Data Sense

How Many Gumballs?

Have you ever entered one of those “How Many Gumballs In the Jar” contests at the mall? You stare at the jar, drawn by the colorful orbs and the chance to win big. You start counting, maybe apply some multiplier, and then take a wild guess. You have nothing to lose. You have much to lose, however, if you apply the same guesstimate process to determining how many prospects you need to reach your campaign goal.

Before beginning any campaign, whether it is capital or annual, you will want to know how many gifts you need, at what levels, to reach that goal. Then you can estimate, not guesstimate, how many prospects are needed. How? A gift chart. The chart helps you see how many gifts are needed at each level to reach your goal, and how many prospects are needed. You can then make adjustments to the chart based on the make-up of your current prospect pool. Uh, oh. Prospect pool. Yes, you will need to be knowledgeable about your current donor and prospect pool—but that is another blog topic.

So how do you start?  Google “gift range calculator” and the results will lead you to free tools. Blackbaud has one and so do several large consulting firms. You plug in your goal and the chart fills in. You can also find formulas in any number of fundraising publications. Remember, though, that the chart is just a starting point—you need to make adjustments based on your prospect pipeline. You may discover that your goal is too ambitious or maybe (hopefully!) not ambitious enough. Adjustments will also be necessary if the chart is for an annual campaign as opposed to a capital campaign.  According to The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, 2nd ed. by Robert Herman and Associates, the two have different percentages at the top of the chart. The top gift range in a capital campaign may be anywhere from 10% to 25% of goal. In an annual campaign that top range is likely to be closer to 5% of goal. There will be more gifts at the lower levels and fewer at the top.

Gift range charts are not an exact science but they are a great tool. One other thing to think about—are there fewer blue gumballs than any other color? Chew on that.

BizNar

If you do any research on businesses, are interested in statistics, government patents or Gallup-type reports, you have got to check out BizNar.  http://biznar.com/biznar/about.html. As explained on their website, this search engine goes “deep” into selected business collections and returns references that you will not get from a Google or Yahoo search. Oh, and you won’t get any duplicates either. There is a great advanced search feature that allows you to limit the search by collection or even specific resource. I checked out the resources they cover and it is a pretty nice handpicked group. BizNar, created by Deep Web Technologies, http://www.deepwebtech.com/ is free.

Search Language

I’ve been doing prospect research for sometime and there is something that continues to annoy and puzzle me. Why is search language not consistent from one search engine to another? “AND” is used in one while “+” is the character du jour in another. For proximity indicators you have your choice of “NEAR,” “w/” or an asterisk.  Let me take that back . . . you don’t have a choice. The choice is made by those who design the search engines. Given the international nature of the Internet, wouldn’t it make sense for there to be one universal search language?  Until that happens, be sure you check the search FAQ or the search help feature of any search engine or database that you use. It can make a big difference in the results returned to you.