here? I find my fundraisers want to see the picture when it looks like they do a lot of entertaining and might be open to hosting a personal event.” Alternatively, you might find yourself wanting to know how the researcher found certain items. Ask!

When writing comments and reviews, remember to…

Compliment

What are a few things that you liked about the work or opinion presented?

Suggest

Make suggestions on word choices, summarization/level of detail, organization of material, relevancy, items you recommend including/excluding, etc.

Correct

If information is absolutely incorrect, point it out. Use a softening statement first. For example: “Executive compensation is really complicated and I struggle with it myself, but I’m pretty sure you have calculated the options incorrectly. Try using this formula…”

Word Choice Ideas

  • My favorite part was _________ because __________
  • You might consider doing ______________ to improve ________________
  • I really like the way you _______________
  • I like/do not like this because __________
  • __________ is often difficult for fundraisers to understand. You might consider saying ___________ instead.
  • I couldn’t find ________________ but then I found it _________________. You might consider ______________