I first ran this post as a series back in 2013. Over the last seven years, the limitations of automated international screenings have not really changed, but the resources available for the kind of screening I offer — involving brief research in English and local language(s) — have improved dramatically.
Part 1: The challenges
If you work in fundraising here in the United States, it’s likely that you have some experience with automated prospect screening services. These services help you identify new prospects, prioritize existing prospects, and give you an indication where further research is needed.
Many organizations — including independent schools, colleges and universities, and hospitals — have large numbers of constituents living outside of the United States. Given the distances between the places where you work and they live, you probably don’t know your international constituents as well as you would like. That situation makes international prospect screening a much-sought-after service.
Here’s the problem.
Most screening vendors focus on the United States. There are a few services that cover constituents in Canada and the UK. Some vendors provide limited global data through a few sources like Who’s Who, or they focus exclusively on UHNWIs. If you want to screen all of your constituents (including those who fall below the UHNWI level) in places like Singapore, Brazil, or South Korea, you’re out of luck with an automated screening service.
Why?
The reasons have to do with the data and language issues I talked about last month in my series of posts, “How is International Prospect Research Unique?”
Here’s the brief recap: Data collection, storage, and sharing standards vary widely from country to country — and sometimes even from city to city. On top of that, the languages in which these records are collected are numerous. Creating an automated screening service that covers multiple countries given these variables is a huge challenge. The major players currently offering US-focused automated screening services are certainly interested in expanding their geographic scope. For the time being, however, automated screenings for most countries and wealth levels are not a practical reality.
Part 2: Customized international prospect screening services
That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to undertake an international screening project, however. I do international screening projects regularly for my clients — a service I have offered since founding my company in 2011.
These services draw on international research expertise rather than automation to help my clients prioritize their international prospects. What does this type of project entail?
When clients hire me to screen prospects around the world, they start by sending me a list of prospects to be screened. We work together to determine the amount of time to be spent researching each prospect, with 15 minutes minimum being the norm. Within that time, I look for wealth and philanthropy indicators both in English and the prospect’s local language.
Finding these details in more than one language, in a short amount of time, from diverse data sources requires a solid international prospect research skill set that includes the ability to understand where relevant data might be collected and shared online, as well as to search in multiple languages.
Clients can choose the format in which they want to receive their screening results. A spreadsheet usually is the most useful. When a spreadsheet is chosen, one column is dedicated to brief research summaries, while other columns show prospect ratings and any other details the client would like to easily sort or upload into a database.
The rating system used can vary by client. Some clients prefer to use their in-house rating systems, while others prefer to use a simple 1-2-3 system. Either way, the goal is to use a system that allows the screened prospects to be sorted and prioritized easily.
Would you like to discuss your international prospect research needs and my screening process? If so, I would love to speak with you! You can set up a free consultation call with me by using my online scheduler.
Photo: Paula May on unsplash