Apra Greater Houston Annual Conference
Friday, May 31, 2024 United Way of Houston Community Resource Center50 Waugh Dr., Houston, TX 77007
8:30 – 9:00 Registration, Light Breakfast, and Networking
9:00 – 9:15 Welcome Remarks, Ashley Estes, Board President
9:15 – 10:00 Due Diligence: The What, Why, and How of Research Analytics and Risk Assessment (Virtual) Krista Pierce, Tufts University
This presentation will provide attendants with the full background and composition of the due diligence program at Tufts University. The presentation will give a detailed overview of how to develop a due diligence policy and procedure and create reporting templates, as well as offering unique tools, resources, and techniques for use throughout the due diligence review process. The presentation will provide attendants with not only a framework to build a due diligence program at their own organizations, but also a greater understanding of how due diligence research will impact the future of non-profit fundraising.
10:00 – 10:15 Break
10:15 – 11:00 Relationship MappingMarianne Pelletier, Staupell Analytics Group
As advertising exhausts our constituents’ attention, we are becoming increasingly reliant on friends of friends to help us get in front of our prospects. This session will cover how to unearth different kinds of relationships in order to find the right connector to that elusive prospect, as well as to discover those networks that your major gifts donors are part of. Both processing by hand and data science techniques will be demonstrated
11:00 – 11:15 Break
11:15 – 12:00 SEC Filings . . .OH NO!Elise Lynch, Kaleidoscope
Skip the digging in SEC filings for compensation, stock sales. Kaleidoscope’s Insider Focus does the heavy lifting by surfacing critical wealth data from SEC filings into Prospect and Company Profiles containing a goldmine of financial data, relationship maps, and geo-locators extracted and curated from all types of SEC filings.
12:00 – 12:15 Lunch & Networking (included with registration)
1:00 - 1:20 Mindful Movement with Sandy
1:20 – 2:05 PresentationChelsea Cheung, Greater Houston Community Foundation
Understanding Houston is a project that analyzes data from 70 sources for over 200 indicators to provide a comprehensive view of quality of life in Houston's three most populous counties.
2:05 – 2:30 Closing Remarks
Networking happy hour after conference
Meet the Speakers!
Marianne Pelletier, Managing Director, Staupell Analytics Group
Marianne Pelletier has over 30 years of experience in fundraising, with the majority in prospect research and prospecting. She is one of the first adopters of donor modeling and data mining techniques, and is now a world-renown leader on this segment of the research profession. She has served as an analyst and a department director for Harvard, Lesley, Carnegie Mellon, and Cornell University. Pelletier’ also ran an annual giving program for Southern NH University, and offered software consulting through the Datatel Corporation and through CampusWorks. A recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the New England Development Research Association and a Woman of the Year designation by the National Association of Professional Women, Pelletier is on the board of Habitat for Humanity of Tompkins and Cortland Counties and is president of the Finger Lakes chapter of AFP. She s a graduate of Rockford University, and earned her MBA at Southern New Hampshire University. Her recent workbook, Building Your Analytics Shop: A Workbook for Nonprofits, was a finalist for the Terry McAdam Award in 2016.
Chelsea Cheung, Senior Manager of Data Analytics, Greater Houston Community Foundation
Chelsea Cheung is Senior Manager of Data Analytics at Greater Houston Community Foundation where she supports the Foundation’s data indicators initiative, Understanding Houston. Chelsea is a graduate of University of Houston-Downtown (UHD) with a B.S. in Applied Statistics and minors in Mathematics and Economics. She was nominated by the Associate Dean of her college to serve as a student lead for UH CARES, an organization created by the university to engage students in assisting low-income households in rebuilding their homes after Hurricane Harvey. Additionally, she was elected by her classmates to serve as a Senator representing her college in the Student Government Association (SGA) and went on to be chair of the SGA Student Life Committee and SGA Speaker of the Senate.
Chelsea is currently serving her sixth year on the Board of Directors for Nourish International, a nonprofit that develops the leadership skills, self-awareness, and confidence of students to become social impact leaders. Chelsea has lived in many different cities but sees Houston as her hometown.
Krista Pierce, Sr. Associate Director of Due Diligence Research, Tufts University
Krista joined the prospect development team at Tufts University in 2015. Since assuming her current role in 2021, Krista has helped to create the University’s first in-house due diligence program, which included developing new policies and procedures, research reports, and risk analysis scoring.
In addition to managing the due diligence program’s day-to-day operations, Krista has also acted as a subject-matter expert to peer institutions and colleagues, and, most recently, gave a comprehensive workshop on due diligence at APRA’s Prospect Development 2023.
Prior to her due diligence work, Krista served in a variety of roles at Tufts, where her responsibilities were divided between prospect management and prospect research, with a particular expertise in international prospect research. Krista came to Tufts University from Tufts Medical Center, where she helped to develop the fundraising office’s first prospect research program. Krista graduated from Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH with a B.A. in English.
Elise Lynch, Executive VP, Kaleidoscope
Elise Lynch is the Executive Vice President of Kaleidoscope, which really means “chief cook and bottle washer” in a small and nimble company like “Kscope”. Previously with 10-K Wizard and Morningstar, she uses her 24+ years of experience and expertise, researching securities filings both SEC and SEDAR. This has enabled Kaleidoscope to develop: a first-class securities research platform used by law firms, accounting firms and corporate C-Suite executives; Insider Focus specifically designed for prospect research and development; and an array of API solutions to support a wide variety of industry applications.
In her role, Elise assists in product development, spearheads education and training for research professionals, and provides guidance on how best to use our API solutions for commercial and internal applications. Her motto: “Education is the key to success. Keep learning.”
Mindful Movement featuring Sandy Swann
Sandy started practicing yoga in 1996 and has since studied Bikram, Vinyasa, Forrest, Ashtanga, Hatha and Yin varieties. She is certified in Baron Baptiste Power, Yin, and chair yoga. She earned her 200 HTT with Awakened Yoga, a local studio in Sugar Land, and then started teaching at 24Hour Fitness in Sugar Land. Besides yoga, she loves snow-skiing and hiking best but would try just about any sport. She also loves dancing, fine dining, and fine wines, especially champagne.
