March 27, 2003 | Read Time: 4 minutes
Q: I’m a college senior who would like to learn more about prospect research. Is there anything I can do to learn more about and look for jobs in this field, other than making professional contacts and researching the Web?
A: Prospect research — the retrieval and analysis of public information on potential donors — has potential to grow as a profession over the next decade, although the current environment of budgetary belt-tightening may limit the field’s possibilities in the short term, according to David Lawson, president of Prospect Information Network, in Daytona Beach, Fla., which provides database tools to identify and screen prospective donors. While data-retrieval skills are central to the job, he says, analytical skills are equally important.
Mr. Lawson, who began working as a prospect researcher in the 1970s, noted that the field has changed in the past 10 or 15 years, along with trends in American affluence. In the past, researchers sought information on the “usual suspects” — well-known, long-established prominent families — but today, given the explosion of new wealth and “millionaires next door,” he says, institutions have to work harder to identify potential philanthropists. Mr. Lawson says that prospect research today has something in common with journalistic research and reporting, with corporate or competitive intelligence-gathering, and even with criminal investigation.
“You have to be curious, and have to have an ability to understand that when you find one piece of information, it will lead you to a number of other places,” he says. “You can’t see each thing in an isolated way because you’re building a puzzle” — a pieced-together portrait of a potential donor’s resources, interests, and needs.
Prospect research jobs, once mostly clustered among New England nonprofit institutions, are opening up in the South and West, as organizations learn to use such research to boost their fund raising, according to Sheri Lazare, advancement research officer at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and winner of last year’s Researcher of the Year Award, sponsored by the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement. Conducting research on donors, she says, requires some familiarity with the legal process, and also an interest in a variety of fields, she says.
“A liberal-arts degree is sufficient preparation for this,” she says, because different prospects will lead you in different directions. “Your prospect might be a history buff, a wine buff, an art lover, and as long as you’re researching him, you need to be a little bit interested in all those things as well.”
Mr. Lawson recommends that you find ways to hone both your information-gathering skills and your analytical abilities. He suggests you begin with the classic reference The Reporter’s Handbook: An Investigator’s Guide to Documents and Techniques, by Steve Weinberg (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1996, $48.30) and also read materials on competitive intelligence, the research that companies conduct on one another to gain market advantage. A number of books deal specifically with the role of prospect research in the field of fund raising. Ms. Lazare recommends The Guide to Prospect Research & Prospect Management, by Laura A. Solla (available for $89 from the author at her Web site). For a big-picture view of how prospect research fits into the larger efforts of a fund-raising shop, Ms. Lazare also suggests you look at Kathleen S. Kelly’s Effective Fund-Raising Management (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998, $135).
Furthermore, Ms. Lazare suggests you subscribe to the electronic discussion list known as “PRSPCT-L” (subscription information can be found here), which will help you both before and after you get situated in a researcher position. “You can just be a lurker and get some really invaluable information as you read everybody’s questions,” she says.
For an in-depth look at the field, you may also be interested in attending a conference on prospect research held May 18 and 19 in New Orleans, organized by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. For more information, check out the council’s Web site.
Both Ms. Lazare and Mr. Lawson recommend you join a professional group such as the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement or the New England Development Research Association. Ms. Lazare says that participation in such organizations, even before you have landed a job, can help educate you about the field and enable you to build a network of contacts — your best allies when your job search begins in earnest.
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