by Rhode Warrior, Mark Noll
- Expand your scope of education and skills. Stagnation will make you obsolete.
- Know when the time involved for that last piece of information is not worth the investment.
- What’s your value? We’re in a dollar value business. Those who don’t bring in the money are first to go during hard times.
- Information is power and some development officers are trying to become marvel comic heroes.
- If you think you’ve figured out a successful entrepreneur’s capacity, you need to re-educate yourself.
- If your data sucks, then so do your analytics.
- Car sales correlation #1: More salespeople on the lot does not always translate into more car sales. Same goes for fundraising.
- If you do not have big projects to fund, do not expect big gifts.
- Sometimes screening prospects is like panning for gold in the desert.
- Just because someone has the capacity to give doesn’t mean they have the willingness to give.
- Whatever you are doing to compensate for lost phonation revenues, it more than likely will not surpass the former.
- Never assume.
- Researchers have a better chance of being photographed with zombies than they do with the million dollar check presentation.
- Your new prospect is somebody else’s former donor.
- If the prospect doesn’t choke on your ask amount, you lowballed the ask amount.
- If the prospect immediately answers “yes” to the ask amount, again, you lowballed the ask amount.
- Updating donor profiles on a regular basis is comparable to watching the grass grow between mowing.
- Determining a private company’s worth by comparing it o a public company is like comparing the color yellow to a lemon. They have common element but are completely different.
- Researchers enjoy meetings as much airline pilots like hearing funny noises.
- Gift officers who understand and appreciate the work of Prospect Research likely are former Prospect Researchers.
- Researchers are generous. We raise millions of dollars every year and allow the development officers to receive the accolades.
- If I knew how that stock would be performing in six months I wouldn’t be working for a non-profit, so please don’t ask such a question.
- If you’re looking for the Prospect Researcher at the party, focus on the person sitting alone in the corner.
- I’ve extended my career by investing heavily in Red Bull.
- If you can Google it, it ain’t research.
- Donor fatigue is just another name for prospect stagnation.
- Most prospects on a gift officer’s portfolio for more than two years are usually great golf partners.
- To not include one’s spouse in a solicitation is to create a greater than 50/50 chance that you will never receive an end of life gift.
- Respect Development Officers. Remember that Prospect Research is comparable to being a boxing trainer. We set the course and direction but it’s the other guy taking the beating.
- How many Prospect Researchers does it take to screw in a light bulb? We’ll get back to you in 3-5 days.
- If you know the terms Dialog, Northern Light, Netscape and Alta Vista, you’ve been doing research way too long.
- I can’t prove it, but I know there has to be correlation between a gift officer doing call reports and a 4-year-old liking broccoli.
- Fundraising in its simplest terms is sales without a product?
- If you create a development officer’s bonus plan without an incentive to raise beyond their goal, they will likely raise exactly at their goal.
- It’s not about capacity, it’s about liquidity.
- Nobody has ever gifted an institution to fund a parkade.
- Careful about how you name buildings. The Harvey Weinstein School of Dramatic Arts may have been a good idea up until last year.
- When you hand a development officer a profile and they tell you that you forgot to add this or that, remind them the database was created for that very purpose.
- Most of us are introverts…the rest of us are just anti-social.
- There is a correlation to be made between those opposed to Prospect Research/Management and the advanced age of the person stating such.
