Prospect Research Institute is committed to upholding the ethical standards of the Association of Research Professionals for Advancement (APRA) and the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP).

Data Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2/2023

The Prospect Research Institute believes in maintaining your privacy on the Internet.

Your privacy is important to us.

Because your privacy is important to us, we promise:

Not to automatically add you to any email list or promotion without your permission.
Not to rent or trade your email address to anyone.
To give you control over subscribing or un-subscribing to our emails.
Not to share your personal information with anyone except those working with us to ship your product or perform the service you ordered.
Our payment enabled forms are automatically protected with 128-bit SSL Encryption to ensure that transactions are always safe, and our payment processor is Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant.
To share your contact information with the class instructor so you can receive personal instruction.
To share your contact information, only with permission, to vendors offering free access to a product during the class.
To track site statistics for the purpose of offering better content.

Our privacy is important to us too!

We operate with an opt-in philosophy. You don’t want to be automatically added to lists without your permission and neither do we, so please:

Invite us and ask our permission before adding us to any list.
Invite others to explore our website at www.ProspectResearchInstitute.org and contact us.

Confidentiality Policy

Last Updated: 02/2023

Prospect Research Institute recognizes that adult students are often actively employed and wish to apply their learning directly to work situations. In nonprofit fundraising that sometimes includes talking about and sharing information about donors, prospects, and other information about nonprofit operations.

Donor and prospect information is very sensitive data that is developed by nonprofits on a confidential basis. Prospect Research Institute staff, faculty and students have an ethical obligation to respect the privacy of any and all prospects and donors, and to protect and maintain the confidentiality of all information about prospects, donors, their family members and friends.

It is unethical and a violation of Prospect Research Institute policy to discuss the prospect or donor information included in course materials as examples, or shared by fellow students, with friends, spouses, relatives, or anyone else. Violations of the Prospect Research Institute Confidentiality Policy are considered very serious, and may result in disciplinary action, including immediate withdrawal from any active courses and revocation of all access to course or other materials.

Also, students and their organizations can be reassured that any research performed on an organization’s actual donors and prospects will be held in the strictest confidence and will always be the property of the organization. Any confidential material will be destroyed by the class closing date.

Staff, faculty and students agree that all confidential or copyrighted information in any form, including but not limited to notes, course assignments, email, forum postings, and workbooks will not be shared or duplicated without permission.

If any person is unsure whether an item of information is covered by this confidentiality agreement, that person will preserve confidentiality of the item in question until receiving clarification from the Prospect Research Institute.

Academic Honesty Policy

Last Updated: 02/2023

Academic Integrity in the School

Excellence requires freedom. Honesty and integrity are prerequisites of this freedom. Academic honesty in the advancement of skills and knowledge requires that all students and instructors respect the integrity of one another’s work and recognize the importance of acknowledging and safeguarding intellectual property.

As members of an academic community, students and faculty assume certain responsibilities. One of these responsibilities is to engage in honest communication. Academic dishonesty is a serious violation of the trust upon which an academic community depends. The Institute Academic Honesty Policy is both an articulation of the kinds of behaviors that violate this trust and the means by which that trust is safeguarded and restored. All students, staff, and faculty in the Institute must abide by the Academic Honesty Policy.

Violations of Academic Honesty

There are many different forms of academic dishonesty. The following kinds of honesty violations and their definitions are not meant to be exhaustive. Rather, they are intended to serve as examples of unacceptable academic conduct.

CHEATING: Communicating with other colleagues or students in order to get help during an exam or in an assignment where collaboration is not allowed; obtaining an examination prior to its administration; altering graded work and submitting it for re-grading; allowing another person to do one’s work and submitting it as one’s own; submitting work done in one class for credit in another without the instructor’s permission; obstructing or interfering with another student’s academic work; undertaking any activity intended to obtain an unfair advantage over other students.

PLAGIARISM: The representation of another person’s work as one’s own. More specifically the use of an idea, phrase, or other materials from a written or spoken source without acknowledgment in a work for which the student claims authorship.

Examples include: the misrepresentation of sources used in a work for which the student claims authorship; the improper use of course materials in a work for which the student claims authorship; the use of another colleague’s work product and turned in as one’s own work; submission of written work such as prospect profiles or relationship management plans, which have been copied from the work of other colleagues, with or without their knowledge and consent.

A student can avoid the risk of plagiarism in written work or oral presentations by clearly indicating, either in footnotes or in the paper or presentation itself, the source of any idea or wording that he or she did not produce. Sources must be given regardless of whether the idea, phrase or other material is quoted directly, paraphrased or summarized in the student-writer’s own words.

FABRICATION: Falsifying or inventing any information, citation, or data; using improper methods of collecting or generating data and presenting them as legitimate; misrepresenting oneself or one’s status in the Institute; perpetrating hoaxes unbecoming to students in good standing or potentially damaging to the University’s reputation or that of the members of its academic community of students and scholars.

FACILITATING ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: Aiding another person in an act that violates the standards of academic honesty; allowing other students to look at one’s own work during an exam or in an assignment where collaboration is not allowed; providing information, material, or assistance to another person knowing that it may be used in violation of course, departmental, or school academic honesty policies; providing false information in connection with any academic honesty inquiry.

DENYING OTHERS ACCESS TO INFORMATION OR MATERIAL: Any act that maliciously hinders the use of or access to course materials

Reporting Cases of Suspected Academic Dishonesty

All cases of suspected dishonesty must be reported to the CEO of the Institute. Typical penalties range from a change in grade for a course assignment to failure of the course itself. Faculty may also require students to rewrite work as part of their suggested penalty.

Once notified of the charges the student has 48 hours to decide whether or not to admit guilt and to accept the suggested penalty. If the student so admits and accepts, then the student will complete and sign the Academic Dishonesty Incident Report prepared by the CEO.

If the student does not admit guilt, the CEO will convene an Academic Honesty committee to hear the case. The committee determines if academic misconduct has occurred, determines the penalty, and forwards its report to the CEO and the student.

Forum & Peer Review Etiquette

Last updated: 2/2023

Be specific. Be nice. Ask questions.

Compliment. Suggest. Correct.

Description

The Prospect Research Institute promotes forum discussion and peer review in its courses and programs so that participants can share and learn from one another. Participants may include all kinds of fundraisers, including researchers, relationship managers and analysts from large and small organizations of all types. This diversity creates opportunities for sharing opinions, perspectives and expertise. Please be open-minded and considerate of the viewpoints expressed by all participants, even if these views differ from your own. Remember to ask yourself if you truly understand a question or comment before responding. Try not to assume anything!

Generally you should…

Be specific.

Comments such as “good” or “confusing” do not help participants improve. Specific statements that demonstrate context are helpful. For example: “I’m confused about the executive’s compensation. It wasn’t clear to me what amount of money might be his discretionary income and what amounts might be tied up in stock he can’t gift.”

Be nice.

Personal insults or feedback that gets too personal really has no place in peer review. Mind your word choices! Comments like “you did a terrible job on his stockholdings” or “putting that in a footnote is dumb” will not help a researcher improve. When you have to correct, use a softening statement first. Example: “I like that you want to share your source (softening), but I don’t think that information is useful to the gift officer (respectful disagreement).”

Ask questions.

You may or may not understand the information the researcher is trying to convey. Instead of assuming something is wrong, try asking questions. For example: “Why not paste the picture of her house here? I find my fundraisers want to see the picture when it looks like they do a lot of entertaining and might be open to hosting a personal event.” Alternatively, you might find yourself wanting to know how the researcher found certain items. Ask!

When writing comments and reviews, remember to…

Compliment

What are a few things that you liked about the work or opinion presented?

Suggest

Make suggestions on word choices, summarization/level of detail, organization of material, relevancy, items you recommend including/excluding, etc.

Correct

If information is absolutely incorrect, point it out. Use a softening statement first. For example: “Executive compensation is really complicated and I struggle with it myself, but I’m pretty sure you have calculated the options incorrectly. Try using this formula…”

Word Choice Ideas

My favorite part was _________ because __________
You might consider doing ______________ to improve ________________
I really like the way you _______________
I like/do not like this because __________
__________ is often difficult for fundraisers to understand. You might consider saying ___________ instead.
I couldn’t find ________________ but then I found it _________________. You might consider ______________

Special Note to Industry Vendors and Consultants

Whether you are attending a course to further your education in the field of philanthropy or participating in activities in the Resource Collections or any other community at the Institute, remember to:

Focus on education, not selling: Connect with participants by providing them with information, resources, or advice and ask permission before initiating a sales call or adding to your sales lists.
Refrain from soliciting: Don’t post links to your products or promotions unless it’s very relevant or specifically requested.
Take it offline: If you are approached about your services or product, take the conversation off of the forum or other Institute space and continue it in your own space.

Prospect Research Institute reserves the right to revoke access to any of its services to anyone who violates this etiquette policy or demonstrates disruptive, disrespectful, or otherwise unreasonable behavior.

Course License Agreement

IMPORTANT—READ CAREFULLY: This License Agreement is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity) and Prospect Research Institute LLC (“Institute”) for the Institute software and materials provided to you in connection with this learning content (“Property”). YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR USING THE PROPERTY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE PROPERTY. THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT CONTAINS DISCLAIMERS OF WARRANTIES AND LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDIES.

License

Institute grants you a non-exclusive license to use the Property in connection with the course for which you enrolled, provided that: (i) the Software is NOT modified; (ii) all copyright notices are maintained; and (iii) you comply with the terms of this License Agreement. Electronically transmitted Property may be printed only for your personal use.

Reservation of Rights and Ownership

Institute reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this License Agreement. The Property is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws and treaties. Institute owns the title, copyright, and other intellectual property rights in the Property. The Property is licensed, not sold. This License Agreement does not grant you any rights to trademarks or service marks of Institute.

Restrictions

You may not create derivative works based upon the Property in whole or in part except for use in connection with the course in which you are enrolled. You may not reverse engineer or decompile the Software, nor shall you attempt to create the source code from the object code for the Software. You may not transmit the Property over any network or between any devices except in connection with the class in which you are enrolled.

Limited Warranty

INSTITUTE WARRANTS THAT THE SOFTWARE WILL OPERATE AS DESCRIBED ON THIS SITE FOR THE DURATION OF THE CLASS IN WHICH YOU ARE ENROLLED. SHOULD THE PROPERTY NOT SO OPERATE, YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY SHALL BE A PRORATED REFUND OF THE PURCHASE PRICE PAID FOR THE PROPERTY. EXCEPT FOR THE LIMITED WARRANTY AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, INSTITUTE PROVIDES THE PROPERTY AND SUPPORT SERVICES (IF ANY) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND HEREBY DISCLAIMS ALL OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. ALSO, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, QUIET POSSESSION, CORRESPONDENCE TO DESCRIPTION OR NON-INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE PROPERTY.

Limitation of Liability

YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT USE OF THE PROPERTY IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. IN NO EVENT SHALL INSTITUTE BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THE PROPERTY OR ARISING OUT OF ANY BREACH OF ANY WARRANTY.

In no event shall Institute’s total liability to you for all damages, losses, and causes of action (whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise) exceed the amount paid by you for the Property.

Termination

This License is effective until terminated. This License will terminate immediately without notice from Institute if you fail to comply with any provision of this License. All provisions relating to confidentiality, proprietary rights, and non-disclosure shall survive the termination of this License.

Applicable Law

This License shall be construed, interpreted and governed by the laws of the State of Florida without regard to conflicts of law provisions thereof. You hereby consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the state courts sitting in Pinellas County, Florida or the federal courts in the Middle District of Florida to resolve any disputes arising under this License Agreement. In each case this License Agreement shall be construed and enforced without regard to the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods.

General

This License shall constitute the entire Agreement between you and Institute relating to the Property and supersedes all prior or contemporaneous oral or written communications, proposals and representations with respect to the Property or any other subject matter covered by this License Agreement. If any part of this License Agreement is held to be void, invalid, illegal or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, the other provisions shall continue in full force and effect.