SEARCHING FOR PROSPECTS AND PEOPLE TO APPROACH THEM

1. Identify which corporation or foundation will likely support you, and who specifically in that organization should be approached.
2. Recruit somebody from your board of directors, volunteer pool or clientele to make the solicitation.

BEGIN by developing a prospect list, using the usual sources--telephone books, business directories, Who's Who books, grant and local foundation guides and chamber of commerce directories. Next, develop a short list. You can't possibly contact every corporation and foundation in your area, nor would you want to. The key to success is using research time effectively. This means picking the ten best prospects and focusing on them first.

Here's some tips for narrowing the field:

• Only pick corporations that are making a profit and have money to donate. Remember, sales data alone won't tell you if a company is profitable.
• See if prospects have funded programs similar to yours in the past or whether anyone in the corporation or foundation leadership has benefited from your program. When checking a prospect's past giving habits, don't forget to look into causes supported by their employees, either through fund-raising drives, volunteerism or other donations.
• Concentrate on prospects who offer minimum grants of $1,000, and preferably $10,000.
• You should also:
• Look at your own organization to find administrators, staff or relatives who have links to prospects. For example, do any of your staff have personal or community ties to prospects through civic groups, church, school or recreation?
• Could you use one prospect on your list to help you obtain grants from others? For example, you might find that the same person sits on the boards of several companies or is affiliated with more than one foundation.

Always get a prospect's annual report. This gives you important financial and profit data. Just as critical, it give you a picture of how the company sees itself or what the company wants to be as a socially responsible member of the community. Your job is to show the prospect how you can help fulfill that image. For instance, funding a job-training program for developmentally disabled youth would bolster a company that claims to have made great strides as an equal opportunity employer.

An annual report may also yield nuggets about a corporation's or foundation's history. For instance, the Kelloggs cereal empire started decades ago as food popping on a stove in an alcohol treatment facility. A substance abuse program might use this angle in seeking a grant by offering to take Kelloggs "back to its roots."

Also, don't ignore the company or foundation president's statement in the annual report. It provides buzz-words and other corporate jargon you can use in your grant proposal.

Eventually, pictures will pop out as you dig deeper into your research. It will become increasingly clear which prospects to put on the short list and creative connections for approaching them.

NOW it's time to make a match--find the right person in the targeted organization to contact. This involves digging into peoples' personal backgrounds and should be done discretely. Basically, you want to know about colleges or universities they've attended, names and backgrounds of spouses and children (and grandchildren), memberships in clubs and community organizations, pastimes and interests, stock and other financial holdings. Moreover, obtain:

• Articles, papers and speeches they've done. Sometimes these are mentioned in companies' annual reports.
• Subscribe to at least one business magazine, particularly regional or local publications.
• Similarly, read newspaper business sections daily for more tidbits.
• Obituaries can be helpful in identifying children of deceased contributors and prospects.
• Newspaper social columns and society pages will also provide insights into prospects' lifestyles and families.
• Ask companies for proxy statements. These give short biographies on company executives. Proxy statements are also available from local Securities & Exchange Commission offices.
• Finally, get on mailing lists for company newsletters, press releases and stockholder statements. Many firms will do this even if you don't own stock.

Keep a worksheet on each prospect. This provides a quick reference, supported by files of articles and other backup material. In time, certain people will emerge as the ones to contact about contributions.

Identify people among your organization's leadership with similar educational backgrounds, interests, club memberships, church affiliations, hobbies, whatever. Have them request the contributions or ask for help in guiding you through your grant application. After obtaining a donation, branch out by asking each new contributor if he would be willing to contact another company or foundation on your prospect list. He will feel more comfortable about doing this if he has something in common with the prospect. Again, this is where your research pays off. By referring to your worksheets and backup folders, you should be able to match your volunteer with somebody who is compatible.

By the way, keep your worksheets and files confidential. They are for the development staff's eyes only and not to be shared as general information within your organization.

Update your worksheets regularly. The more information you have on prospects, the more likely you are to find a match to solicit a donation. What's more, be absolutely sure your worksheets have correct phone numbers, places of

employment, home residences and the like. Nothing is more embarrassing than giving inaccurate information to volunteers who approach prospects.

Following are additional information sources for worksheets:

• Check the public library's Master Biographical Index, which lists over 700,000 persons alphabetically with birth dates and notes on more than 50 biographical references which contain data on each individual.
• Marquis Who's Who Index to All Books (200 E. Ohio St., Chicago, IL
• 60611) provides 2 volumes with over 250,000 individuals and indicates which of the Who's Who series has sketches on them.
• Fund Raiser's Guide to Private Fortunes provides over 1,500 profiles on America's wealthiest.
• Social Register (annual and summer) by Social Register Association, 381 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10015, gives names, addresses, family data, clubs, colleges and second-home information on wealthy people.

Other information sources include:

• Standard & Poor's Annual Register of Directors and Executives.
• *Martindale-Hubbell's law directory for profiles on attorneys. *Property rolls at county and city assessors offices.
• Club directories.
• Wills at the local probate clerk's office.

You can also locate prospects and obtain additional information through your computer with a useful on-line service called INFOTRAC. This searches newspapers and magazines for articles about prospects. To access INFOTRAC, type in a person's name and it calls up anything newspapers and magazines have reported in recent years.

INFOTRAC can give valuable clues on how to approach a potential giver. For instance, news stories might indicate he has a child with mental retardation or other cognitive disorder. Or, he may have helped organize a special Olympics.

These tips are good for organizations serving children with mental and cognitive handicaps. You may also find articles about a prospect's family members. For instance, there may be an article about how the prospect's wife is involved in assorted community service projects, one of which coincides with your organization's mission. Similarly, you might be affiliated with a hospital that provided life-saving care to a prospect's child. Suppose INFOTRAC revealed an

article noting that your prospect is an avid golfer. This could make him a prime contributor to your annual benefit golf tournament.

If you can't gain access to INFOTRAC, visit your newspaper's "morgue" to sift through back issues. Also, most libraries have newspapers, photos and clippings on microfilm. Or, libraries with INFOTRAC will sometimes do an initial search for free to see if your prospect shows up in the database.

Below is a list of books and directories for further prospect shopping available at major libraries: American Bench, Biography and Genealogy Mater Index, Celebrity Register, Current Biography, New York times Biographical Edition, New York Times Obituaries Index, Personal Name Index to the New York Times Index; and Sourcebook of Demographics and Buying Power for Every Zip Code In the USA.

You might also think about getting an associate membership with the Foundation Center in New York City. A fee is involved, but can be worth it when considering the support you receive. For example, a membership entitles you to a number of free research calls a year. Accordingly, the center's research staff will use its computer database and resources to pull information on corporations, organizations, individuals and foundations. It's almost like hiring your own research staff, but at a fraction of what it would cost to hire your own.

Similarly, the American Prospect Research Association may prove to be a valuable resource. There's an annual fee to join, but the group can help with networking and support. Info: APRA, 708/655-0177.

ONE of the biggest reasons people fail at prospect research is they don't schedule time for it. Usually it's put off until there is a lull in regular duties. You should set aside an afternoon a week for research (Friday, for example). When that period comes, accept no phone calls and cancel all meetings. You might even have to sign yourself out and sit in your office with the door closed. The fact is, you must have time free from interruptions to read, work up your short lists, write letters and make calls. This may be hard to do initially, but when your superiors see the money coming in, they'll begin to respect your privacy.