WealthEngine

I have been hearing a lot about affinity scores and engagement models lately.  It seems to be the buzz in prospect research and university advancement circles.  And with good reason.  We all know that a wealthy constituent is just that – a constituent – until s/he engages and aligns with the organization.  When you have identified a wealthy constituent who is also engaged with, or has an affinity for, your organization; now you have a prospect.

So what is an affinity, or engagement, score?  And how do I get one?

"When it comes to collecting social media data, most of us are hoarders. We like to ramble off the number of followers or retweets we have and pat ourselves on the back or shake our fists at the sky depending on our expectations. The trouble is: data that doesn’t inform decisions is a waste of space.” says Danielle Brigida, from the National Wildlife Federation, in a recent post We Heart Social Data: But What Do We Do With It?

How you can use your social data

Social data comes from various outlets.  It’s not just your online presence; it is in-person meetings, networking events, phone calls and even gossip.  With all of these social data points in your database, it can be hard to know what to do with them.  However, nonprofits have a major opportunity to use social data to asses a prospect’s life and passions. 

I recently gave a presentation at the Independent Education Spring Development Conference on data driven fundraising and shared some techniques for leveraging big data and analytics in fundraising strategy. This is a topic I’ve been speaking to for the past few years and I’ve watched interest in and dialogue around it grow. As I delve into some key points below, I want to remind you to keep reading. Data, analytics and strategy sound like a large nonprofit’s mantra—indeed that is true. However, it is also realistic and opportunistic for smaller organizations (and everything in between). As a philanthropist, technologist and advocate of the nonprofit sector, I’ve seen charities of all shapes and sizes use data driven fundraising with remarkable success. This is what savvy organizations are doing today and is proven to be a solid gold tactic for growing individual gifts. It is also what every thriving nonprofit will be doing tomorrow.

So let’s get going.

Ronald McDonald House Charities Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana (RMHC-CNI) is wrapping up a $30MM campaign to fund the world’s largest Ronald McDonald House, at 14 stories and 86 guest rooms. They have raised $27.9MM to date!

WealthEngine is proud to have played a part in this successful campaign, providing data and analytics to help the staff identify, qualify and develop strategies for approaching major donors.  “I needed very specific, immediately actionable information that our board members could use and be successful with. When I took over the campaign management, we were in a stall. I wanted to quickly breathe life into the campaign and regain momentum,” shares Lisa Mitchell, Director of Capital Campaigns.  WealthEngine was able to provide a targeted list of 147 capacity-qualified individuals connected to at least one member of the RMHC-CNI board.  Read more about this successful campaign. 

Data Science is the sexiest field in the twenty-first century, according to the Harvard Business Review, as reported by the New York Times in their article Data Science: The Numbers of Our Lives.

We couldn’t agree more.

We’re thrilled to be migrating FindWealth Online clients over to our new FindWealth 8 platform. As new features become ready, we are alerting clients who use those features that FindWealth 8 is now available. If you have not yet been contacted, your welcome notice will be coming within the next few weeks to months based on your usage needs. Meanwhile, here is one feature that is truly heads and tails above any other service in the market—FindWealth 8’s smart address search logic.

FindWealth 8 offers address searching in two forms: directly within the new search interface or through DataQuick’s PropertyFinder. The benefit of WealthEngine’s new search logic allows you to research real estate data using a full or partial address. 

Now that spring is here and you find yourselves busy planning for upcoming events and special galas, we hope you will better utilize your subscription to FindWealth Online and maximize your fundraising potential. There is no time like the present to jump in and learn a new trick or two in FindWealth Online.

WealthEngine Institute is the educational, research and networking arm of the WealthEngine organization.  Membership is free, and we provide a wealth of resources for fundraisers, researchers and nonprofit managers. To date we have nearly 3,000 members and stay connected via a monthly newsletter and private LinkedIn group. 

WealthEngine and StratusLIVE have a long established partnership that offers a complete solution to help fundraising professionals identify, profile, and track their best donors for every fundraising campaign.

With WealthEngine data integrated directly into StratusLIVE for Fundraisers, nonprofit professionals can easily identify, research, and segment donors and prospects based on wealth indicators without leaving the StratusLIVE software environment.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Schiffmann on her new role as WealthEngine’s Client Service Manager.  Elizabeth is responsible for leading our client services team, which focuses on delivering excellent service, product education, tips and support to our 4,000+ clients.

Elizabeth joined WealthEngine in 2008 as a client service representative, helping nonprofits with their wealth screenings, FindWealth Online usage, and strategizing on how to reach their fundraising goals.  In 2010, she moved into a marketing role that allowed her to combine her strong product knowledge and communications skills. Needless to say, she is well versed on all of WealthEngine’s products and is attuned to the diverse needs of our clients.