The Conference Committee has reported the first big piece of news about next year's conference. The conference will be held at the Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside Hotel in Portsmouth, NH on Thursday and Friday, April 16th and 17th. Mark your calendars now, and start brainstorming session ideas! We look forward to seeing you there.

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We hope you enjoyed NEDRA's first tweet chat on data analytics on July 25th! Also, if you missed May's panel on Chinese philanthropy, there's good news: it will soon be available for online viewing! Keep an eye on your e-mail for more information about how to register to see the recorded program online.

Coming up in September, Melissa Bank Stepno will be presenting on the subject of real estate. Later in the fall, we'll be holding a Research Basics Bootcamp. Stay tuned for more information on the website and in your e-mail.

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Written by Laura Parshall, editor of the NEDRA News Blog and a senior research analyst at MIT

A Brief Thought On Learning

The other morning, I opened my e-mail, and came across a question from a development officer with whom I've been working for quite a while. She wanted to know if there was a way she could view a list of all the contact reports on the prospects in her portfolio, just so she could count them up and get an idea of how well cultivated each prospect was, relative to others. This wasn't something anyone had ever asked me before, and I hadn't been trained on how to do this. I suspected, however, that this had to be possible. Our programmers have created so many useful reports in our database that "there's an Advance report for that" could be as commonly heard in my office as "there's an app for that" is in smartphone commercials.

I reasoned first of all that this was a report that would have to be run against a saved list of prospects, and figured out, based on that, where it would be located in the system. Sure enough--there was a report listed just for this kind of purpose! I played around with it for a little while, testing it out and figuring out the most efficient way to use it. Then, I responded to the e-mail from my development officer, describing the steps she'd need to take to get the information she wanted. She thanked me immediately, and said it should do the trick just fine.

It occurred to me after reading her grateful e-mail that she probably assumed I'd known exactly how to do this already. Researchers know everything, right? Of course we don't, but we do know how to look for things. Sometimes, front-line fundraisers don't see the difference! Although I had been just as uninformed as my development officer when I received her first e-mail, that question gave me the opportunity to do a little digging and teach myself--and her--something new.

Sometimes, when someone asks us a question, the immediate answer is "I don't know." As researchers, though, we can always add on to that, "…but I will find out." These kinds of questions give us a chance to grow and improve on our skillset and knowledge base. The opportunity to say, "I don't know" is a valuable one. No matter how long we've been in the industry, no matter how long we've been at a particular organization, we always have more to learn. Learning starts with realizing that there's something out there that we don't know.

Going to APRA? Stop by NEDRA’s Thursday night V.I.N.O. (Very Informal Networking Opportunity).

After your day of sessions, relax with other New Englanders and enjoy a craft cocktail at Vesper. Located next to the lobby of the Cosmopolitan, Vesper is said to be “anything but a ‘lobby bar.’” Admission is free; no RSVP needed. Attendees are responsible for their own drink costs. See you there!

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In this article from 2007, Helen Brown discusses why international prospect research is so difficult, and shares some resources to make it a little less so.

International Prospect Research- The Jack London Approach.pdf

The NEDRA Board of Directors had its annual retreat on June 12th and 13th. The Board discussed the new slate of committee chairs for this coming membership year, which will be as follows:

Amy Bagley Begg: Conference Committee (co-chair) Sarah Benson:
Programming Committee (co-chair) Anne Brownlee: Conference Committee
(co-chair) James Cheng: Social Media Committee Amber Countis: Ann
Castle Award Committee, Heather Reisz Memorial Scholarship Committee
Lisa Foster: Sponsorship Committee (co-chair) Tara MacMullen: Website
and Technology Committee, Volunteers Committee Laura Parshall: NEDRA
News Committee, Marketing Committee Mary Taddia: Conference
Scholarship Committee, Sponsorship Committee (co-chair) Tina Tong:
Programming Committee (co-chair) Ian Wells: Membership Committee

Among the other subjects discussed were next year's conference and the goals of the new Social Media Committee. Tara MacMullen also trained the other Board members on how to maintain and update NEDRA's website. Read on for more information!

Summer may just have started, but the Programming Committee is already planning some great programs for this fall! On September 18th, Melissa Bank Stepno will be presenting a workshop on real estate at Combined Jewish Philanthropies. In addition, Research Basics Bootcamps are in the works for this fall, both inside and outside of Boston. Keep an eye on the Upcoming Programs page for more information as it becomes available!