 Hello, 80s? I'd like to order some data for my Annual Fund. Earlier this year, I offered two free mini-courses on prospect research tools to friends and colleagues in NM and Chicago. Thirty minutes. Tell me your data hopes and dreams, and I'll share a couple time-saving hacks that I developed to cut through a list of 1,500 names (times 30 data points = 45,000 things too dang many).
The differences in attitude about this topic shocked me -- despite the fact that they had the same ballpark budget size for their organizations: My Chicago contingent: "We wealth screen annually for our Annual Fund base and set their ratings accordingly. We do it a few times over a special campaign. We upload the data to our database so it's in the donor record and we can reference it throughout the year as needed." Those are A-student answers, my friends. Those answers optimize fundraising year over year on repeat. My New Mexico contingent: "We don't use it because we don't actually trust it... Where does it all come from? It can't be right -- can it?" GASP. WHEEZE. Where do I begin? Here's the thing: We've been living in the Information Age since Alex P. Keaton carried a briefcase to high school. Email fundraising wasn't a thing until the mid-90s, but can you even imagine fundraising without it now? Without social media asks or texting? Data is BIGGER than those things combined! It's far more fundamental. It drives the underlying structure and rationale of your development program asks. It's the info to prioritize your time on relationship building. It's about understanding your donors beyond what you can gather from a couple of conversations a year and observing their taste in handbags. The results speak for themselves -- and it doesn't even have to be expensive to access when there are resources like me to run and analyze a list for you. A few days after the mini-courses, the Santa Fe Community Foundation serendipitously reached out and said, "If you could teach anything in northern NM this year, what would it be?" Welcome to my one-day virtual course, A Prospect Research Road Map for Beginners -- scheduled for Thursday, November 2nd. Let's do this, NM!
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 Next week, Chicago will open an immersive theater production unlike anything it's ever seen, and I'm over the moon to have helped the creators make it possible.
Port of Entry is the big, bold, audacious idea actualized by the brilliant minds and hearts of Albany Park teens, Albany Park Theater Project (APTP) leadership, and Third Rail Projects of Brooklyn. Their mission: Invite thousands of people to step inside the real-life stories of immigrants and refugees from all over the world -- replicated in a 1929 warehouse made to look and feel exactly like a real Albany Park apartment building. And then run the show for at least a year (!). As if that isn't big enough, APTP teens are the heroes of the story writ large. It's their first-hand immigration stories that drive the play, they are the actual actors, and the entire experience from early development to closing week will help launch them into college. APTP has been doing this kind of deep youth development with exceptional care for decades -- with stunning success. Introduced through a mutual friend, APTP's co-Executive Director David Feiner reached out in 2019. "We need to raise possibly as much as $3 million. We have $700,000 in grants so far... Is that good?" I assured him that raising $700,000 is indeed almost always very good. What they didn't have was a building site or any track record of real major gift campaign work. We spent the next three years working together on the feasibility study, securing the donation of the warehouse, honing the remaining $2.5 million funding plan, and tackling it month by month. In spite of the pandemic, everything rolled on thanks to Zoom, extraordinary donors who were willing to listen, and a truckload of trademark Chicago hustle and grit. Port of Entry is a turning point for APTP -- they intend to work big from now on. So far it's working, as the summer block of performances is already sold out. I can't wait to make a trip back to see it this fall. There is nothing in this world like the feeling of big, beautiful vision realized.  Chance, totally making his dad's day. Chance the Rapper wrote a huge check to the Chicago Public Schools foundation today. At just 24 years old, the Grammy winning musician has been in the national spotlight all of about 30 minutes. Most music stars wait decades to make such a major philanthropic move - if ever. But he and Chicago go way back - and to understand why this gift is so cool, you have to know about Chance, his dad, and their remarkable Chicago roots.
Chance's father is Ken Williams-Bennett, a native Southsider and former aide to Chicago's legendary African-American mayor Harold Washington. He later worked for Illinois state Senator Barack Obama before the presidential run, and now serves as deputy chief of staff to Mayor Rahm Emanuel. That's a fierce legacy of civic love and service by any measure, and you can bet Chance's dad had some ideas about the kind of serious public work he wished to see his son do. Chance grew up with the Obamas in his life, and as his star rose, he helped President Obama with the My Brother's Keeper Initiative. While Chance felt called to music early, there are two now-famous things most Chicagoans know about his career: 1) he dropped out of college to pursue hip hop and 2) his dad did what a lot of fathers would do in that situation - he completely flipped out. The pair weren't on speaking terms for a long time following the move. The fates conspire for all of us. Chance's soaring career is the result of an unknowable alchemy - a mix of talent, grit, and luck. But that $1 million gift to one of the largest and poorest public student bodies in the U.S.? I'm going to credit the enduring influence of an awesome dad for that one. |
AuthorEmilie, Principal and Owner Archives
February 2024
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