- originally posted on 1.29.2014 at Joe's Blog Relationship mapping, at its core, is about making connections between constituents. It is vitally important for fundraisers to know the connections of their best prospects because people inherently trust people they already know or with whom they have common connections. This can be a powerful component of your ability to build long-term relationships with supporters. In the past, revealing relationships has been difficult and t

Utah Valley University's Woodbury School of Business received a $2 million donation on Thursday the 30th of December. Vivint Inc donated $1 million and a further $1 million came as a personal donation from their CEO, Todd Pederson. The donation will fund the new Todd Pedersen Professional Sales Program that begins this fall, along with a new marketing research center, laboratory and multiple scholarships that will help students as they hone their sales skills. Click here to v

Prospect Visual Success Story: In just one day we enriched our discovery pool with two $1m+ prospects My name is Kate and I am Director of Prospect Research at the Red Organization. For more than a year we had been searching for data visualization tools and other ways to find new perspectives of our data. We had even done a demo of Prospect Visual previously, but did not buy the product – until recently when we had a one-day trial subscription of Prospect Visual and had amazi

Prospect Visual Success Story: How a prospect research “newbie” became an information superhero! I’m Stephanie Caudle and I am a Senior Prospect Research Technician in the Research and Constituency Development Department at Duke University. We provide full-service prospect research to support the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing. A recent college graduate, I’m new to the field and have been at Duke for less than a year. When I was tasked with finding new prospects

by Zach The History of "Six Degrees" “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” a popular game in the 1990s, has become almost an accepted fact in popular culture. This theory sets up the idea that everyone is six or fewer steps away from Kevin Bacon by way of introduction through the people you know and the people they know. Quite simply, any two people on Earth could be six or fewer acquaintance links apart. So, in theory, I know the President of the United States, you know the mayor of

Prospect Visual Success Story: How we performed a 21-day request for International Billionaires! My name is Mark DeFilippis and I am Director of Prospect Development at The Nature Conservancy. My story begins after we had already contracted with Prospect Visual. One of our senior leadership sent me a request for a list of prospects we could gain access to, with some interest in conservation, and in a country where we currently don’t have any programs or donors. Sounds like a

Prospect Visual Success Story: How I turned my intern into a relationship-making machine! My name is Pamela Smith and I am Director of Advancement Services at Nebraska Wesleyan University. I’ve been in my position for about a year. Prior to my arrival, the University had done a great job of focusing on student families and legacy families. What we didn’t have was much in the way of business and organizational affiliations to help us connect with lapsed and lost alumni. We don

By Zach Last year I was in Taiwan teaching English to Taiwanese children. Thousands of miles prevented me from seeing my family and friends for over a year. Although the Pacific Ocean separated me from my home in the U.S., I didn’t lose a beat with everyone that mattered to me. I was able to e-mail my family, video chat my friends, stay current with events, and even continue to do my banking back home. I was lucky. If I went overseas to teach before the internet it would have

by Brent In my other posts, I wrote on how to quantify the value of relationship mapping tools through the following: Tangible and Intangible Benefits [ROI of Relationship Mapping] Efficiency Tools [Efficiency of Relationship Mapping] Return on Investment [ROI of Relationship Mapping] I understand that we still have to deal with the reality of stagnant or shrinking budgets. Here is a good example from one of my ecstatic prospects who said, “I love Relationship Mapping! I see

Prospect Visual Success Story: How we use relationship intelligence to solve tough problems My name is Elana Mendelson and I am one of two Prospect Researchers at the Museum of Science and Industry (“MSI) in Chicago, Illinois. For the past few years we have been trying to provide our fundraising staff with connections that could help us open doors to our prospects. While we had met with some success, the process was laborious and very limited in scope. Traditional Methods Wer