Out of the Comfort Zone - A Recap of the 2013 APRA International Conference

A year after I first attended APRA International Conference, I had already forgotten the feeling of seeing 1000 researchers in one room: definitely thrilled, a bit scary perhaps. I am so used to being in the minority and all of sudden, voila, you see researchers everywhere! What’s even scarier to see is all 1000 researchers standing up on their feet and doing a happy dance together!  What was going on?! 

Ok, let’s back up.

August 7, 2013, first day of conference.  

We all woke up as our up-tight researcher type selves in Baltimore, the World Capital of Blue Crabs, to attend the 25th APRA International Conference.   What we or at least some of us didn’t know was that Jon Duschinsky was such an energetic opening keynote speaker that we might just end up dancing in the end… 

Jon is the author of “Philanthropy in a Flat World” (2008) and “(me)volution” (2012).  His delivery of the keynote on “Access People Power” is nothing but exuberant and passionate (with a cute British accent too).  “People power” for researchers is the knowledge research brings to help us cope with a fast-changing world.  Non-profit organizations need to adapt to the pace or as Jon put it “people will change the world (through social ventures and social media) and bypass organizations like ours as we are too slow and cumbersome”.  Jon proposed that we kill “SWAT” analysis (“stone dead!” as Jon said) and replace strategic sessions with a 15 min brief from researchers. People like us shouldn’t be in the shadows, he insisted, researchers should “drive agendas” for our organizations.  But he also posed a valid question, are researchers in the shadows because we like to be there?  Are we uncomfortable getting out of our comfort zone?

Fast forward to the afternoon of that day: I attended a session called “From Researcher to Vice President: You Can Get There,” which was presented to a jam packed audience.  The presenters of the session were Shelby Radcliffe and David Shanton, both had rose above their “humble” researcher origin to “glamorous” Vice President-hood. I loved that most of the session was a direct conversation with the audience. One most interesting discussion was when Shelby said that, as the Vice President of Advancement, she was more concerned about hiring and retaining a frontline development officer than a researcher, since the market for someone who could close big gifts had been very competitive.  “The harsh reality for researchers is that they stay and not moving much,” she explained and as a result “dollars will never go to a researcher’s job unless he or she is doing something exceptional”.  She also added “the bottom line of an organization is directly and immediately affected by frontline fundraisers but never by researchers”.  These comments provoked outrage from the audience, as expected.  “Sounded like we were being punished by our loyalty.  Is it true that the only way to move up is to threaten our bosses and start looking around?” asked one audience member.  The answer was yes.  Both presenters had stepped out of their comfort zones and took risks to advance their careers.  For example, Shelby had volunteered to do donor visits and annual donor events. Because of her front-line experience, she was able to make changes and run the research division completely different and this made her stand out.  Incidentally, both presenters didn’t have formal frontline fundraising in their career track at all.  David thought that what gave a researcher an edge, when it came to moving up to the leadership role, was the understanding of the advancement operation as a whole, thus making it easier for a researcher to design and operationalize strategy.  “Researchers are in perfect position to be leaders in campaign planning,” added Shelby. 

Both presenters agreed that there was definitely a trend for advancement services to move towards more accountability and information based decision making as well as towards the science of fundraising. Having a research background provides us with a great foundation if one aspires to move into an advancement management role. 

One other important tip that they mentioned is that researchers need to improve their presentation skills. Even if a Major Gift career is not required for someone to move up the track, it’s nice to have the ability to present your case and talk about the organization at a higher level.  The ability to network beyond the research world (such as attending  AFP or CASE conferences) also helps to create opportunities to move either vertically or horizontally.

Maybe some researchers are asking: what if some of us just don’t want to move into a leadership role. We enjoy what we do. Does this mean that we can stay in our comfort zone? What change would come if we stay in the researcher role? Well, read on then as many other suggestions follow.

August 8, second day of conference. 

The Canadians ended the first day of the conference by going  wild that night ().  We went to Captain James Crab House and experienced a Baltimore style crab shack experience where we sat around a brown-papered picnic table on a floating dock and had all-you-can-eat blue crabs and round of drinks courtesy of iwave).  I can tell you that the researchers present at the feast certainly went out of their comfort zones and went down and dirty with the crabs!  Guess what’s for breakfast the next day? Crab cake cheese quiche (yes I’m mentioning “crab” for the 5th time). Crabs also accompanied the first “APRA Talk” – a series of mock Ted talks on innovative ideas in prospect research. 

At one of these APRA Talk sessions, Valerie Anastasio from Boston Children’s Hospital Trust reviewed how prospect research had changed over the years (from micro-fiche to internet), and predicted that a lot of the quantitative and data-intensive part of the job would be replaced by vendors or computer generated information (woo, we are being replaced by machines!).  She wanted us to think “in the face of an information delivery landscape that is evolving rapidly, how will prospect researchers need to respond to ensure that our work continues to be integrated, strategic, and actionable?” 

As she left the discussion open ended, my answer  is that researchers need to become more like fundraisers.  We should not be viewed or operate as a service department in another building but more as team members in the Major Gift team as we deliver more qualitative and strategic recommendations in an advisory capacity.  As such, we need to learn more about frontline fundraising and equip ourselves with skills that complement our knowledge about donors (such as presentation and communication skills, and knowledge about relationship building).  Another possibility is for the research department  to become a central intelligent office, in terms of donor and market research, which would be as essential and valuable to non-profit organizations as the market research department is for the  for-profit organizations. 

As Jon mentioned on the first day, we as researchers should elevate ourselves from being “nice to have” to the “core business” of the organization.  This will require us not just to do research on our prospects and write profiles, but also to research and provide insights to understanding the world around us and what are customers and donors really want and care for.

I think it’s really timely that the theme of this issue of SCOOP is career related as it is obviously a hot issue in the whole prospect research community now.  Whether we are being replaced by machines or not, one sure thing is that our job is changing and we need to change with it.  I sometimes get the feeling that we became very removed from the excitement of the frontline.  We get consumed with processes and information so much that we forget why we are doing what we do. Just like frontline development officers, we are fundraisers.  We are facilitators of philanthropy. We connect philanthropists with causes.  We are making a difference.  And that’s a really good reason for us to get on our feet to do a happy dance!. 

To advance the profession of prospect research, we need to immerse ourselves in the culture of philanthropy and the causes we are serving and ask ourselves, what is my value in making this happen?  It may require us to learn more about the art of fundraising (in addition to what we know about information management) and to be closer to the causes.  If you think you can make a bigger difference by making changes to your job (i.e. become a leader, a consultant, a manager where you have more said) then you should go ahead and do it.  I agree that there is a comfort zone for researchers.  The comfort zone is data and information.  We need to move beyond processing data and information and look into ways of delivering data and information that can be valuable  to our causes.  As Jon Duschinsky put it: “This is a time of profound opportunity. For the work we do as prospect researchers will not just transform the organization we work for but also help us to take some real steps to change the world and to challenge ourselves”.

Leveraging Events for Prospecting

Going from a large non-profit organization to a smaller one is a complete culture shift for a prospect researcher.  I had recently left my position at a secondary education institution to work at the Calgary Zoo.  It was a switch from a matured development team with three prospect researchers to a growing seven-member team and a one-person research shop. 

While I enjoyed establishing the research practice for the first time for an organization and being close to the cause that I loved, I also discovered that you get pulled into all kinds of fundraising activities that can certainly be distracting but extremely useful (for prospecting) at the same time. Very quickly, I found myself organizing events for the opening of the zoo’s new $25 million penguin exhibit. 

Zoos are often viewed as attractions.  Modern zoos, however, have made conservation and species protection their number one mission.  One of our goals is to connect the urban population (especially children) with nature while managing the reproduction of endangered species either on the zoo grounds or through outreach programs in the wild.  Hence, one of the challenges of the Development department is to connect people with our real cause so they stop perceiving us as “Disney World”. 
 
I realized that although I might not be doing the regular prospect research work at my desk, I could still create prospecting opportunities with this unique occasion.  The team had segmented our constituent base and scheduled three or four preview private tours for each group.  I took ownership of couple events aimed at engaging community leaders who had not supported the zoo before.  The result was not only the successful opening of a new zoo exhibit, we were also able to bring a dozen philanthropists and industry leaders and their families to the zoo, engage them in a guided tour with our head of conservation and host them at a brunch where they were strategically seated with one or two members from the zoo’s leadership team.

Working the event gave me all sorts of information that I would have never been able to find from secondary sources i.e. family information (especially about children and grand children), personal contact information, personal interests etc.  By the end of the event, Board members are motivated by the success of connecting prospects they know with the zoo and Development Officers are busy with follow ups and new cultivation plans.

I remember the time when I was desperately trying to find linkage to a prospect or to propose engagement opportunities.  As far as events are concerned, researchers are often in the reactive role of preparing event and attendee profiles. I suggest that we should proactively be involved in doing prospecting events from the planning stage! Of course, this doesn’t mean that every prospect researcher needs to become an event organizer (a scary thought indeed!).  The research shop could, however, be more involved in some “prospecting” events where researchers can conduct first-hand research in stead of taking a back-seat. Here is a summary of things prospect researchers can do to leverage events for prospecting:

Dedicated Prospecting Event
Although not everyone has penguins or any other cute, exotic and endangered animals to attract people, you may have a high-profiled speaker or a celebrity attended event which you can leverage to bring in brand new prospects.  You need to make sure that the event is unique and speaks to the mission and vision of the organization.  It’s useful to segment the database and plan a whole year of events in advance and designated one event for prospecting. Prospect researchers should own the invitation lists and provide input and strategies on who to invite. 

Board & Leadership Involvement

Before our event, we had just completed a peer review session with our board (where a prospect list was screened by board members). So we asked the board to help us invite the prospects they had identified.  As the event was targeted at prospects we didn’t know, help from the board was crucial to make sure that a group of quality prospects attended and were hosted properly.  Prospect researchers should be involved in the seating arrangements and providing attendee profiles, preferably in a briefing meeting to the leadership team who will be seated strategically with prospects.  While small to medium sized non-profits can do this easily, I can see challenges with bigger institutions where prospect researchers rarely interact with board and leadership.  It certainly is a big time-saver and much more effective if prospect researchers can be face-to-face with the leadership team when presenting the seating chart and talking about prospects instead of filling out lengthy prospect briefings that are not guaranteed to be viewed.    

Meet & Greet Guests

I found it useful for the researcher to be at the reception table (or parking lot) checking off names as guests come in for any development related event.  If you are not the organizer of the event, you can volunteer for this role. Being a greeter enables the researcher to meet every guest while freeing up Development Officers to work the room. Meeting prospects in person can also provide a wealth of information from family composition to personal disposition which are all valuable when making strategic comments and suggestions in research reports. 

Event Follow Up
Last but not least, researchers should follow up with team members and leadership about conversations and interactions with guests and ensure that everything is recorded in the database.  A successful prospecting event can immediately affect the pipeline. Researchers need to follow up with account assignment/clearance and adjustment of solicitation strategies accordingly.

While many of us are adopting a more proactive approach to prospect research, we also need to recognize that being proactive means that we could do some “field work” along side of frontline fundraisers.  Researchers should be more integrated into all fundraising activities and be in the driver’s seat for prospecting initiatives. 

For those of us in smaller research shops, although we may have to pitch in from time to time on projects outside our research duties, we are more empowered and flexible to promote the researcher’s role as a partner in fundraising as well as creating and testing new prospecting practices.