A Project Plan for Software that Advances Museums\u27 Prospect Research Effectiveness

Due to intense competition for donations from a limited pool of individuals who are inclined to support museums, these institutions are increasingly challenged to engage their donors on many levels. The aim of this capstone is to provide museums with a project plan for software that facilitates prospect research: the SMIC software, or Social Media Information Collector, an innovative system that gathers information on new donors and members from their social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. The plan in this paper outlines opportunities and challenges, as well as three different phases that a museum and its chosen vendor would hypothetically follow to build the software. A request for proposal also follows in the plan. Last but not least, the research highlights parameters for success and evaluation, with a summary of main findings and the related conclusions