01. Introduction
The growth of standalone prospect research roles has been a consistent feature across UK fundraising in recent years. This reflects a recognition of the value that professional, well resourced prospect research provides to fundraising teams of all shapes and sizes. It also reflects the accelerated focus on growing major donor income - including by smaller organiastions who may have done little or no major donor fundraising historically.
This is great news for the growth and diversification of prospect research within the UK (and in other countries across Europe, where the philanthropy landscape continues to develop). It also creates an environment where more fundraising professionals are tasked with starting and developing new prospect research functions, and the Handbook felt like an ideal place to provide guidance on how to approach this daunting task.
Much of the content within this chapter will touch on concepts and exercises that are covered in greater detail throughout the RiF Handbook, which has a lot of content relevant to new researchers. What we will seek to provide in this chapter is a high-level framework for approaching how to set up or refresh a prospect research function, covering the knowledge that is needed to embark on this and the tools and concepts that provide practical help.
We use the word ‘function’ here to reflect that much prospect research activity in the UK is still delivered by one-person ‘shops’, rather than by teams. We hope that what is covered here will be relevant for those with ambitions to grow larger prospect research teams, as well as those going it alone.