“Attending the NEDRA Conference was a great opportunity. I was able to build my confidence, fill my research toolkit, and meet many colleagues who I can now call upon. Thank you to NEDRA and to Heather for this gift for my career!” says Becca Elwin of the Conservation Law Foundation, one of this year’s recipients of the Heather Reisz Memorial Scholarship, awarded to professionals with less than two years of experience in fundraising.

We need YOU to help NEDRA meet our matching gift goal and cement the future of the Heather Reisz Memorial Scholarship for many years to come!

The scholarship allows recipients to attend NEDRA's Annual Conference, Research Basics Bootcamp, and provides a year of NEDRA membership.

A generous donor will DOUBLE every gift NEDRA receives for the Heather Reisz Memorial Scholarship up to a total of $5,000 by May 1, 2015. (We are at 91% of our goal, help us close the remaining gap!) 

Earlier this month, NEDRA awarded the second year of Heather Reisz Memorial Scholarships to two deserving newcomers to prospect research: Stephanie Cavagnuolo, prospect researcher for Oxfam America in Jamaica Plain and Becca Elwin, development associate for research and prospecting at the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston.

Your contribution to the Heather Reisz Memorial Scholarship will strengthen the prospect research/management/analytics community by supporting its newest members, and honoring Heather's legacy. 

For more about Heather, visit NEDRA's Memorial Page.

To donate online, visit the Heather Reisz Memorial Scholarship Donation Page.

To send a check, mail to:

Heather Reisz Memorial Scholarship

c/o NEDRA

465 Waverley Oaks Road, Suite 421

Waltham, MA 02452

 

NEDRA is a 501(c)(6) organization. Donations to 501(c)(6) organizations are not tax deductible as charitable contributions.

If you attended NEDRA's 2015 Annual Conference: Leveraging Fundraising Intelligence, you may still be sorting through all the business cards you collected while networking, or sharing your notes on the educational sessions with your co-workers. If you weren't one of the 217 attendees who made it, or if you weren't there for both days, here's what you missed.

Before the conference started, Amy Begg, Roslyn Clarke, and Nancy Faughnan showed new researchers the ropes at our second pre-conference Research Basics Bootcamp on Wednesday, April 15.  The conference itself began on Thursday morning with a keynote by Pan-Mass Challenge founder Billy Starr. His inspiring story of the beginnings, challenges, and growth of this two-day bikeathon raising money for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute was a great start to the programming. Educational sessions throughout the day taught conference attendees how to value private companies, and how to build a research shop with analytics capabilities, among other things.

At lunchtime on Thursday, the winners of the Conference Scholarship (Pamela Abraham) and Heather Reisz Memorial Scholarships (Stephanie Cavagnuolo and Rebecca Elwin) were announced. We also honored Nancy Faughnan, winner of the 2015 Ann Castle Award. Nancy's modest acceptance speech said a great deal about how much she has gained from volunteering with NEDRA over the years. We hope she has inspired others to seek out some exciting volunteer opportunities!

Following the conference sessions, iWave sponsored a delightful networking reception at the Portsmouth Gas Light, which was followed by group dinners at nearby Portsmouth restaurants. Conference attendees had a chance to relax after an intense day, and to get to know their fellow NEDRA members.

Friday, the excellent educational programming continued, with presenters like Michael Wesley, Bond Lammey, and Ian Wells sharing their knowledge and experience. After lunch, which featured several round table discussions, the Annual Business Meeting was held. The membership voted on the new slate of directors, and on the changes to the bylaws.

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the conference this year! If you haven't yet done so, don't forget to fill out your conference survey, sent by the NEDRA office on April 20. If you were a speaker at the conference, there's a second survey for you to fill out, sent on April 22. We value your input on these surveys, because it will help us make sure that next year's conference is even better! For those of you who didn't make it this year, we hope to see you at next year's conference, or at a program.

Click on the image below for more exciting information!

Did the Annual Conference whet your appetite for more great programming? Or did you miss it, and are you finding yourself craving the education and networking opportunities that you might have had there? Lucky for you, the Programming Committee has two excellent RINGs coming up in short order!

On Friday, May 1 (that's tomorrow, folks!), there will be a RING at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT, to discuss research at prep schools.

On Friday, May 1 (that's next week!), there will be a RING at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, to discuss commercial real estate.

Bring your questions, tips and tricks, and observations, and join your fellow researchers to discuss these topics!

For more information, and to sign up, please visit the Upcoming Programs page!

Click on the image below for more exciting information!

We would like to thank everyone who volunteered to help us make this year's Annual Conference such a success! To everyone who acted as a speaker, panelist or panel moderator, round table host, session host, member of the Conference Committee, or in any other capacity to help plan and run the conference, thank you! We couldn't have done it without you, and we're grateful for your assistance in helping our members to have a great conference experience.

In this article from the Fall 1998 edition of the NEDRA News, Maureen Kelly talks about the role of research in moves management, working with prospect managers to shepherd donors through the processes that lead up to a gift.

The Dynamics of Moves Management.pdf

The Board of Directors had its monthly operations call on March 11, and a walkthrough of the conference hotel on March 27. Among the subjects discussed this month were the upcoming conference, board nominations, and the winners of the Conference Scholarship, the Heather Reisz Memorial Scholarship, and the Ann Castle Award. Read on for more information!

NEDRA Board Member and Conference Committee co-chair Anne Brownlee has announced that she will be leaving the board just before this year's conference...to move on to an exciting new opportunity Down Under!

Anne joined the Board in 2012. Since that time, she has served on the Scholarship, Ann Castle Award, Marketing, and Conference Committees. She will be moving to Adelaide, Australia to work at the University of Adelaide, where she will be Manager, Research and Due Diligence, working on research, prospect management, and gift policy. Anne says that she is excited to bring all she's learned in her more than ten years as a NEDRA member to a new country.

We'll all miss Anne very much, and are grateful for all the wonderful work she's done for NEDRA!

Anne's departure means that there will be four empty board seats at the end of this fiscal year. The Board Nominations Committee reviewed applications from prospective Board Members, and presented recommendations for four applicants to the Board on March 27. The Board voted to accept these recommendations, and this slate will be presented to the NEDRA membership for a vote at the Annual Business Meeting at the conference.

The 2015 NEDRA Conference: Leveraging Fundraising Intelligence is fast approaching! If you haven't yet registered, you can do so at the Upcoming Programs page. Our keynote speaker this year is Billy Starr of the Pan-Mass Challenge, and we have a great lineup of educational sessions from presenters like Melissa Bank Stepno, David Sterling, and Ian Wells! You can also network with other researchers, meet representatives from our sponsors, and participate in round table discussions and informal group dinners. Don't forget, even if you're not attending the conference itself, the Thursday night Networking Reception, sponsored by iWave, is open to all NEDRA members. Come by and say hello!

James Cheng, our Social Media Committee Chair, would like to encourage everyone attending the conference to use Twitter to share your experiences while you're there! Use hashtag #NEDRACon2015, and let everyone know what you're learning, whom you're meeting, and anything else you want to share.