Institute Policies

  • Cancellation and Refund Policy
  • Forum and Peer Review Etiquette

Refund Policy

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

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.

Refund Eligibility

Full Refund (minus ~3% processing fees):

  • Requested before logging in to access any course content AND before any scheduled live workshop session.
  • Requested within 30 days of an automatic renewal charge.

No Refund:

  • After logging in to your account and accessing course materials.
  • After attending or missing a scheduled live workshop session for which you were registered.

Institute Cancellations:

  • If the Institute must cancel or significantly reschedule a workshop, you will receive a full refund or free transfer to a future session.

If you feel there are exceptional circumstances that warrant a refund, please contact us directly. We will work with you to find a fair solution.

Submitting A Request

  • Cancellation requests must be in writing by submitting an email to jen@prospectresearchinstitute.org.
  • You will receive a confirmation email within 5 business days.
  • Your refund will be in the same payment form as your original course enrollment payment of credit card or check.

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 ______________