Fushimi Inari by Ryan Bailey (rombocket)

Fushimi Inari by Ryan Bailey

In my last few posts, I have explored three things that make international prospect research different from domestic research prospects in US, Canada, and UK. These things are data sources, language barriers, and asset allocations.

Today, I am looking at a fourth difference: philanthropy.

Prospect researchers often try to find evidence of a donor’s gifts to other organizations. That information can illuminate a donor’s range of philanthropic interests. It also can give clues about the scope of a donor’s giving.  In the United States, where many nonprofit organizations post online donor rolls and regularly publicize large gifts, this type of research is fairly easy to conduct.

Outside of the United States and a handful of other countries, however, finding signs of individual philanthropy can be a challenge. Why?

  • Charitable organizations may not have an incentive to publish donor rolls or otherwise be transparent about financial maters. This situation often appears in countries where there are no requirements for charitable organizations to disclose financial information, or where such requirements are very limited.
  • Donor records may not be in a format that is easily accessible online. For example, please see the photo at the top of this post. Taken at the Fushimi Inari temple in Japan, these orange gates — or torii — guide visitors to and from the temple. On the way to the temple, visitors see only blank posts. Heading the other way, however, they see these inscriptions, which are the names of the individuals who gave the torii and the dates of their donations. Clearly, philanthropy is alive and well here, but wooden gates on Mt. Inari are not easily searchable from an office in New York City.
  • Your prospect may think of philanthropy as a very private activity to be undertaken anonymously.

There are other reasons, as well, but these are the most common ones I encounter.

To research donor history efficiently, it is important to know where to look and to know what the information limitations might be. Spending hours looking for donor information that does not exist online is not productive. I need to know where to look for signs of philanthropy, when to stop looking, and contextual information that will help my clients understand more about their international donors even when hard numbers about donations are not available. These insights come from ongoing study of global charity regulations, as well as philanthropy trends and reports. Some of these materials are available in English, while others are in local languages.