iWave Helps Consulting Firm Land More Business and Uncover New Donors for Clients

Background:

Hussey Philanthropic Consulting, based in Ontario, Canada, is a boutique second-generation family team that is making a big impact. They are passionately committed to empowering philanthropy to make positive impacts and change in the world. The firm has over 30 years of experience, over 1,000 clients and $4 billion dollars raised. They also raised the largest gift in Canadian philanthropic history, to the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Daniel, Managing Partner of Hussey Philanthropic Consulting who joined the team 7 years ago, is passionate about his clients, their work and their impact. The company focuses on capital campaigns and large-scale fundraising, which Daniel says is “one of the most challenging and most difficult, but one of the most rewarding areas of fundraising. You can raise a lot of money and really accelerate the vision of your organization in a short period of time.”

Challenge:

A major focus for their clients is “potential donor research”, as Daniel calls it. Initially, Daniel was using google, old newspaper clippings, and anything he could find to help him understand more about potential donors. However, this was very time consuming and did not provide a full picture that the team could be confident in sharing with clients. He then realized that products such as iWave existed to do that “heavy lifting” of aggregating many types of data and serving it up in an actionable way.

Solution:

After evaluating multiple products, it was evident that iWave was the best intelligence solution for them. Initially the point of difference was that iWave focused on the Canadian population in addition to the US, something that stood out from competitors. “It is just an amazing product, and it is the best. It is easy to use, clean, looks professional, and has the most robust and accurate information”, says Hussey. “At the end of the day I could get data using iWave that I couldn’t get anywhere else and that was the information that really mattered to our clients. It really helped us share comprehensive profiles with them that they could take action on and make a big impact with their organization.” With these profiles, Hussey clients were able to better understand their potential donors’ capacity, historical giving, passions, and their connections to other individuals, specifically board members.

“Our clients saw the value in what we were providing and continued to bring more work to us, based on the data we were able to provide using iWave.” Hussey says that they are able to show their clients the hidden gems in their network, and then use iWave to determine how to craft the right story and tailor the cultivation.