These are trying times. The Covid-19 Pandemic has altered our lives.  My hope is that you are taking every precaution to stay healthy and that you, your loved ones and colleagues are safe.

Nonprofit development professionals are transitioning from offices to working remotely as part of a global effort to flatten the curve and stop the spread of Covid-19.

I offer this post as a way to share resources, tips and ideas to help current WealthEngine clients leverage the powerful wealth intelligence tools that you can access from home. 

I will try to add actionable tips and resources to this blog over the coming days and hope that you will share your thoughts, tips, ideas, challenges and experiences through comments. To start this off, here are a few free resources that are included in your WE subscription. 

WE Knowledge Base. WE offer a terrific series of short training videos  and articles that provide self-guided training, on your schedule at your pace. You can access these resources by going to the WE Knowledge Base in your account. With the recent roll-out of WE9, our new platform, WE introduced “tags” to give you a powerful new tool to segment your best donors and prospects. The KB article on Nonprofit: Filters and Tags is a must read.

WE Weekly Training Courses. To keep up-to-speed, and learn new ways to leverage the power of our platform of our platform, WE offer a series of free group client courses. (click the link or search Help for WealthEngine Client Courses In WE9”). These courses are offered Monday through Friday. They are short and cover a range of topics. You can also sign up for a Q&A with the trainer after the session completes.

WE Webinars. WE also offer a series of online webinars and replay videos covering a variety of topics, like understanding ratings and scores, building a mid-level donor program and segmenting your results. To sign up, go to WE Webinars.

In addition to WE resources, I highly recommend that you join PRSPCT-L to learn more about the field wealth intelligence (prospect research, screening, prospecting, analytics and predictive modeling and much more). PRSPCT-L is a free list-serve sponsored by the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA).  Thousands of professional prospect researchers share knowledge, resources and respond to each other’s’ questions about prospect research and other facets of wealth intelligence.

Above all, stay safe! – Dave Chase, CEO of Chase Solutions Inc. and WealthEngine Partner (email Dave).

Prospect Research

 On July 1, 2018, Chase Solutions Inc. retired our original domain donorresearch.com and moved to prospectresearch.com. I’ve been after the prospectresearch.com domain since 1997. Twenty-one years!

Here’s the story.

I began doing prospect research in 1995. The local hospital, on Cape Cod, wanted to know who owned all the million-dollar waterfront homes. They were in the quiet phase of an $8 million capital campaign. The nineteenth prospect, that I found, gave a $2.5 million naming gift. I was now, solidly, in the prospect research business. Didn’t know it existed before that, but I love this business – and especially my nonprofit clients. They are truly awesome.

In 1997, I changed the name of my corporation and business to Chase Solutions Inc. The underlying corporation was formed in 2001 and operated as Fidelity Real Estate (commercial real estate brokerage and consulting) and, from 1995 to 1997, d/b/a Chase Solutions.

Our first website went live in 1997. The site was hosted by a local ISP and had a url of capecod.net/chase. Hey, it was early in the world of websites!

Two years later. In 1999, I bought the domain donorresearch.com and moved my content to our home for the past 21 years.

I wanted to buy prospectresearch.com, but it was already spoken for. Bummer! Prospectresearch.com is THE DOMAIN for our industry, prospect research. If there was a service called back ordering in 1999, I didn’t know about it.

In 2002, I discovered backordering and immediately put prospectresearch.com on backorder (first through SnapNames, then DomainTools and finally GoDaddy).

Fast forward to June 2018. On June 20th, 2018, GoDaddy notified me that “We grabbed PROSPECTRESEARCH.COM for you!” Yeah baby. Made my day! The domain had been owned by Blackbaud. Apparently, they decided to not renew.

On July 1st, 2018, my web team moved all content to our new home prospectresearch.com.

Over the years, I have acquired 80+ domains. Most of them pointed to donorresearch.com and now point to prospectresearch.com. These include prospectresearch.biz, prospectresearch.info, prospectresearch.us, prospectresearchconsultants.com, prospectresearchers.com, and many more.

The domain, prospectresearch.com, says it all. It is the domain name that tells the world that you are engaged in prospect research. Though I occasionally do prospect research for for-profit companies, 99% of my clients are a nonprofit organization. For me, prospect research is wealth intelligence for philanthropy.

As prospect researchers, we provide vital market intelligence to further fundraising. Prospect research gathers information about people, corporations and funders, who can support your philanthropic mission. We generate profiles with biographical, contact, professional and philanthropic information. We work with you to screen your donor database and rank everyone for philanthropic propensity and estimated capacity, provide analytics and modeling to find people who look like your top donors, and proactively find new donors and funders.

Welcome to our world, prospectresearch.com! – Dave Chase, founder, and CEO

What is Prospect Research?

PROSPECT RESEARCH FAQs


Prospect research is not rocket science, or I would not be doing it! It is often more of an art than a science. That said, there are important technical skills needed. They can be acquired through education and practice. Certain attributes are beneficial in making a top-level prospect researcher. Analytical, writing, and reading skills are essential. Experience is critical. Tenacity (never give up) and curiosity are very important. The longer you do prospect research, the better you get.

A high performing researcher develops an intuition that helps guide the process and success of their work. Some prospect researchers can “smell” old money with very little evidence. They can then direct their focus to ferret out the nuggets that will set up their major gift team in a successful solicitation. The prospect research team (or person – or half person) should be an integral and highly valued member of the development team at your non-profit.

Prospect researchers should proactively review significant gift portfolios and feed those portfolios with new, qualified, prospects on a regular basis. They should be a trusted partner in major gift and campaign meetings. They should be well-funded with subscription resources and a significant investment in their professional development.

Prospect research is about actionable wealth intelligence. When I started in prospect research, twenty-three years ago, my local hospital wanted to know who owned the million-dollar waterfront homes on Cape Cod. The nineteenth prospect that I identified gave a $2.5 million naming gift. That began a journey that led me to change the focus of my business from selling commercial real estate to supporting philanthropy. I have never looked back. I love my clients and their missions.

Here is a tiny bit of what I have learned along the way. Hope you find it helpful! – Dave Chase, CEO, Chase Solutions Inc.

What is prospect research?

Prospect research is market research for fundraising. High performing businesses focus on market research to understand what motivates customers and develop strategies to sell to them. High performing charitable organizations engage in prospect research to understand their donors and develop strategies to engage them in philanthropy. One of my favorite quotes summarizes the essence of prospect research, “The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows.” – Aristotle Onassis

Types of Prospect research 

  • Ad hoc research to find specific information like telephone numbers and addresses.
  • Prospect briefs to provide snapshot information for meetings, calls or events.
  • In-Depth prospect research to provide detailed biographical, wealth, philanthropic, connection and motivational information.
  • Wealth screening to identify, rate and rank large groups of constituents in your database.
  • Prospecting for new prospects outside your database with characteristics similar to your donors.
  • Identifying board prospects.
  • Conducting analytics and predictive modeling to identify the characteristics of your top donors and find new prospects, or lower performing donors, who look like them.
  • Performing due diligence to ensure no adverse information is linked to naming gift donor or board prospect.

Why do we do prospect research?

To identify, qualify, rank and rate for fundraising, identify estimated giving capacity, identify motivations and likely approaches for solicitation and prioritize who is the most likely candidate for your major gift, an annual gift, campaign, board membership, event, and planned giving programs.

Who does prospect research?

Ideally, a dedicated prospect researcher on your staff, a professional prospect research consultant, or a professional freelance prospect researcher. We all do prospect research to some degree. A major gift officer who does a Google search for a donor. A chief development officer who looks up a prospect in WealthEngine. An administrative assistant checking Whitepages.com to find a donor’s phone number.

When should you do prospect research?

Wealth screenings on full donor database are typically done every two to three years for high performing organizations. Patient screenings are done daily for large hospitals and less frequently for smaller hospitals. Schools screen incoming parents and grandparents, reunion groups and event attendees annually. In-depth prospect research should occur when a major gift prospect is identified, qualified and moved into solicitation stage.

What can prospect research find?

Prospect research, including screening and data appends, can find contact information, business information.

  • Sales and values
  • Real estate & stock holdings
  • Political giving & charitable giving
  • Board memberships
  • Connections to other people and organizations
  • Biographical information & family information
  • Old money & inheritances
  • Lifestyles and interests
  • Marriages & Divorces
  • Net worth, business value estimates & income estimates.
  • Actual income for top officers of non-profits and publicly held companies, giving capacity estimates, propensity to give ratings, planned giving ratings and much more.
  • Estimated giving capacity based on visible assets, income and/or net worth estimates (developing ask amounts requires review of what is found through prospect research, review of everything the organization knows about them, and collaboration with gift officer, who should make final determination).

What can prospect research not find?

There are limits as to what prospect researchers can find. Below are examples of what a researcher cannot find.

  • Actual net worth
  • All giving to charities (can find some of what is published, but confirming is difficult)
  • Most stock holdings (can find for directors, top officers, and folks owning 10% or more of the stock)
  • Protected credit and personal data (unless you have an allowable use)
  • Private debt (unless it is recorded as a mortgage)
  • Actual income (except top non-profit and publicly held company executives), and the actual value of most privately owned businesses

It can be hard to find information on people who go to lengths to hide their assets. Beneficiaries of trusts, limited partners, stockholders in private corporations, and minority stockholders in public corporations, are rarely identifiable. The prospect may be long retired, a reclusive heir of a vast family fortune, or merely an individual with minimal assets and a low public profile. These, along with very high-profile prospects, are the most time-consuming profiles because we need to exhaust every possible data source.

How do you do prospect research?

There are a number of prospect research resources on my Resources Page. These include free resources like Prspct-L (the awesome discussion group for our industry), SEC filings and real estate assessor databases (shout out to the phenomenal Christina Pulawski). There are also paid resources like WealthEngine, Ancestry.com (one of my personal favorites) and Nexis® for Development Professionals.

Prospect research takes time. In-depth profiles can take three to four hours. Very detailed profiles, like looking for old money, can take ten to fifteen hours. Investment in professional development and training is crucial. Join professional groups like APRA. Go to annual conferences, log into the webinars, attend regional events, workshops and seminars. Take advantage of vendor training, webinars, and videos offered by your vendors. WealthEngine, DonorSearch, iWave, and Blackbaud to learn their products and how to do prospect research.

How do I get started in prospect research?

I get this question a lot. From folks who want to work for a non-profit, as a prospect researcher, and current prospect researchers who wish to break into freelance prospect research.

Networking, learning, and experience are the three key ingredients. Begin by joining APRA, NEDRA, a local philanthropy group (like a regional AHP group – like NEAHP, or AFP chapter, and signing up for Prspct-L. To gain experience, you could try volunteering as a prospect researcher for a favorite organization.

How do I hire a prospect researcher, freelance prospect researcher or consultant?

Prspct-L is the place to start. The vast majority of professionals involved in prospect research, subscribe to Prspct-L. You can also post on various job boards, like APRA and NEDRA. In addition to Prspct-L, freelancers and consultants can be found by Googling freelance prospect research or prospect research consultants.

If you’re interested in prospect research and are looking for a consultation, feel free to contact us today!