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May 8: Behind the Scores – The Untold Story of Data
Level: Intermediate
Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm EST, 12:00pm – 1:00 pm CST, 11:00am – 12:00pm MST, 10:00am – 11:00am PST
Speakers: David M. Lawson, Partner, TrueGivers, LLC, and Melissa Kwilosz, Assistant Vice President for Strategic Reporting and Analytics, Arizona State University Foundation
Track: Prospect Identification

This webinar will take you behind the scores where you will discover invaluable intelligence about your prospect’s capacity, affinity, and philanthropic propensity.  David Lawson, a Partner with TrueGivers, LLC, will show you  how to identify and qualify prospects using over 200 data elements including home equity, household economic stability, discretionary income, buying behavior, lifestyle, personal interests, and philanthropic activities.  Melissa Kwilosz, Assistant Vice President for Strategic Reporting and Analytics at the Arizona State University Foundation will discuss how she has used the data to not only find prospects missed by traditional wealth screening, but also to better match the interests of their constituents with ASU’s programs and projects.  If you want to hear the story the data behind all those scores has been wanting to tell you, then this webinar is for you.

Learn more and register today.

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APRA Online Solutions Showcase

Take advantage of complimentary webcasts — exclusive to APRA members

The APRA Online Solutions Showcase provides you with complimentary year-round learning, through webcasts provided by APRA’s valued partners. Complimentary to APRA members, the Online Solutions Showcase will provide you with solutions for current challenges you may be experiencing, insights into optimizing your prospect pipeline and access to practical fundraising and prospect research content.

Another day, another delay in the Blackbaud/Convio saga. My Google Alert set-up just for this unfolding drama took me to the page Blackbaud has set-up to cover the intended Convio acquisition:

What is the latest update?

Regarding the offer for Convio shareholders to tender their shares, on March 21, 2012, Blackbaud announced that it has extended the expiration of its cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of common stock of Convio to midnight, New York City Time, on Wednesday, April 4, 2012. The expiration date of the tender offer may only be extended in increments of no more than ten business days each, pursuant to the terms of the merger agreement between the companies.

Regarding the ongoing DoJ process, Blackbaud will continue to respond to informal requests by the DoJ to provide additional information about its business, discuss the proposed transaction and answer any additional questions raised by the DoJ staff. Blackbaud remains committed to working cooperatively with the DoJ as it conducts its review of the proposed acquisition and to refiling its Hart-Scott-Rodino Notification and Report as soon as appropriate.

Looks like Marc was a little ambitious when he said the deal would close in Q1. Notice the phrase “informal requests.” That’s not a small thing. Blackbaud does not want the dreaded “second request” which involves a much deeper look at their current and past business practices including the ultimate fate of product lines from previous acquisitions. This observation from a recent Nonprofit Times article captures the tight rope Blackbaud is walking:

“It looks like to me the issue isn’t so much the tender offer as it is getting through the DoJ process,” said James Nixon III, a partner with Waller Lansden in Nashville, Tenn., who practices in the areas of mergers and acquisitions. “The way it can work, you make the initial Hart-Scott filing with DoJ, they can request other information about the deal and companies on an informal basis. You’d rather keep on informal basis, try to get them comfortable with the deal. If you get a formal request, it requires a lot of document production, effort and money.”

While none of the sides will comment, insiders say the DoJ is looking at potential issues of monopoly when the two largest industry players attend [sic] to merge.

That sure sounds like the DoJ is considering a second request. Since I was on the Blackbaud acquisition page with FAQs I decided to look around and found what is the most frequently asked question in the industry:

What will happen with the products?

We recognize the biggest question for customers concerns the potential product decisions. Along with customer and pricing information, product roadmaps are among the most sensitive pieces of information for competitors and cannot be decided, or even discussed, by the two companies prior to the two companies becoming one. Suffice it to say that Blackbaud has a track record of supporting and continuing to develop acquired products or providing migration support for conversion in cases where that is the best option.

The second request will ask a LOT of questions about how they “supported,” “continued to develop,” and “provided migration support for conversion.” Reading this has to make Convio clients a little nervous because a number of them are using both the online engagement platform and Common Ground built on Salesforce. The first competes directly with both Blackbaud Sphere and Blackbaud NetCommunity. The second competes with e-Tapestry, Raiser’s Edge,  eCRM, and Altru.  I forgot to mention Convio also has Strategic One which overlaps with Target Analytics so the mention of “product roadmaps” would be more well-defined as “The Atlas of Blackbaud Products.”

Oh and there is the TeamRaiser vs. Friends Asking Friends event fundraising face-off. That will bring some old Kintera/Convio friends back together in the map room.

So let’s take a trip into the future (a distant future if the second request happens) and ponder what will happen once the deal is approved:

Step 1: Champagne will be poured. I’m guessing French given Chardon’s heritage.

Step 2:  Roll call will commence to determine who is still in the room. Sadly Vinay, Founder of Convio, will not be there having taken his “thanks for your ideas, we don’t need those anymore” money. Given how many people have already left Convio since the announcement of the deal (and interestingly just prior) I’m not sure who, other than the four Convio Execs that received employment contracts, will be there.

Step 3: Chardon will announce the plan. Wait you might say – this is when the roadmap meeting begins and everyone gets a chance to advocate for their product line – advocate for your product line you hope, right? Sorry, Chardon did not invest over $300 million not knowing exactly what he was going to do with Convio. If he did, he should be fired. It’s true he was the CFO, not the CTO, of MS-Office, but I still think he is enough of a techie to have figured out what he wants to keep and what he wants to “migrate.”

Step 4: An announcement goes out to clients, and everyone else who might be thinking of being a client, that talks about the amazing products that will come after careful study by the brain trust in Charleston. It will be carefully worded to keep clients hoping their product of choice will win (or at least survive through their current contract). Such wording will include as many vague, ambiguous, and veiled words and phrases as possible. Knowing the marketing team at Blackbaud, it’s already been written. This might actually be more of a cut and paste exercise, given the number of previous acquisitions.

Step 5: Steps 1-4 took about 48 hours. You don’t get to the fifth for at least 9-12 months. That is when an announcement comes that a couple of the most obvious choices have been made. Strategic One has been successfully integrated with Target Analytics is a layup, and something about how the TeamRaiser/Sphere/NetCommunity teams are all working together with a common goal to ensure the most money is raised (if you believe that, then you haven’t met engineers who love their products and salespeople who don’t like their competitors). There will be talk of integrations between the products. This was done very quickly with Team Approach and Sphere so I think they are already hard at work figuring out TeamRaiser’s connection to eCRM. You will have to ask clients how that integration worked out – based on other “integrations” I’m guessing not too well.

Step 6: This will be dragged out as long as clients allow. This is when they start telling you whether or not you will have to migrate to another Blackbaud product. The bigger you are (read revenue to Blackbaud) the more likely it is your hand will be held and your tears dried by a Blackbaud Care Representative. For others it will be “here’s the date your current product turns into a pumpkin.”

This product roadmap game is not unlike the game where you have to guess which cup has the ball under it except in this case it’s not a ball, it’s that product you depend on to do your work.

What makes all of this a very dangerous game for nonprofits is that it’s not like there is a golden product to be unveiled. Post-acquisition they will have the following platforms:

1. Infinity (.Net behemoth, takes years to implement and cost a whole lot of money – just ask the folks at The University of Michigan or the other early adopters who received an “early adopter credit”)
2. Raiser’s Edge (you have to carbon date the technology in this one, but you can get it hosted and enjoy your Citrix connection plus you get to add (i) to Raiser’s Edge)
3. E-Tapestry (private cloud Software-as-a-Service designed for small shops)
4. Convio Online (private cloud Software-as-a-Service)
5. Common Ground (Built on Salesforce.com)
6. Blackbaud Sphere (private cloud Software-as-a-Service)
7. Blackbaud NOW (private cloud Software-as-a-Service targeting very small shops)

So what gets killed, oops, I mean, migrated? Raiser’s Edge needs to be thrown over the edge, so replace it with Common Ground? Sounds good, but then Blackbaud is left with the Salesforce open cloud problem where competitive applications will have access to their clients so that doesn’t work. Blackbaud Sphere and Convio Online are completely redundant, but Blackbaud will have paid $300 million for Convio and only $40 million for Sphere so that’s easy – bye-bye Sphere (maybe keep the trademark for Friends-Asking-Friends though). E-Tapestry is the logical place to send the smaller Common Ground clients so say goodbye to Salesforce and hello to the private cloud where you hope the Best of Your Vendor is good enough. The top Common Ground (or Luminate as the top-end product is now known) clients will be sent to Infinity. Raiser’s Edge will be reborn as a SaaS offering, but who knows when that will happen. Finally, Blackbaud NOW will stay around to catch whatever it can at the bottom of the market.

For Convio this time has to be especially painful and some of that pain was revealed in their recent 10-K Annual Report:

The announcement and pendency of the Merger may have a negative impact on our business, financial results and operations or disrupt our business by:

• affecting our relationships with our customers, distributors, suppliers and employees;
•  intensifying competition as our competitors may seek opportunities related to our pending Merger;
• affecting the purchasing decisions of existing and prospective customers, which could cause them to delay purchasing decisions or to seek alternative suppliers, resulting in a reduction in sales and increased churn;
• limiting certain of our business operations prior to completion of the Merger which may prevent us from pursuing certain opportunities without Blackbaud’s approval;
• impairing our ability to attract, recruit, retain, and motivate current and prospective employees who may be uncertain about their future roles and relationships with Blackbaud following the completion of the Merger; and
• causing us to forego certain opportunities we might otherwise pursue absent the Merger Agreement
• creating distractions from our strategy and day-to-day operations for our employees and management and a strain on resources

You have to wonder how much of this pain has already happened. It will be interesting to see their Q1 results and I wonder if Blackbaud will be giving more refunds? We can leave that for Part 3.

This all can make your head (and potentially wallet)  hurt, but don’t fear – Chardon and team already know what they are going to do. They are just not going to tell you until they have to.

The Blackbaud/Convio deal is not done (and in fact has been delayed for a third time), but it has sparked an increasingly heated debate about what the post Blackvio/ConBaud world will look like. The easy answer is less choice, less innovation, and higher costs. Based on previous Blackbaud acquisitions, those are good bets.

What is harder to answer is the question of what is driving Blackbaud to make this very expensive acquisition which will saddle them with over $300 million in debt. Taking out a competitor; buying revenue (especially Convio’s valuable subscription revenue); and obtaining clients they couldn’t win with their existing products are all good possibilities and certainly have factored into past acquisition decisions.

But I think there is something deeper going on. Blackbaud is a believer in the Best of Vendor business model which says that clients should buy all of their “solutions” from one company. The theory is that clients benefit from the vendor’s ability to integrate multiple functions into one comprehensive suite. It also provides clients with “one throat to choke” which is a troubling image yet somehow comforting to many nonprofit executives.

The problem is the Best of Vendor model has utterly failed to deliver on innovation, integration, and usability. Ask Raiser’s Edge clients what they thought of the release of version 7.92, a release that actually said this was the “new” version. The headline on that press release should have been “Why Haven’t We Given You RE8? Because We Don’t Have To.” As for integration ask anyone with multiple modules how “easy” it is to get data back and forth between them.

Turns out the throat that gets choked when you buy into the Best of Vendor pitch is the clients. They face ever increasing costs for upgrades, new modules, training, implementations, conversions, hosting, API’s, etc. etc. etc. For evidence look no further than Blackbaud’s recent crediting of $3.4 million to 4 early adopters of its vaunted eCRM.

I put forward that the primary reason Blackbaud is buying Convio is that Convio was  starting to enjoy some success getting organizations on Salesforce. Salesforce is all about the Best of Breed world, a trend Blackbaud must fight at all costs. With Best of Breed you are able to select the applications you need and integrate them on a common platform. Rather than one throat to choke, you have vendors working full-throttle on particular aspects of your mission. If one of them doesn’t live up to your expectations you can simply select another. This keeps pressure where it should be, on the vendor to innovate, deliver what they promise, and keep prices in check.

Another reason Blackbaud wants Convio out of the picture is that Convio was starting to be seen as a viable competitor. Their acquisition of StrategicOne, and their combination of Common Ground with their online communications platform under the Luminate brand, made them look a little too much like Blackbaud’s Infinity suite. It has never been a secret that Convio wanted to be Blackbaud when it grew up, so the folks in Charleston decided it was smarter to take them out now rather than risk being unable to buy them later.

Some are asking what Blackbaud will do with Convio’s Common Ground. Bury it in a deep dark hole is the most likely answer. Why? Because they can’t afford to let their clients on the Salesforce platform where there will be applications that compete with theirs. Do you really think that Marc Chardon is going to allow clients to process donations with someone else? Not when he is collecting 5% on top of credit card fees. How about screening and analytics? WealthEngine is on Salesforce and would love to have all of Blackbaud’s clients easily accessible.

And what is even more threatening to Blackbaud is that on Salesforce there are applications like Affinaquest, a donor management system built by Jeff Shy who created Sage Millennium. That means there are viable alternatives to the very core of what Blackbaud offers. As a member of the Board of Affinaquest I can tell you first-hand that organizations are already saying no to Blackbaud’s out-of-date closed software systems, and yes to a future of more choice and lower costs.

Given the latest delay in the acquisition process we have time to think some more about the future. I am optimistic that what we are witnessing is the beginning of the end of the Best of Vendor age, and the start of the Best of Breed era for nonprofits. There will be many struggles ahead as there always are in times of change, but change is coming and no amount of acquisitions can stop it.

Along with most of the modern world, I, too, took it upon myself to create a New Year’s Resolution for 2012. OK – so I am also somewhat of an overachiever, so I actually have two. First, decluttering my house, in bite size chunks, became one of my missions for 2012. So much so I found a calendar with daily (except for Sundays) decluttering projects to guide me, encourage me, and hold me accountable. [Note: I found the calendar via Pinterest.] My first HUGE project (I did say bite size, but…) was weeding the pantry. First step was to assess what exactly was in the pantry – best way to do this? Remove all items from said pantry. This was the scene in my kitchen:

It only made sense to throw away expired items in the process of removing all items from the pantry. So, this had me thinking about how stale research (and/or prospects) can become when such has been “hidden” in a nonprofit’s pantry (um, I mean, database) for too long. Is it possible to declutter your prospect management and research operations and, in effect, declutter your organization’s mission? I pondered this as I desperately searched for an expiration date on this gem:

The Bee's Knees

This is a most excellent peanut butter and one of my son’s favorites. But alas, the date was a bit worn off! I think I could see a 2012, or was it 2011? Was that a sign to expel this PB from my pantry? I consult with a number of nonprofit organizations, including providing prospect research services, and I will identify major gift prospects for them, which of course results in a discussion regarding approach. There are times when the bee’s knees (i.e., a prospective donor) simply will not exactly mesh up with the mission of a certain nonprofit. Typically, this has to do with timing. Some nonprofits (and yes, I’ve seen this in higher ed institutions too) will feel the need to adjust their funding priorities in order to meet the interests of certain prospective donors. I’ve seen these organizations expend significant staff time and energy (MONEY) to create a program which may appeal to these prospects, only to not receive the major gift they had anticipated. I do believe through decluttering your prospect management and research operations one can do an amazing service to the overall organization, including cleaning out the organization’s programs. I offer to you the following insight and tips:

• Report, report, report. Depending upon the volume of research and fundraising intelligence you and your colleagues provide, run a report from your database (or wherever you are keeping track of the info you distribute – you do that, right?) of all research distributed for prospects for which no significant contact by a frontline fundraiser has been made within 6 months of distribution.
• Segment, segment, segment. From this report, review the tags or other descriptors for each prospect. Separate prospects into program, strategy, behaviors. Then further segment based upon assigned fundraiser. What patterns do you see? Is your frontline fundraiser colleague’s portfolio too full to take advantage of the information you’ve distributed? How can you reassign in consultation with your colleague? If you don’t have a plan for this, check out the best practices for prospect development over at the AASP website. [Note: you must be a member to access finalized best practices documentation, or if you are a member of APRA, you can view documentation there too.]
• Better vs. best by date. During my pantry project, I came across one item which had a BETTER BY date as opposed to a BEST BY date. Really? Could one really assign such? I believe we, as a group of professional researchers, are really good at documenting when certain information was compiled, but have we also recommended by when such research is still “good”? Is there a point in time at which a prospect becomes no longer approachable, given the information uncovered? And, would such a “best by” date ensure the research is utilized in a timely fashion?
• Teachable moment. Once my pantry (yes, it’s now MY pantry…) was organized, my whole family could clearly see what was, and what wasn’t, in the pantry. Once you go through a decluttering project, your organization should be able to clearly see what types of prospects are not being seen in a timely manner. You’ll be able to identify a strategy for change. You will have a teachable moment, not only for your prospect management, data management, and research colleagues, but also for your frontline fundraisers. [NOTE: As an aside, I suggest viewing this type of press as a teachable  moment as well.]
• Report, report, report. I know – I’m repeating myself. In this case, repeat the above steps but with a different approach. Which prospects were seen within 6 months of distribution of the research? What are the patterns? Do you see any correlation regarding incoming gifts from these prospects and the distribution of the research? How can you build on this success?
• BONUS. Does the addition of external data inform the patterns you see? [For instance, public company insiders vs. private company owners.]

How often you declutter is up to you and your pending assignments and tasks. When I worked for the FSU Foundation, we called this “Spring Cleaning” and so it was usually Springtime. There is extraordinary value in this type of clean up, and I do urge you to find the time to do this. If you have the luxury of having a prospect research department, assign these tasks as time allows (but with a due date, please).

Oh, and here is a look at my finished project, which my lovely tween daughter said, “Mom, this will never last.” I guess there is always next year!

Pantry Sanity!

What are your tips for decluttering your mission? Please feel free to share in the comments section!

Like a lot of you, I subscribe to numerous listservs serving the nonprofit space. Advance-L, PRSPCT-L (and yes, every time I type that, I do sing it –in my head – to the tune of that Aretha classic), CFRNET, FUNDSVCS – the list goes on and on. And of course with Twitter, I have created my own listserv of sorts – following (including Twitter lists others have created) other Tweeps with similar interests to my own.

One aspect of listservs which intrigues me is the title contained in the posting – not the subject title, but the poster’s job title. This morning, someone posted with a question regarding database conversion and whether or not anyone had a calendar of events or a checklist of tasks they had found to be helpful in the process.  This person’s title? Director of Mission Advancement & Donor Stewardship. I absolutely LOVE the insertion of the word mission before the word advancement. David and I (along with numerous colleagues who we also are fortunate to call friends) have long said if you work at a nonprofit or any fundraising organization, you are a FUNDRAISER. Period. End of story. Your job at said organization is always to advance the mission of your organization. Now, I do understand, not everyone can have the title of “fundraiser” – would get a bit confusing internally in terms of management. We have always distinguished between frontline fundraiser vs. “behind the scenes” fundraiser. However, I do believe this title – Director of Mission Advancement – is onto something. Typically, the title would have been something like “Director of Advancement Relations” or “Director of Advancement Services.” Relations and services – nothing against these words – have the connotation of internal tasks. Perhaps even translated into function: Director of Making Sure Gift Acknowledgement Letters Go Out the Door Correctly and IT Plays Well With Others and Research Finds the Right Prospects to Meet Our Dollar Goal and the Gala Event Caterer Does Not Serve Mr/Ms/Miss/Dr Benefactor Red Meat. When someone has the title of “fundraiser” there is no guess work externally or internally. That’s pretty straight forward. The way in which Director of Mission Advancement and Donor Stewardship clearly articulates the focus of this person’s job is exactly where it should be – the organization’s mission AND its donors.

Mission Advancement – I believe this should be universal within a nonprofit. Each position plays a specific instrumental part in advancing the mission of the organization. As a manager of prospect research, this was my mantra, “How does what I am being asked to do contribute toward advancing the mission of my organization?”

How does your role contribute to mission advancement? Does every task you undertake work towards your contribution to this goal?

PS There is still time to sign up for our webinar! Give yourself the gift of learning additional techniques to advance your mission!

A list of companies most likely to go IPO came across my Facebook wall the other day, and this list was created by Goldman Sachs.

Now, most of you will say, “Well, so what, it’s another list.” But something caught my eye in this piece, as the companies listed are STARTUPS:

“So why hold a conference for early stage companies if you’re an IPO underwriter? Well, the event basically functions as an extremely foresighted form of lead generation. According to multiple people I spoke to, these are the 30 or so startups Goldman has designated as potential IPO candidates. And it wants to make a relationship as early on as possible, in case some of them actually do and need Goldman’s services in the process.”

Oddly enough, nonprofits might be able to learn a thing or two from GS…

What are your organization’s steps to identify who, amongst your constituents, members, and prospects, are most likely to go MGO (major gift offering)? Has your organization developed that type of analysis internally, and, if so, how are you watching your list (checking it twice…) (sorry, I couldn’t resist)? And does your organization see the value in starting the relationship as early as possible?

If your organization has not started this type of identification and subsequent watch list, what is holding you back?

If you’ve ever attended one of our conference presentations focused on “Where’s the Money Now?”, you may recall my mentioning the WSJ’s Next Big Thing, and how I believe every nonprofit, especially with a prospect research department, could create their own internal scoring and ranking of certain prospects, using the WSJ methodology, easily. Check it out here for some inspiration to create your own score and then don’t forget to make your most likely to go MGO list…check it twice…

When what has always worked stops working (or no longer works like it use to) you start to see innovation. I was reminded of that when I saw an article from Inside Higher Ed about Beloit College foregoing the usual 5-7 year comprehensive campaign. Instead they are are going to have a “modular” or “project based” campaign where the focus will be one or two projects over a short period of time.

“Administrators hope the approach will set them apart from other institutions, motivate faster giving, and excite donors who can see a quick turnaround on their investments. In total, administrators believe the new approach will raise as much money, if not more, for the college than a traditional model.”

I think they are onto something. Surveys have shown donors are tired of long, drawn-out campaigns which are followed all too soon by yet another campaign. One of Beloit’s donors said, “You can see evidence of what you’ve done and that it’s helping the institution advance, as opposed to the longer-term thing.”

This approach also encourages segmentation driven by interests rather than wealth. This will create deeper affinity as donors feel their unique giving interests are being acknowledged and respected. Another benefit will be full funding for projects and programs that might have been lost within a comprehensive campaign. Every fundraiser knows that hidden behind every “successful” campaign are unfunded areas that never received the attention given to the new stadium, science building, scholarships or other more attractive (and let’s face it – easier to raise money for) aspects of the campaigns.

The article points out this is actually not a new idea. In fact, this is how money was raised before the advent of mega-campaigns. Is it time to take another look? Leaders in the field commented they don’t think so, but they also said it might be the best answer for Beloit.

My feeling is the comprehensive mega-campaign can still be effective for the bigger organizations and institutions with the brand, staff, prospect pool, and financial resources to raise money across a broad spectrum of projects and programs over a long period of time. Fundraisers involved in these campaigns need to be sensitive to the growing demand from donors to not just listen, but respect what they are saying.

For the rest of the fundraising community I believe a more focused approach will yield better results both in the short and long terms.

Let’s all give Beloit our thanks for blazing a new campaign trail (or is it rediscovering an old one?). It’s not easy going against conventional wisdom, but it is that pioneering spirit which helps all of us move forward.

What do you think of this approach, and would you consider it at your organization or institution? What are the obstacles you face in terms of changing your fundraising plans?

It warmed my heart (and it was extremely cold here this a.m., in FLORIDA, so I needed that warmth) to hear a piece on NPR regarding math degrees and BIG DATA. Reportedly, mathematicians can make sense of this data for businesses. No doubt this is true, and “intense curiosity to understand what’s behind the data is a common trait amongst such mathematicians.” I would argue people with BIG LOVE of research (like us – that is, a love of prospect research and data mining) all have this trait as well, with or without math degrees. How many nonprofits and higher ed foundations look for (and hire) mathematicians? Perhaps you should share this NPR story with your HR department, to adjust the requirements for certain development positions. Hey, I’m not suggesting you stop hiring those of us with library science, information studies, history, and/or English degrees. Read on and see why math majors should be included, too.

McKinsey released their results of a study earlier this year about the impact of big data across many different industry sectors. Among their findings, a retailer using Big Data to the full could increase its operating margin by more than 60%. Another – “access to data is critical – companies will increasingly need to integrate information from multiple data sources, often from third parties, and the incentives have to be in place to enable this.” I know, you might be saying, “Lori, we are not a retailer” (I could argue that point, but that’s another discussion) OR “Lori, we are not a company” (and I could also discuss that point too…). So, instead, take a look at Big Data for the Common Good. Or take a looksee at Geoff Livingston’s piece on Big Data.

OK, you’ve waded this far in. Now let’s define big data. Well, go ahead – use Bing or Google. I’ll wait…

One piece about which I think everyone can agree: to handle Big Data, your organization, in addition to the appropriate personnel, needs a scalable solution. Business Intelligence (aka fundraising intelligence) will rely upon your organization’s ability to handle the explosion of data that has already happened not to mention the data being created right now as you are reading this. All you have to do is take a look at the conferences across the globe regarding Big Data. Take a look at the speaker lineup – notice the company names. What pattern do you see? You’ll recall David mentioned in an earlier post about unstructured data. Big Data solutions should be able to take into account the unfielded data all organizations (whether nonprofit or for-profit) capture. Think about those free text fields in trip reports. Think about those prospect profiles and thumbnail sketches.

If I still worked within a higher ed foundation, I would find my way – fast – to the math department. Your prospect research department, if your nonprofit is fortunate enough to have one, could learn a thing or Fk, k > 2: O(1/e2 m1-2/k).

So, here it is, two days post Thanksgiving weekend – yes, we’ve successfully prolonged this one-day holiday into an entire weekend, and if your school system is like ours, it’s a 5-day weekend, according to my teenage son, which made yesterday quite the rude awakening for said teenage son. In reflecting on our holiday, and writing this blog post, I came across my dinner preparation to-do list, as follows:

• Make cranberry sauce

•  Start turkey

•  Put turkey in oven no later than 2 p.m.

• Mix together mama’s sweet potato casserole

• Take rolls out of freezer

• Start Brussels sprouts

• Start pumpkin soup when turkey is resting

• Open pinot noir

• Make turkey gravy

• Put in rolls and sweet potato casserole

Of course, as with all cooks, the recipes were tweaked to the tastes of the cook (moi) and the family members. We enjoyed our Thanksgiving meal in the evening, which is unlike my traditional family T-day schedule, a noonish feasting so one may graze the rest of the day. Why, you ask, did we break from tradition? David and I ran a 10K early that morning. We ran in the annual Turkey Trot. Several well-deserving charities participated, which may be unique (I think, typically, one specific charity is THE event charity). One could donate money at time of registration or bring items to the race to donate. It did make me wonder if these events are making the most from these dedicated participants. My mind tends to be nonprofit data focused, so I wondered, “Are runners more charitable than the walkers?” From what I can tell, only those who donated cash during registration would be able to be analyzed in such a way, if the software used to capture the donations allowed for such, and only if registrants were asked to specify if they would be running or walking. (And, hey, if we are all wearing chips in our racing bibs, hmm…) And does it really matter? (I would argue, why, yes, it does matter, and it could matter ahead of time if the nonprofit knew the participants in a deeper way.)

As one can imagine, and rightly so, these race events are a huge undertaking, employing dedicated volunteers and community partners. The to-do list for this type of event must be incredibly detailed, so everybody involved is working from the same recipe. As the holiday season in now upon us, do you have your to-do list for your organization’s holiday giving campaign, and is everyone at your organization following the same recipe? As nonprofits, you can put on an excellent engaging event. What about the post event to-do list? Keeping the engagement going after the event is over, after the holiday season, also needs its own to-do list. What are your holiday giving plans? What has been your recipe for success? Will your organization be breaking from tradition? I invite you to share what has worked for you in the past, what you will be tweaking this time around, and your organization’s plans (or challenges) for further engagement.

(BTW, we did have dessert – it was brought by my wonderful brother-in-law and niece. But my sister had to fight me for the turkey leftovers – yes, it was THAT good. From our home to yours, we hope your Thanksgiving was full of love, hope and peace.)

When it comes to data most fundraisers would just like their queries to be faster and their reports on time.  Sadly they are often disappointed on both fronts so it’s no wonder they are not asking the most important question: “Are my queries and reports accessing all of our data?”

The answer is “No!”

Before you send this to your intrepid database administrator let’s take a quick trip in the tech time machine to when donor management systems started to proliferate. It is the 80′s and entrepreneurs are beginning to use relational databases to create software to store information on donors. Contact information and gifts are the first to be digitized and fundraisers comment that this is not much better than the 3×5 cards that had served them so well before the Jobs/Gates era.

Over the next 25 years data fields grew like kudzu and so did the size of our databases. It is understandable then that users assume when they ask a question it is accessing all of their organizations accumulated data.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite all of the incredible technological advances since those first donor systems they are still based on the premise that data must be placed into a field in order to be accessed. This is known as structured data.

According to IBM 80% of all data is unstructured which means that your imaginative queries and carefully crafted reports are basing their answers on only 20% of the available information.

What makes up that 80%? Primarily text found in documents and e-mails. Have you ever put something really important about a donor in an e-mail or somewhere other than your database such as a Word document?

And what about all that social media activity that mentions your organization? And what about the information found on the blogs and websites of companies and funders you are soliciting? And don’t forget all the videos which are quickly becoming searchable based on every word spoken.

Think for a moment about the value of knowing how many of your campaign prospects are talking about you on social networks or discovering that deep inside a colleague’s trip report is the fact that a current major donor is good friends with the person you have been trying to get an appointment with for the last six months.

The race is on to figure out how to turn the enormous amount of unstructured data into actionable intelligence. Database administrators and vendors know that making decisions based on 20% of the picture is not going to cut it going forward, and simple text searching is a stop-gap measure at best.

In future posts we will look at some of the innovative ways companies and information professionals are working to bring together structured and unstructured data so that your questions benefit from 100% of the available answers.