It's good to talk!
RiF, the Institute of Fundraising's Special Interest Group for prospect researchers, was founded in 1993 and is now the largest representative body for UK-based prospect researchers. Through its website, biannual conferences and regular emails to its 700 members, it provides invaluable training, advice and support for those carrying out prospect research throughout the UK.
Not to be confused with RiF, PRUK is the leading independent forum for UK-based prospect researchers. Keep abreast of the latest research developments, news, jobs, etc. or search the archives for past research wisdom (whatever problems you face, the chances are someone else has faced them before and asked the discussion group for help).
Similar to the RiF discussion group but focussing on trust and statutory fundraising. Make friends with established trust fundraisers by asking the discussion group for information about [insert well known trust name here] rather than taking five minutes to look it up for yourself on the Charity Commission's website, Trustfunding.org.uk, Google, etc.
UK Fundraising's forum for trust and statutory fundraising.
Similar to the RiF discussion group but with the focus on major donor fundraising and penis size.
Similar to the RiF discussion group but focussing on corporate fundraising. No discussion of penises, large or otherwise.
UK Fundraising's forum for company fundraising, including employee fundraising, sponsorship, cause related marketing, charity of the year (COTY), corporate community involvement, and corporate social responsibility.
FreePint is a global network of people who find, use, manage and share work-related information. Their forum is called the Freepint Bar, where you can post Web-related questions, help other members and discuss issues arising in the FreePint Newsletter. It has a searchable archive. The regular FreePint newsletter contains a very useful section called My Favourite Tipples, in which guest contributors discuss their five favourite websites.
Email discussion lists for fundraisers
Howard Lake of Fundraising UK maintained a list of most of the fundraising discussion forums that he came across but in August 2006 he described the list as "hopelessly out of date, having not been updated for four years." Some of the forums on the list are still active, though, and it is very comprehensive. Certainly worth a look.
SupportingAdvancement Favourite Listservs
Another list of discussion forums, from those helpful people at SupportingAdvacement.com.
Keep abreast of the latest developments in research on the other side of the pond with the Prospect-L discussion group, managed by the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA).
The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), run several useful discussion lists.
Of these, the following may be particularly useful: Advance-L for senior advancement professionals and FundSvcs for fundraisers.
A discussion group for development professionals involved or interested in data mining and modelling, particularly as such concepts may be applied to major gifts. There is more about data mining here.
Page Updated: 29/04/08