Technical Field Guide
Introduction
“There’s gold in them thar hills!” Once a rallying cry for 1800s prospectors, this phrase now fits a new kind of treasure hunt: digging through data for donor insights. First shouted by Dr. Matthew Stephenson (not Twain!), it urged people to look for value right where they stood. Today, prospect researchers do the same…only the hills are spreadsheets, endless tabs, and digitally entangled tools.
This guide is your scrappy survival kit for the wild world of philanthropic research. Inside: practical tips for multi-platform sleuthing, budget hacks, keyboard wizardry, light scripting, automation, and decoding data brokers. Whether you’re chasing wealth, connections, or clarity, this is your map to finding gold in the data mines (and a way to do so on the cheap).
You’ll learn how to build donor personas and affinity scores, track engagement across multiple channels, and evaluate executive compensation and company affiliations. We’ll explore how to mine Form 990s and foundation databases, and how to make judgment calls when the data gets fuzzy. You’ll also get a deep dive into the tools of the trade: from CRMs like Salesforce and Blackbaud to platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Lexis Nexis, iWave, and Kaleidoscope.
For solo researchers, you may where multiple hats: prospect management, database admin, etc. This guide aims to be comprehensive enough that you could open up a new prospect development division in a non-profit or institution, and have all the tools you need to do it yourself, hire team members, and manage projects. Given the rapidly changing nature of the field, the field guide is intended to be updated annually. The first iteration may be more like a pamphlet with big dreams of being a full book, but we all have to start somewhere, right?
Field Guide Outline ideas
Section I: Getting Started in Prospect Research
Chapter 1: Trailheads — Career Paths in Prospect Research
- Day-to-day realities
- Entry points and growth paths
- Skills and specializations
- Org charts & responsibilities
Chapter 2: Mapping the Terrain — Tools of the Trade
- Overview of key platforms
- Free vs. paid resources
- Workflow impact
Section II: Managing a Research Shop
Chapter 3: Your New Shop
- Prospect management vs. Prospect research vs. Data team
- Project management + project management systems
Chapter 4: Hiring, Interviews, Soft Skills
- Hiring
- Technical interviews
- Communication
Chapter 5: Professional Development
- Training
- Professional associations and conferences
- Certs and degrees
Chapter 6: Compliance & Legal Landscape
- For different niches
- Ethics
Section III: Classic Research Strategies
Chapter 7: Foundation Research — Mining 990s
- Understanding Form 990s
- Using Foundation Directory Online and similar tools
- Identifying institutional giving trends
- Evaluating foundation capacity and priorities
Chapter 8: Company Research and Executive Compensation
- Public vs. private company data
- Sources for executive pay and equity holdings
- Evaluating corporate affiliations and influence
- Red flags and wealth indicators
Chapter 9: Writing Profiles
- …
Chapter 10: Handling Research Requests
- …
Section IV: Software Tools and Platforms
Chapter 13: Lexis Nexis — Deep Dives into Public Records
- Wealth indicators
- Legal and business data
- Ethical considerations
Chapter 14: iWave — Multi-Source Prospecting
- Capacity ratings
- Real estate, donations, and affiliations
- Custom scoring models
Chapter 15: AI Agents and LLMs — The New Frontier
- Use of generative AI in research
- Automating tasks and summarization
- Risks, accuracy, and ethical use
Chapter 16: Free Alternatives for Small Shops / Solo Researchers
- Open-source software
- Limitations and opportunities
Chapter 17: Building a Proactive Alerts-Driven Observatory
- Platform-specific alerts
- Sifting strategies
- Workflow, alert management
Section V: Data Management, Analytics, and IT Infrastructure
Chapter 18: Data Integrity and Hygiene — Keeping the Camp Clean
- Common data issues
- Maintenance workflows
- Governance and documentation
Chapter 19: Information Science — When You’re the One-Stop Shop
- Organizing and retrieving data
- Metadata and taxonomy basics
- Building internal knowledge systems
- IT systems
Chapter 20: Analytics
- Dashboards
- Metrics
Chapter 21: Personas and Affinity Scores — Profiling the Donor Landscape
- Affinity score construction
- Donor personas and use cases
- Data challenges and edge cases
- Experiential, communication, philanthropic, volunteer categories
- Turning engagement into insights
- Data engineering challenges