Finding big donors - Less Wrong Discussion

Finding big donors

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:31:45 +1000

Submitted by NancyLebovitz • 7 votes • 7 comments

I don't know how much of this SIAI is already doing, but I thought it would be of interest to anyone who's building up an organization which needs donors. It's also interesting (at least to me-- I've spent my life in a very small business) for how much serious thought can be brought to a project.

One surprising fact: "A large not for profit did a study a few years ago which told them that most of the people who left a million dollars or more to them in their will, unasked-for, gave an average of $17 a year to them during their life."

7 comments

John_Maxwell_IV on Finding big donors

2012-04-05T18:18:18.200280+10:00

Interesting stuff. I wasn't clear on what the "prospect research shop"'s business model was, though. I guess they simultaneously try to find donors for lots of different clients?

I wonder how much other nonprofit best practices type stuff SI could benefit from.

gjm on Finding big donors

2012-04-05T22:46:33.473532+10:00

The article implies that usually large charities have their own prospect research shops. (I'd guess that small charities don't bother.)

cocopium on Finding big donors

2012-04-08T08:34:47.239407+10:00

Yeah... pretty sick to think that 'charity' dollars are actually going to fund studies such as this!

pedanterrific on Finding big donors

2012-04-08T08:42:07.298764+10:00

How so?

cocopium on Finding big donors

2012-04-08T08:46:10.693822+10:00

Because when you donate money to a charity (assuming that one does), the idea is that it will go to a CAUSE, not to the charity's marketing (which is what the study seemed to be.... the charity wishing to learn marketing demographics).

juliawise on Finding big donors

2012-04-08T22:53:15.565623+10:00

Charities have overhead expenses. This is not a bad thing. If your favorite charity missed out on a million-dollar donation because they spent no money on research, wouldn't you think it was false economy?

Misha on Finding big donors

2012-04-08T10:14:51.971902+10:00

The charity has determined that the best marginal use of money for them at the moment is to improve marketing to get even more money. If this will ultimately lead to more being done for the CAUSE than otherwise, I don't see how one has reason to object.

You can, of course, criticize the charity for doing marketing studies if you believe they're wrong about their necessity.