Director Connections (by FoundationSearch)
33/44 points
Pros: Great interface and integration
Cons: Limited data
Bottom Line: For subscribers of FoundationSearch (FS), this is an excellent tool and should be used often. The technology behind the interface is solid and very well done, and with the addition of corporate data, their scope is getting better.
Summary:
What is it about the Canadians and prospect research? From iWave to FoundationSearch and DonorGateway, we have some strong technical support from our friends to the north!
When if first came out, this tool was designed more for foundation research than individual prospect research, however their recent (1/09) addition of a Director Connections Corporate shows that they are moving in the right direction. The flexibility of the maps is the best out of all 7 solutions. After expanding an entity, the program not only allows you to move individual connections, but will also drag whole groups of entities along without having to select them all. Because of the limited number of connections (even with the corporation addition, they are only mapping board members), you’re not likely to need anything more and, the feature is actually quite nice.
The plan is to load all of their foundation data into this mapping interface so that you can do the same type of prospect research with foundations as you have been for individuals. It is still in its Beta test version, so I expect great things from this company. If you don't have a foundation strategy, this product will be too expensive for the limited scope of data it provides, however, if there are grant writers in your institution, a shared subscription to FS could add a nice supplement to your RMT solution!
The only other issue with this service is that the foundations and the corporations are NOT in the same data. So, if a director for XYZ company also sits on the board of ZYX Foundation, you're still looking at split data. Additionally, the corporate data only maps around 400 companies.
NOTE: Interestingly, Foundation Center unveiled their new interface about two years ago (surprisingly similar to FS) but several years AFTER FS had already made the technological advances to capture a good bit of market share from the once monopolized field of foundation research. Their RMT efforts have renewed my confidence in FS as the leader in foundation research technology.
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