by Robert Fedderson | Feb 6, 2019 | Power User Profile, Prospect Research
Whitney Neilson is a Stewardship and Donor Engagement Officer at Stevenson Memorial Hospital Foundation in Alliston, Ontario. Whitney uses CharityCAN to conduct research on current and prospective donors. Whitney and the Stevenson team are long time CharityCAN users and we are proud to feature Whitney in our latest Power User Profile.
Use
I use CharityCAN as the starting point for all of my prospect research. Typically, I start with the Integrated Search to see if I can find the right person. I look at their giving history through their donation records, see if they’ve given politically, check their corporate history, and any charity boards they sit on. Then I move to Household Data (if I have their postal code, address, or city at least) to see the estimated worth of their home, as well as the average income in that area. If I then feel this person is a potential donor, I add their profile to my list of prospect profiles. I also use the Integrated Search to update research that was done in the past on current donors and prospects.
Features
My favourite things about CharityCAN are the Household Data tool and the Integrated Search. Household data allows me to quickly see household net worth, income levels and average donation amount. This is excellent for helping to determine capacity in a way that I can’t find elsewhere. Integrated Search allows me to sea person’s donation records, public sector salary, charity boards, etc. all on one screen in, rather than searching them individually like in some other tools I use.
Data
Household Data, ZoomInfo, Donation Records, and Public Sector Salaries are the datasets I use the most.
In Action
One story that comes to mind is a donor who had been giving at the $1,000 level for a couple of years. CharityCAN allowed me to discover this donor had been giving much larger donations to other organizations. I would never have been able to find these gifts elsewhere. We worked with the donor, engaged them, and were able to secure a six-figure gift this year, with another six-figure gift expected for next year. And both gifts support a project that we have been having trouble finding major donors for. This was a big win!
If you would like to be a featured power user email us at info@charitycan.ca!
by Robert Fedderson | Jan 25, 2019 | Features, Guide, Prospect Research, Relationship Mapping
The ability to set a default organization is a new feature in CharityCAN that impacts both the prospect profile builder and relationship path searches. In this short guide, you will learn how to set a default organization and a few ways it can help you use CharityCAN more effectively.
How do I set a default organization?
There are two ways to set a default organization:
- Go to My Prospect Profiles and on the right side of the screen select Select Default Organization. Type in the name of any registered charity or profiled corporation to set it as your default organization. You will notice a list of suggested prospects will populate. Cool and super interesting right? I agree. More on this later.
- Go to Relationship Paths and type in the name of any registered charity or profiled corporation to set it as your default organization.
Okay, I’ve set a default organization. Now what?
Suggested Prospect Profiles
Now that you’ve set a default organization you will notice My Prospect Profiles looks a little different. Setting a default organization allows CharityCAN to suggest potentially interesting prospect profiles to you based on the strength of the connection to your default organization. If you are looking for new people to add to your pipeline, setting your organization as the default organization and looking through the profiles CharityCAN pushes to you is an awesome place to start.
Alternatively, you could set a granting foundation or corporate sponsor who has been a major friend to your organization as the default organization. CharityCAN will then suggest a list of profile with connections to the granting foundation or corporate sponsor.
Easier Relationship Path Searches
Once an organization has been set as the default organization it will auto-populate in the from section of all relationship path searches.
If you would like more information on this or have any questions please email us at info@charitycan.ca
by Robert Fedderson | Jan 2, 2019 | Features, Prospect Research, Relationship Mapping
Although the majority of giving in Canada is done by individual donors, charitable foundations are an important source of funding all Canadian fundraising organizations should consider. In this guide, you will learn how to use CharityCAN to effectively research, qualify, and connect with charitable foundations.
Research
First, we need to qualify a foundation as a prospect. If you are looking for a brand-new donor, head over to donation records and search for a foundation that has given to your cause in the past, in a dollar range that fits your parameters. If you already know the name of the foundation you would like to research, go to Integrated Search and select the Organization tab. Entering the name of the foundation in this search field, will return all of the information CharityCAN has on the foundation. From here, you can take a quick look at donation records and ZoomInfo contact information. For comprehensive research, however, we need to open their detailed Charity Report.
Qualify
The detailed Charity Report lets us review financials to make sure the prospect is in good shape to make a gift; the people on the board of directors so we can understand who the decision makers are; and, most importantly, their entire giving history. There is often a disconnect in the causes a foundation claims to fund in its stated purpose and the causes it funds. For this reason, reviewing giving history as opposed to simply reading a stated purpose or description is critical to successful foundation research.
The default view under Gifts returns all gifts the foundation has ever made. You can also use the drop down to view specific years. When reviewing gifts look at the size of the gifts, the categories they give to, and location of the gift recipients. If the foundation is giving in dollar ranges that make sense for you to pursue and to organizations with broadly similar missions to yours, they are well on their way to being a well-qualified prospect.
CharityCAN’s interactive gift visualization charts are useful at this stage. The charts quickly show the proportion of gifts going to certain causes and locations. You can also use CharityCAN’s gift visualization charts to drill down even further and determine the total dollar value of gifts to a specific cause, specific location or a specific cause in a specific location.
It is worth noting that foundation giving histories can be exported to excel and stored on your local donor management system. CharityCAN does not cap or restrict data exports and almost all data in CharityCAN can be exported.
Connect
After qualifying a foundation as legitimate prospect, use the Relationship Paths tool to see if your board has any connections to the foundation you can utilize in your approach. Relationship Paths searches our entire Relationship Graph to see if your board has connections to the board of the organization you are researching. In the search displayed below, I found 24 connections the Special Olympics Canada board has to the MLSE Foundation board.
When doing a Relationship Path search, it is worthwhile to look some of the other organizations you are connected to. In addition to the MLSE connection, this search also revealed connections to Tim Hortons, Tim Hortons Children’s Charities, The Justin Eves Foundation and RioCan.
CharityCAN’s foundation research tools give you the information you need to fundraise more effectively from Canadian granting foundations. Remember: use donation records to identify a new prospect, use the Integrated Search and the Analyst Report to qualify your prospect and then use Relationship Paths to search for connections you have to your prospect!
If you have any questions or would like to set up a quick demo of any of the features discussed, please do not hesitate to email us at info@charitycan.ca!
by Robert Fedderson | Aug 1, 2018 | Power User Profile, Prospect Research
Cristina Naccarato is an experienced prospect researcher at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and active member of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement Canada (APRA). Cristina first began using CharityCAN as a student at the University of Western Ontario (UWO) and made it a priority to advocate for a CharityCAN subscription when she began her position at AGO.
Use
I use CharityCAN in a variety of ways. It’s always the first place I go whenever I come across a new potential prospect. I put the name into the integrated search and use the results to guide the rest of my research. I find it provides a great overview of a prospect, but also gives me the ability to check the other data sets to find more information when necessary.
Features
I love Relationship Paths. I use it regularly to see how new prospects, or even foundation boards, are connected to our trustees. I’ve found a lot of great connections using the tool and it has helped my Major Gifts team get closer new prospects.
Data
I use the donation records every day. I find them super easy to customize and sort. I also love that they provide links to the source information.
In Action
CharityCAN has helped me with almost all of my “big wins!” Here is one of my favourite stories: I was doing research on a prospect and using the Charity Research tools I noticed a very large donation to a large Ontario university, but from what I could tell, this prospect had no other ties to the university. Further, all of the prospect’s giving was in Toronto and Montreal and this university is in neither of those cities. This lead me to do some further research where I found out the prospect made the donation to a specific school at the university. This lead me to uncover a cause the prospect has a strong affinity for.
This was a prospect we haven’t had any affiliation to in years, and we were in the middle of a campaign. An element of that campaign was a project that aligned very well with the affinity I uncovered by digging up info on the university donation. The prospect loved the idea I suggested, supported the project, and even ended up joining our board. This prospect (now donor and board member) has been very involved ever since. CharityCAN helped me uncover this interest and helped with all of the strategy that went into the ask.
If you would like to be a featured power user send us an email at info@charitycan.ca!
by Robert Fedderson | Jun 15, 2018 | Prospect Research, Relationship Mapping
The proximity principle suggests we form our strongest relationships with people close to us. This is fairly intuitive. Most of us would point to the people close to us – family, friends, neighbours, colleagues – as the strongest relationships in our lives. These relationships can be very influential. The way we think and act is strongly influenced by the people close to us. Our behaviour is, to a certain extent, dictated by the people around us.
Why is this relevant to a fundraising organization?
Fundraising organizations can leverage the proximity principle by looking at the people close to their donors. A major gift donor’s family, friends, neighbours and colleagues are influenced by the major gift donor and vice versa. They are close to each to other and they have formed strong, influential relationships.
How can we find people in close proximity to our donors?
Colleagues
In Canada, many major gift donors give both time and money to charities. They sit on charity boards and, in many cases, corporate boards. Realizing these connections is a powerful fundraising tool. Look at the boards your major gift donors sit on and then look at the other people on those boards. They have a relationship with your major gift donor and are likely influenced by your major gift donor. There is a good chance these people can become your next major donor.
Let’s take a look at some of the board connections of one of Canada’s most generous philanthropists, Gerald Schwartz. Note: this list includes historical and current board memberships.
Charity Boards:
- Sinai Health System
- Mount Sinai Hospital Employees’ Charity Trust
- Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies
- The Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman Foundation
- The TVOntario Foundation
- Canadian Society for Yad Vashem
- Heseg Foundation
Corporate Boards
- Indigo Books & Music Inc
- ONEX Corporation
- Bank of Nova Scotia
- Celestica Inc
- Constellation Brands Canada Inc
- Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp
- Scotia Mortgage Investment Corporation
Judging by these positions, Gerald Schwartz is connected to a number of people who will be of interest to a fundraising organization. Mapping these relationships will allow us to see who Mr. Schwartz is in closest “proximity” to and allow us to see if those connections are worth looking into further.
I generated this map using CharityCAN’s relationship map function and CRA and Corporate Canada data. Alternatively, this could be done by pulling CRA data and relevant management proxy circulars and manually creating a relationship map.
As we can see from this relationship map, there are a number of people in proximity to Gerald Schwartz who are plausible major gift prospects. This example illustrates how fruitful understanding who is in proximity to your major donors, board members, or any other friend of your organization can be.
Neighbours
Another way fundraisers can use proximity to find new prospects is by examining who lives close to their major donors. Postal code analysis is the easiest way to do this. Simply cross reference a new prospect’s postal code against your donor database and see if your prospect lives in the same neighbourhood as any of your major donors. This can be a valuable indicator of proximity influence as well a useful conversation starter.
CharityCAN’s postal code lookup tool can do this quickly, as well as show you important wealth indicators such as average dwelling value, discretionary income, and donations for that postal code. In the example below, I did a lookup on the postal code of a fictional major donor. In addition to the wealth indicators, this search shows me three other potential donors who live in the same neighbourhood as my major donor.
The above examples make a strong case that proximity research is prospect research time well spent. Looking at who is in proximity to our major gift donors can quickly generate a list of prospects worthy of further research. Finding out who your donors colleagues and neighbours are can be the first step to finding your next major gift donor.
