Campaign Solutions works with charities and not for profits to undertake research projects in a variety of ways. Ultimately, the goal is to help clients find their best major gift prospects. We listen to your needs to devise the right strategy for you.
Why Undertake Research?
- Your charity is now well established and has built up a strong database of supporters. It is time and makes sense to have a wider array of strategies to seek to maximise income.
- Wealth has increased significantly in Ireland. Much of this is below the radar. In addition to the more obvious wealth, Tier 2 and 3 wealth is a key area of expertise of Campaign Solutions.
- Research cuts down on your fundraising costs. You can focus on making the right ask of the right people. As one successful Irish senior charity executive put it “fundraising is 90% research”.
- Good research prevents you from contacting people who aren’t interested or who don’t have major gift capacity.
- Prospect research is perfectly lawful under GDPR as long as it’s done the right way. Research focuses on publicly available information on aspects such as property ownership, shareholding and business affiliations. It helps you identify the fraction of your pool of supporters who might be able to give a bigger gift.
- Ultimately, it’s about raising more money to enable your charity do even more amazing work to achieve its key goals.
The research service can be delivered in a number of ways:
Dedicated Research support
Working directly with your charity part-time for a defined period of time to undertake excellent research to support your major gift fundraising and planning. This is more suited to larger organisations and those with diversified fundraising streams or charities preparing a capital campaign requiring major gifts.
Reports
Profiles, Snapshots and Wealth & Philanthropy reports – the formats are based on experience and client feedback to match your needs.
Wealth screenings
Find hidden gems on your database. Note: we rarely scan full databases. A Privacy Impact Assessment precedes any work undertaken. See PIA section below.
Snapshots (presented in Microsoft Excel format) then provide details on your individual supporters that have been matched in our Wealth Screening. They contain details of relevant attributes held for each record. Details can include:
- Name
- Address (address supplied by you)
- Wealth band
- Short bio which could include e.g. company directorships, shareholdings, asset sales
- Known philanthropy
Bespoke Research and Data Mining
Campaign Solutions can, where pertinent, provide information on supporters not matched against the Campaign Solutions database but where there is publicly available information, e.g. a simple company bio or LinkedIn profile link. Research takes time and requires accuracy, precision and a sixth sense to maximise the benefits of doing so. Campaign Solutions provides this. A professional researcher brings a clear focus on how and what information is needed (data minimisation is important).
Ongoing Media Review
This is useful in particular for universities and Institutes of Technology. Campaign Solutions identifies graduates who are doing well in the news and through online research. This process can also identify quirky stories and bios of graduates for inclusion in e.g. newsletters or alumni magazines. Other local wealth can also be identified that may be of relevance to the organisation.
Guided Group Discussions
Campaign Solutions can work with a panel of people or a fundraising committee to help tease out possible connections and links which might not otherwise emerge. This is especially important for campaigns when trying to identify names to match against different gift table amounts. Many campaigns can start well but ultimately fail for a lack of strong potential donor candidates.
You may also be interested in learning more about GDPR and best practice in prospect research. Some excellent articles are included here.
The full Campaign Solutions privacy policy is available to view here