Yacht Harbor by Bev Sykes

This post is the third of five in a series about the differences between domestic and international prospect research. For previous posts in the series, please see Part 1 and Part 2.

Checking your assumptions.

When a researcher estimates a prospect’s level of wealth, that estimate is based on a set of assumptions about how HNWIs allocate their assets. Researchers in the United States base their estimates on asset allocation trends among HNWIs in that country. Those same assumptions also can be used effectively for assessing wealth in a handful of other countries, such as Canada and the UK.

Those assumptions won’t necessarily work when looking at prospects in other countries, however. Why?

One formula does not fit all.

Asset allocations can vary widely from country to country. As a result, the wealth estimate formulas used for prospects in the United States, Canada, and UK may not work for prospects in other countries where asset allocations are very different.

To get the best estimate of wealth, a skilled international prospect researcher needs to have:

• a solid understanding of wealth trends in countries around the world
• the ability to tweak in-house capacity formulas to reflect asset allocation trends in various countries

Without these abilities, a researcher may unintentionally present a skewed impression of a prospect’s wealth. Sending a fundraiser around the world to visit with prospects under misguided pretenses… well, no one wants that.

The well-prepared international prospect researcher

Researchers can only acquire these skills if they have enough time to

• monitor new reports on wealth trends on a regular basis
• understand where capacity formulas need to be modified
• create new capacity formulas for each of those identified places

This work is important to international fundraising success, but it takes time. It is not the kind of activity that can be done effectively on deadline. Unfortunately, many researchers just do not have adequate time in their work schedules to allow for this type of ongoing study and systems management.

What is the situation in your organization?

Do the researchers have a solid understanding of international wealth trends? Do they have time to explore the possible need for country-specific capacity formulas? Will they be ready for your next international fundraising trip?

]]> http://www.ifintelligence.com/2013/06/12/how-international-prospect-research-is-unique-part-3/feed/ 0 http://www.ifintelligence.com/2013/06/05/how-international-prospect-research-is-unique-part-2/ http://www.ifintelligence.com/2013/06/05/how-international-prospect-research-is-unique-part-2/#comments Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:00:22 +0000 Beth Bandy http://www.ifintelligence.com/?p=3154

Japanese-English dictionary by Takako Tominaga

Language barriers often create the impression that prospect information is just not available in a particular country. In reality, the information may be available — just not in English. As I briefly noted in my last post, the ability to explore material in languages other than English is essential for successful international prospect research.  This post looks at that idea in a little more depth and highlights some of the language skills and strategies successful international prospect researchers need to have.

Research in other languages

An ability to read languages other than English is very helpful for international prospect researchers. In my case, for instance, I have reading ability in the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese). I also have studied Chinese and, because my work increasingly involves researching prospects in Russia, have started studying Russian this year. All of these language skills help me scan articles and websites quickly to find the material I need. Any prospect researcher with skills in languages other than English has an advantage when researching prospects outside of English-speaking countries.

That said, researchers can use a set of proven research techniques to find information in languages with which they are not familiar.  These techniques include, among other things, conducting keyword searches in local languages, using input tools for typing and translating words in languages that do not use the Latin alphabet, and navigating online materials and electronic reports using certain automated translation tools.

Learning these techniques takes practice. Even a prospect researcher with a lot of domestic (i.e., English-language) research experience will still need time to master these techniques, which are not required for researching prospects in the US or other English-speaking countries. As I mentioned in an earlier post, allowing researchers time to gain these specialized skills is a key part of successful international fundraising.

Do your researchers have these skills already? Will they have enough time to prepare for your next international fundraising trip?

Coming up

The next post in this series will look at the differences in asset allocations from country to country and how those differences can impact your assessment of a prospect’s ability to give.

Researching prospects who live in the United States (and to some extent, in Canada and the UK) is a very different activity from researching prospects in other parts of the world. While researchers may look for the same kinds of information about wealth and philanthropic activity,  the strategies and techniques for finding these details can be quite different.

Why? There are five main reasons. I will introduce each of them, starting with today’s post.

Finding data at the source

The first main difference involves the sources used for international research. The large databases that we often use for US-based research, which allow quick and convenient searches for real estate holdings, board memberships, and corporate ownership information in one place, generally — with a few exceptions — do not exist outside of the US. The lack of such resources often gives the false impression that information is not available.

The trick to finding such details is to go to the original source. I start by asking questions: Who collects the data I need? National government? City government? Private research organization? Do they share the data online?

The answers to these questions will be different from prospect to prospect and country to country. Some types of information, such as real estate transaction data, may be available at the state or provincial level in some places and at the municipal level in others. That data sometimes may be available with the names of owners, and sometimes owners will not be disclosed, due to local privacy laws, which can vary from city to city. (It’s important to know where to look for back-up information to fill in any gaps.) On top of these differences, the rules that govern data availability, and the technologies that enable the sharing of such data, change all the time.

Knowing where to look takes experience, study of the country where a prospect lives, and a commitment to ongoing professional development. For these reasons, I spend a lot of time doing background reading and research to build my knowledge base. Those exercises pay off when I am working on client projects.

Finding the appropriate data usually involves searching in a prospect’s local language — a process that involves special techniques and tools. I’ll discuss language and international prospect research in my next post.

Many of IFI’s clients have a fiscal year that ends either on June 30 or July 31.  Looking to the year ahead, some of them are interested in launching international prospect screening projects or looking for lost alumni around the world. Others need help exploring the feasibility of fundraising in particular countries or want full prospect research profiles in preparation for global travel. I will be working with them via email and Skype this week to finalize and schedule their projects, which will roll out in July and August.

Over the last several months, I have been preparing campaign profiles for the headmaster of an independent school in the United States. I will spend some time this week doing more research for this project, which will be finished by the end of next week.

June starts  in just a few days. That means it’s time to prep the next issue of IFI’s monthly newsletter. Would you like to receive your own copy? If so, please join the IFI email list, and I will send it to you on Monday, 3 June.

For those of you who are just returning to work after a long Memorial Day weekend, welcome back! What are you working on this week?

]]> http://www.ifintelligence.com/2013/05/28/coming-up-at-ifi-this-week/feed/ 0 http://www.ifintelligence.com/2013/04/01/global-news-roundup-for-prospect-researchers/ http://www.ifintelligence.com/2013/04/01/global-news-roundup-for-prospect-researchers/#comments Mon, 01 Apr 2013 10:43:33 +0000 Beth Bandy http://www.ifintelligence.com/?p=3168

International prospect research news for 1 April 2013

IFI’s 1 April 2013 round-up of global news stories for international prospect researchers.

Storified by International Fundraising Intelligence LLC· Mon, Apr 01 2013 03:39:33

Why are customized classes needed? There are two main reasons.

First, every institution has a different geographic focus for international fundraising efforts. When I teach webinars and conference workshops, I have cover international prospect research techniques and strategies in a broad way, in order to provide information of interest to a wide range of researchers with prospects in countries all over the world. In customized classes, however, I will be able to go into depth about the research resources and strategies most useful for the countries where my students will be focusing their efforts.

Second, the international prospect research experience of researchers varies widely. These customized, small group classes will let me tailor instruction to the professional development needs of my students in a way that is just not possible in a larger class or webinar setting.

My first round of customized classes will start later this month. I will be teaching a series of four classes for a university prospect research office here in the US.

Would your research office benefit from customized training in international prospect research? If so, I would love to hear from you. Please send me an email to receive more information.

Image: Chalkboard by Lewisr1 http://www.flickr.com/photos/51597203@N03/4796866219/