Make best practice assessment a best practice

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By Maureen Procopio

I spend a lot of time gathering best practices from peers, sharing what I’ve learned with colleagues, and encouraging best practice implementation throughout my organization. Nonprofits and institutions wanting to elevate their performance can effectively achieve this through best practice research.

Connecting with peers and aspirational peers will show you new ways of doing things. Applying an enterprise approach to best practices will ensure that implementation is successful.

Selecting your peers

Many higher education institutions have their own standard peer sets based on various metrics and university system standards. This is a great starting point if you’re unsure of which schools to pick for your assessment. The UO has eight designated peers, but UO Advancement’s aspirations span beyond what those eight institutions could teach us. Over the last four years, I’ve conducted 25 advancement-related studies, engaging over 55 organizations almost 120 times. If I stuck to the eight identified peers, they’d be sick of us.

I had to redefine who a peer is. The first step involved having clarity about what I was researching. Depending on the question being researched, my options vastly expanded. Emerging trends occur at many types of institutions, regardless of whether they’re public or private; have a large endowment; are in a particular region; have a certain amount of students, or raise a boat-load of money. If you stick to just the “biggest” and “most,” you may overlook some opportunities.

Expand the standard peer group

If you decide to move beyond your standard peer group, these tactics will help you do that.

  • Ask your colleagues for their connections. They know who is doing good work. Prompt them for both higher education and non-profit recommendations.
  • Search archived and current conference offerings for speakers, vendors, consultants, and other experts. It is a treasure-trove of connections. For example, APRA and CASE, Meeting of the Minds,  Nonprofit Marketing Summit.
  • Search for relevant best practice articles and papers. These often reference institutions and organizations that are doing good work in the relevant practice. I’ve found many aspirational peers by looking up vendors’ highlighted client articles.
  • Ask for peer recommendations as you talk to institutions and organizations. A good rule of thumb for best practice outreach is talking to four or five organizations in total.

An enterprise approach to best practice research

You’re accumulating a lot of best practice insights, ideas, and recommendations that will impact several areas of your organization. Now what?

The act of benchmarking your institution against peers requires cataloging the various best practices and the outcomes that are being considered. My birds-eye view on UO Advancement put me in the unique position to connect leaders throughout our organization regarding two elements:

  1. Project impacts on the enterprise: Of the best practice assessments we’ve conducted what are the intended and actual impacts on the enterprise?
  2. Outcome overlaps throughout the enterprise: Where are the tactical and strategic overlaps occurring among the assessment outcomes?

Communicating about project impacts and outcome overlaps will help deepen your enterprise-level understanding of where you are and where you want to go.

These two steps below will help you effectively recognize best practices impacts and achieve successful implementation for your enterprise.

1: Project impacts on the enterprise

Illustrate enterprise-level project impacts by plotting best practice projects along your pipeline continuum. This shows enterprise aspirations for change and its impact on various constituents and internal teams. In the example below, there are best practice examples under the engagement, LAG, mid-level giving, major gifts, and principal gifts teams and constituents.

The yellow box lists technology and organization-level projects. By seeing impacts throughout the enterprise, leadership teams can better understand the current and future state of the organization and potential investments, which set the stage for implementation.

2: Outcome overlaps throughout the enterprise

Exploring enterprise-wide best practice outcomes sheds more light on implementation planning. It helps you recognize where there are potential overlaps and similarities of recommendations.

Identifying themes

Common themes will emerge as best practices accumulate. Thematic outcomes will naturally align with experts, and these may align with already established task forces within your organization, such as reporting or data governance. Be prepared for these common themes:

  • New or enhanced policy decisions;
  • New or enhanced communication practices;
  • Deeper examinations of DEI implications, observations, and insights;
  • Talent investments, professional development, coaching, and training; and
  • Digital investments: technology upgrades, and improved & enhanced data practices

Seek economies of scale when making resource and investment decisions. Where this could emerge:

  • Active involvement of a DEI committee can advise and guide when outcomes have unintended equity and inclusion impacts. Project leads will benefit from inviting this committee’s participation on an “early and often” basis.
  • If a best practice outcome involves similar vendor investments, combine forces when making those decisions.
  • Talent and organizational decisions may have impacts that overlap across advancement services. These decisions (either upsizing or downsizing) can find the best success with economies of scale.
  • Outcomes often affect policies. Consider setting up a standing policies task force.

Framework for success

Establish a framework for best practice implementation throughout the enterprise, making time and space for experimentation and innovation.

  • How will we follow up on the next steps?
  • Can we empower staff to experiment, innovate, and communicate about their needs and barriers?
  • What are the measures of success?
  • How do we empower success and outcomes?

An everyday best practice

Normalize best-practice exercises and conversations among teams. Create space for conversations in a meeting. Who’s done any best practice outreach? Have you connected with a new peer or institution? What have we learned? Are we implementing the best practices?

Add a section to your advancement’s intranet or team space. Implement a learning session for the impactful and interesting outcomes. Sharing in different ways will meet the diverse learning styles of colleagues.

 

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

Engagement Vendor Assessment

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By Maureen Procopio

3 Steps to Success

Today’s most pressing advancement technology decisions are focused on successful alumni and donor engagement experiences. The vendor and software decisions to meet today’s needs cannot lock you out of a future of innovation. Advancement teams are facing decisions to invest in new or upgrade existing software right now. Top of mind for many advancement organizations is donor and alumni engagement solutions – it can be mind-boggling! Finding the right blend of services to meet your organization’s engagement needs can feel downright near impossible.

If your organization aspires to do more, faces the end of a contract, or recognizes gaps in meeting donors’ needs, it’s important to assess your options then make a confident selection for your alumni and advancement team. You must retain control of your future without taking away growth options.

Here are three steps to help you compile a peer-informed report with experience-based insights for your stakeholders to use in making vendor investment decisions. Bonus: Take a look at my software vendor comparisons and insights to further inform your recommendations.

1.      Know your organization’s “why”:

Knowing why you’re doing something is always practical, especially when it involves extensive budget, time, and staff resources. Assessing and recommending vendors is no exception. Here are some considerations:

  • Are you selecting a new vendor to replace an existing one? This could be the case when a contract is coming to its end. Investigate the current vendor and its offerings to know what options you should consider in a replacement.
  • Is your organization reaching new heights? Engagement and development teams are expanding their tactics and need new technology functionality and tools.
  • Will this new software be a part of a current suite that your organization has already acquired? Knowing how well the vendors’ software integrates with other technology is important.
  • Do you need to level-up your current alumni engagement experience? Your organization is ready for enhancements and innovations in engagement but has some gaps in the experience that need to be fixed.

2.      Focus on specific functional needs

Next, you need to know what you’re looking for. This will go hand-in-hand with your “why.” What functions are relevant for your organization? Will this align with or impact a CRM conversion?  Alumni and donor engagement vendors and products are plentiful, offering myriad functions and solutions. Go into your assessment knowing what your organization’s functional needs are so you stay focused on the right product options. For example, my examination of the vendor landscape focused on five key functions:

  1. Website content management
  2. Email (defined primarily as “outbound only” and not “intelligent”)
  3. Events management
  4. Online giving
  5. Marketing automation

3.      Connect with peers on their experience

Now that you know why you’re assessing vendors and what you’re looking for in a vendor, talk to institutions that are doing what you want to do. My internal stakeholders suggested a few peers to call, then I added to the list. Connect with consultants. I called my EAB rep who is up-to-date on emerging practices in engagement. When you do your outreach, focus on the functional areas important for your vendor assessment. Build questions to get information based on:

  1. Vendor selection: How did they select their vendors? What other vendors did they consider?
  2. Software/hardware integration: How well does the selected software integrate with the peer’s CRM and existing software? Does the peer find overall enhanced engagement as a result of investing in the vendor’s software?
  3. Vendor responsiveness: What have been the peer’s experiences with the vendor’s customer service and technology delivery and upgrades? Ask for positive and negative experiences.
  4. Future state: What is the peer’s aspirations when it comes to future technology enhancements and investments?
  5. Other peers: Who does the peer consider to be best-in-class for achieving engagement outcomes and approaches? Connect with those peers as well.

Compile these user experiences, collating the patterns and insights as relevant to your audience. Deliver these findings to your vendor selection team to better-position them in making a data-informed decision.

Vendor comparisons and insights (a layperson’s perspective)

As mentioned above, I focused on five key functions: website content management, email, events management, online giving, and marketing automation. I presented the following vendor and function comparisons based on my peer interviews and research observations.

Top Vendors by functionality

The top vendors listed below by functional area are based on the number of times vendors came up as being used at an organization, or those vendors who appeared to be “emerging leaders” (signified by asterisks *). Additionally:

  • Database of record was a by-product of my research in conjunction with the other information shared and was interesting context, therefore reflected below.
  • Single service ecosystems are those vendors who offer most or all of the features studied. It was important to note these separately.

Side-by-side Comparison of Ecosystems

There are a handful of single service ecosystems that provide the features of interest in this study. Some of these vendors have additional functionality including that of a primary database of record.

Integration

  • Salesforce is known for seamless integration of other applications using an API, while other vendors make it harder to work outside of the ecosystem. The Salesforce model allows customers to build an ala carte system, based on the needs of the organizations. Interviewees noted that Ellucian and Blackbaud made integrating other applications “challenging” if these applications were not a part of their native ecosystem.

Vendor support

  • Blackbaud was noted as approaching their business units as separate entities making it difficult for cohesive integration even among their applications. Anthology received a positive technology report card when working on specialized requests; and a subpar report card for module upgrades and communications about outages.

Future state

  • Hivebrite is the newest to emerge in the integrated ecosystem space with positive reviews on its growth and vision. Anthology has yet to expand into marketing automation which was observed as the next important investment for institutions aspiring to be in the next-generation engagement and fundraising space.

Ecosystems vs Decoupled Vendors

  • EAB’s 2020 “Navigating the Advancement Technology Vendor Landscape” report was an informative resource to further understand software features by function, industry definitions, and examples of institutional adoption of software.

Best practices

Database of record / CRM Upgrades

  • One institution that uses several decoupled service vendors was in the middle of upgrading its CRM of record in the next two years and decided to consider email and event vendors in tandem with the database decision. “It would be frowned upon to do two conversions that ultimately impact the workload of the conversion and implementation teams.”
  • A non-profit/non-higher ed organization’s decision to select Blackbaud as their CRM/vendor was to “capitalize on the marketing automation while maintaining traditional modes of engagement.”

Vendor couplings & observations

  • One higher-ed institution noted they “actively moved away from Anthology Encompass and adopted Hivebrite,” a newer vendor aspiring to compete with some of Anthology’s features.
  • Institutions that use Salesforce continue to use other events vendors. Cvent emerged as a leading event management tool for institutions that partnered outside of their primary (native) single-source ecosystem. Anthology users most often implement the native events module.
  • Email functionality seemed wishy-washy: a hodgepodge of decoupled vendor options emerged but no trends prevailed. This led to an expansion of the study to consider marketing automation and multi-channel communication vendors.

Marketing Automation: Achieving the donor journey

  • These tools aim to provide consistent, high-quality, and personalized digital experiences for constituents. Once institutions recognized the power of marketing automation and the ability to span multiple channels, they graduated from their email vendors.
  • Several institutions in this study actively engage in marketing automation using Salesforce (Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud).  These institutions are focused on donor journeys, customized multi-channel communications based on AI, and strategic resource planning.
  • One institution is actively working toward marketing automation using Salesforce Marketing Cloud to build personalized messaging to create donor and stewardship journeys. The process utilizes AI and multichannel marketing, in-house developers, and links up to their Salesforce CRM.

Conclusion

There are options: Your organization can choose several decoupled vendors; a single source ecosystem, or a hybrid of both. But remember, budget and time are important considerations. Teams must understand the technical skills required to support the backend and sustainability for each solution. Consider your organization’s strategic vision for digital transformation: What does current and future talent look like? What does your advancement organization want to become? Investing in technology to achieve who you are today must also have an eye on your aspirations for tomorrow.

 

 

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

7 Steps to campaign end reporting success

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By Maureen Procopio

The University of Oregon just wrapped up a historic campaign. Telling the story of our $3.24 billion campaign through data has been a blast! Knowing how all the data puzzle pieces fit together was exhilarating. The building blocks for all of this were data, stories, and partnerships.

Here are 7 steps to have in place for nimble campaign end reporting. Depending on where your advancement team is on the digital transformation continuum, reporting, analytics, communication, and staffing are all relevant considerations as you think about all of these ideas. Then check out how we did with our honest assessment.

Step 1: Assemble a small campaign end reporting team

Campaign storytelling requires campaign data and donor information to come together to create compelling narratives. Campaign end reporting teams include: the campaign strategists and directors accessing data from analytics and reporting colleagues; they are the stewardship and principal gifts directors collating and collecting years of donor experiences and stories. Communications partners must weave this information together for compelling, inspiring campaign storytelling.

Campaign fundraising data and donor information are two buckets of information collection and analysis and must be effectively funneled to the communications partners. Consider this:

  • Assign a campaign fundraising data lead who knows the data inside and out.
  • Assign a donor story/information lead who knows the big gifts, impact stories, and narratives.
  • These leads must funnel the right information to the communications team to create the collateral for press releases, social media content, interview notes, and website updates.
  • These leads work to validate the data and information in draft documents.
  • Communications partners coordinate rollout plans and timelines with stakeholders.

Step 2: Establish the communications and rollout timeline

Set up a timeline with an “order of operations” that includes stakeholder groups and by-whens, such as:

  • what reports need to be run when;
  • who needs to know what by when;
  • what emails should be sent by what date.

Ideally, all of this would be in a workflow/project management software with assigned staff. Consider the timing of campaign press releases with units and DOs wanting to communicate with their donors and alumni. Where does your alumni association fit in? Partner along the way with this well-connected, dynamic team.

Step 3: Determine campaign data points for storytelling

Invite stakeholders into the discussion about what campaign data points will be important to convey to your audiences. Don’t make it too complicated and keep new analytics to a minimum. Start with the data sources that already exist.

Define with your stakeholders who your audiences are. The data will be different for boards, deans, staff, etc. The ideal scenario is to establish a common dataset that serves as many audiences as possible.

Pro Tip: Create a common dataset for all the data that you’ll need for campaign-end reporting.

  • Test it out for a few months before your campaign end date.
  • Stick to the data points that you have reported on for years. Everyone is used to these, they’re familiar.
  • Include new data points and analysis as questions arise and consult with others about how they’ll serve the campaign storytelling.
  • Keep new analytics to a minimum.
  • The common dataset should be accessible to your entire campaign reporting team.
  • Build charts and interpretations that are accessible and easy to roll out to colleagues.

Use the comprehensive campaign reporting framework to inform your unit campaign reporting framework. The big campaign picture should inform the unit pictures.

  • Similar data points for unit campaign reporting allow for cohesive storytelling.
  • Prepare data requests in tandem at the unit level.
  • The common dataset is a framework that’s updated at the unit level.

Step 4: Seek feedback to create the most effective information packets

Your goal is to create information packets that help them understand how their area performed in the campaign. So ask some colleagues, What do you want to know? What do you need to know? Invite colleagues to be sounding boards and testers for an effective rollout of campaign information. This feedback is especially useful when gaining insights into how the information will be used, which feeds into the most effective way to package data and information.

Partner with development assistants, stewardship (unit and central), prospect management, communications, and colleagues interacting with an advisory board. You might just learn information that causes you to head back to steps 1, 2 or 3.

If you create it in a silo, you may as well keep it in a silo.

Step 5: Streamline unit campaign information packets

Approach unit campaign reporting in a streamlined and unified process. Once you have your feedback from stakeholders and partners, be transparent about what units and stakeholders can expect: packets of data and reports prepared for them; a level of self-service options that they can conduct on their own; as well as ad hoc analysis as needed.

Pro Tip: For unit campaign reporting, we called this the “90-10” approach, where 90% of unit campaign reporting was delivered to the units as a streamlined and uniform approach. All units received the same reporting packet tailored with their data, reports, and slide deck, and we expected that it met 90% of their needs. There was an expectation that units would use self-serve reporting and analysis for additional data points beyond what was delivered. This approach helped units hit the ground running, and saved a lot of time for the campaign reporting team.

Some units may not meet their campaign dollar goal. As mentioned in the “how’d we do” section below, there’s an opportunity to help provide storytelling for both sets of units.

Step 6: Implement a thoughtful rollout plan

Implement a transparent communication process for your stakeholders and colleagues to keep informed. Communicate to colleagues regarding campaign end reporting telling them what they can expect, by when, how it will be shared, and what to do if they have questions. Do this a month ahead of the campaign end date, then a week ahead of the delivery date.

Pro Tip: Asking DOs for their donor and gift stories along the way may alleviate the mad dash for communications “call for stories” post-campaign.

Where will you store and share reporting?  Establish file sharing processes well ahead of time. Using OneDrive or shared file systems removes the confusion of multiple versions of documents. Don’t overlook file security and donor privacy.

Pro Tip:  Create a OneNote document guide that walks your users through packet contents, FAQs, expectations and next steps, self-serve reporting instructions, and who to contact for help.

Step 7: Activate your plan and expect the unexpected

It’s time to place your faith in your plan. Remind partners and stakeholders of the timelines, deliverables, and expectations. Activate the plan and expect unexpected and ad hoc requests. For us, we received several unexpected data requests. Fortunately, these were all easy to answer as a result of our common dataset.

Pro Tip: Alert colleagues that they must not share totals (grand total or unit totals) before the public release. You don’t want anyone to spill the beans before the big reveal, including the president.

We implemented a clear decision-making protocol to handle unexpected requests for campaign data before we were ready to go public. Because of our protocol, we weren’t confused or uncertain about what to do.

As we geared up for the public announcement, be ready for press organizations asking for fact-checking and backup data. Carve out time, be responsive, and be patient.

How did we do? An honest assessment

The bulk of the feedback from the reporting roll-out was supportive and constructive, with ideas for future and ongoing applications. Here are a few things that didn’t go perfectly:

  • The timing of our press release was delayed placing the public rollout on hold. We did not keep colleagues updated on the delay, causing some confusion about when they could update their stakeholders and share reports.
  • The campaign packets were geared more so for units who hit their dollar goals, therefore helping to convey those success stories. A few units did not meet their campaign dollar goals. Units not hitting their dollar goals have a different, yet equally compelling story to tell. The unit campaign reporting packets could have been proactive in helping both sets of units tell different stories.
  • We used OneDrive file sharing, but the accessibility glitched along the way for some colleagues.
  • A unit director decided to not use the campaign packets and so used their shadow dataset instead. (note: apparently shadow datasets continue to exist)

 

Preplanning means a stress-free campaign end

Campaign end reporting and storytelling is one of the best campaign phases. It’s a blip of time not recognized on that timeline the campaign consultant gives you when an organization starts a campaign. Implementing these steps will give you confidence in this reporting phase. Make this your favorite campaign phase, and one that is mostly stress-free with planning, preparation, and partnering. It will result in compelling storytelling and memorable narratives.

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

External advisory boards: expect success

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By Maureen Procopio

External Advisory Boards (EABs) are an important part of the academic and advancement convention. They are put into place for various reasons. Left unchecked or without guidance, much is overlooked: influence, wisdom, guidance, philanthropy, and vision.

After talking to a handful of counterparts doing excellent work in this space, I plucked out three themes encompassing advisory board expectations and three steps to successful board outcomes. Basically:

  • What are advisory boards expected to do? and
  • How can we help them be successful?

3 Expectations of EABs

What are advisory boards expected to do?

Determine why the board is in place and make it clear to the volunteers. The external advisory board is expected to do important activities:

  1. To serve as an advisory role to the academic leader(s) or directors of the campus, institute, or center, helping to create and provide strategic vision and direction.
  2. To serve as external advocates and ambassadors for their organizations, both internally and externally.
  3. To support the mission through philanthropy, hosting events, and connecting the institutes with new friends and donors.

Depending on the organization, leadership committees are comprised of external industry experts, donors and alumni, and faculty members. Think of the impact on the mission and vision, and how these individuals can collectively impact and influence the outcomes of the above activities: advising, advocating, and philanthropy.

Sometimes, EABs are put into place as a stewardship vehicle due to the result of a large philanthropic gift. In these cases, embrace this opportunity to its fullest power and influence. The organization must recognize that it can and must continue to align with the three outcomes above: advising, advocating, and philanthropy.

3 Steps to EAB effectiveness

How can we help advisory boards be successful?

EABs need to know how to effectively plug into doing this work to carry out the above expectations. Three ways the organization can set up the EAB for success are by:

  1. Creating explicit and functional role descriptions;
  2. Weaving a culture of philanthropy into role descriptions; and
  3. Creating action-oriented meeting agendas that cultivate discussions about philanthropy and making connections.

Review role descriptions to ensure expectations are explicit and clear. Identify opportunities to create action-focused sub-committees. These should target volunteer talents and passions, to fast-track output for the EAB to impact the institute, campus, or center. This allows for contributions between the regularly scheduled meetings.

Establishing a culture of philanthropy looks different from organization to organization.

  • This starts from the leadership and influencers on the councils and boards and is underscored by explicit statements of giving expectations in role descriptions.
  • The giving statement can vary from a stated dollar threshold to a philosophical statement of making change at the institute, campus, or center.
  • The goal is to inspire the volunteers and underscore their responsibility of giving at a transforming level.
  • Use influential leaders, alumni, and donors to advance the philanthropic agenda.

When it comes time for EAB meetings, development should play a prominent role in the organization and facilitation. Incorporate expectations of performance and outcomes through meeting attendance and clarity of role assignments. When the EAB is functionally aligned with advancement/development, it makes it clear that philanthropy and board giving are expected as an outcome.

Create actionable agendas with space and an expectation of participation. Invite faculty and students, which is engaging for volunteers. This gives an insight into the research and discoveries happening at the institute, campus, or center. The goal should be to give volunteers something special and access they can’t get elsewhere.

EAB transitions take time and considerations

Time and patience were emphasized as critical elements in all of the transitions to effectiveness. Efforts involved changing philanthropy expectations, changing the makeup of the members, and implementing role expectations. Highlighted outcomes included:

  • Increased meeting attendance and satisfaction associated with attending meetings;
  • Increased engagement and participation at (and between) meetings;
  • Identification of a new network of potential members;
  • Increased philanthropy by board members as well as their involvement with fundraising; and
  • Creating agendas that link advancement, academic, and institutional topics and expected outcomes.

Some immediate considerations for positive EAB impact include:

  • Identify the key influencers for your institute, campus, or center.
  • Review the volunteer role descriptions across all boards. Aim for a cohesive approach in advancement.
  • Build relationships in combination with faculty and academic leadership who are keys to success with the EAB.
  • Consider sub-committees, but don’t create a second board for giving.

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

 

Shared credit: as easy as 1-2-3

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By Maureen Procopio

Fundraising is collaborative and helps align donors with their philanthropic dreams. Development Officers partner with colleagues which results in successful donor outcomes. They’re like superheroes! Because DOs’ work is metrics-driven, it makes sense that they want credit. Applying shared credit and recognition equitably requires a strong framework of systems options aligned with clear policies. I recently asked eleven institutions how they tackled this and came away with three takeaways for a recipe for success.

1.      Create system roles that are descriptive of the contribution

Almost all of the institutions I contacted had only two solicitation roles that DOs could be assigned which captured credit for solicitations (the primary role and a secondary role). The a-ha moment emerged when I dove into the other two institutions’ policies.

A more flexible system moves beyond gift and collaboration credit by adding more roles that reflect the contributions made. Set up your system to recognize the DOs involved in the actual planning, solicitation, and closing of the gift where the system roles are defined by these descriptive contributions.

Distinguish credit roles that have a direct impact on the gift, as well as non-credit roles that acknowledge important contributions. Recognize the different roles DOs are playing and the contributions they are making. Not all roles need to impact metrics. Here’s what it could look like:

  1. The primary role who receives 100% credit for the solicitation, close, and dollars.
  2. The secondary role receives varying levels of credit for the solicitation, close, and/or dollars.
  3. Collaborator which has a role at a lower level of engagement in the solicitation; credit received in metrics, but no solicitation or dollars-raised credit.
  4. Contributor is a non-credit role that is appropriate when the individual provides non-strategic support to a plan. Excellent to formally acknowledge contributions without giving credit toward metrics.

 

2.      Who doesn’t get credit?

Not getting credit is ok. Recognizing this acknowledges the expectations of the unit, the team involved in a solicitation, expectations for unit leadership, and how units are spending their time.

For example:

  • Is it your job to coach a new DO in their solicitations? As a supervisor, mentor or coach, you shouldn’t expect to receive shared credit if you’re supporting a staff member. Your dollars and solicitation goals should not be set up that way either.
  • Are there multiple team members from one unit on an ask? If two DOs from the same unit are working on one proposal, the unit is spending more time and resources on one solicitation. Is that ok? The intention here is to focus DOs on more unique solicitations and relationships.

More often than not, institutions are not applying shared gift credit or collaboration credit to supervisors in a coaching or training role; nor are they applying shared gift credit or collaboration credit to DOs from the same unit. Clearly stating this in policy documentation is critical to avoid confusion.

3.      Policies: tone and clarity

Policies are the ambassador to effective and successful implementation. Attention to tone and clarity, as well as the inclusion of examples, are all policy best practices. Well-crafted policies and documentation are written in a positive tone and empowering voice.

Blending clarity and specificity with the real-world application complements policy language. Shared credit is meant to inspire cross-unit collaboration or central collaboration with a unit. Illustrations of ways to implement this can go a long way to aid in translation.

FAQ tone and flow may vary depending on your organization’s culture and level of program implementation. Your staff’s level of understanding must be taken into account, and then evolve documentation as their knowledge is enhanced. For example,

  • Newer prospect management programs can focus on the purpose of the system, metrics, and highlight training resources.
  • More well-established programs would focus on metrics explanations and definitions, impact on reporting, and system navigation.

Taskforce of colleagues

Creating or changing policies requires a thoughtful process, new reporting, and systems changes. It’s no small task. Invite a diverse set of skills and experience to the table. Create a task force or action group to determine what can work at your organization. Consider the following as you fill your taskforce seats:

  • Include DOs who will be affected by the new policies.
  • The prospect management experts are a must!
  • How will your organization’s mission, vision, and values fit with policy communication?
  • Intentionally consider DEI in any policy change and decision. (not sure how? Involve your Advancement Diversity Committee and ask questions)
  • A leadership perspective will keep things on track and on time

Talk to the broader team to hear about gaps and what’s working well. Reach out to peer institutions to understand who’s doing what. Recognizing shared credit fairly and equitably is a great way to build a strong culture that continues to collaborate. Good luck!

 

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

Advancement Services: My how we’ve changed

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By Maureen Procopio

When I was your age, I had to walk uphill 20 miles to school…both ways! Said my grandpa anytime I complained. I’ve told my 9-year-old daughter, When I was your age, our phones were tethered to the wall with curly little wires. I’ve also been known to utter similar statements as an Advancement Services longtimer: When I started as a prospect researcher, I walked to the campus library and used microfilm. Ah – I loved the whirring sound just to look for the hard-to-find article or obituary.

With technology comes a change to philanthropy

When we reflect on the biggest changes in the Advancement Services field, consider the effects of the technological evolution on philanthropy. I arrived in Advancement Services in the late 1990s, right about when Google made its debut. Since then, the field of Advancement Services has expanded and transformed as a result of the tech evolution.

Tech evolution timeline

Some key moments over time.

  • 1989: WWW begins at CERN
  • The 1990s
    • Online payments framework was established
    • Amazon was founded
    • Google Search was launched
    • Blackbaud initiated online giving
  • The 2000s
    • The advent of email fundraising
    • LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter founded
    • 1st iPhone and Android were released
    • The average online gift amount was $145
  • The 2010s
    • Instagram was founded
    • Crowdfunding started
    • The first national day of giving was launched
  • 2020+
    • 21% increase to online giving in 2020, average online gift amount was $177
    • 28% of online transactions were made using a mobile device, compared to 9% in 2014

Enter “the contemporary Advancement Services organization”

Since the 2000s, the impact of tech on philanthropy has been apparent. So, Advancement Services had to change the way we worked and how we worked. As a result, its structure changed too.  Over time, Advancement Services embraced a technology and data mindset. Today this mindset revolves around four core philosophies:

  1. stable, reliable data managed by records management professionals;
  2. systems and technology resources to manage, report out on, and analyze the data;
  3. gift services professionals to record donations, and data integrity exerts to assure quality; and
  4. insightful business intelligence professionals to help end-users move to action with data and reports.

What it looks like

My 2020 study of Advancement Services organizations showed that the contemporary Advancement Services model not only aims to meet the core business needs of the advancement organization, but it also does this by focusing on removing silos and upgrading skills across areas. It builds cross-functional teams rather than singularly focused experts. The result is the contemporary Advancement Services organization structured like this:

  • technology services, business intelligence, digital reporting
  • data entry and data integrity
  • prospect research and prospect management
  • gift processing
  • analytics
  • talent management/HR, operations, finance, contracts

The continued evolution

I recently surveyed 12 institutions that indicated large-scale Advancement-wide technology projects are planned for the upcoming year. Several institutions shared that they are allowing a large percentage of their staff to remain remote. The Advancement Services organization needs to continue to work differently, consider new modes of work, and deliver at the highest standards of excellence.

Two big things are on the horizon for Advancement Services, and we’ll need investment in talent management programming along the way.

  • Team structure, workflow, and project management: Efficient and effective project management and effective communication channels are crucial for complex organizations. Seamless workflow and cohesive cross-functional, strong teams are a must.
  • Working remotely: What does this look like going forward for Advancement Services? Many organizations have decided to allow a large percentage of their teams to remain working remotely. Remote working must be an intentional decision, especially when success includes cross-functional teams and large-scale project implementation.

I’ve worked in Advancement Services for over 20 years, but those years would mean nothing if I didn’t change with the times. I can’t wait for what’s next.

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

5 ways to elevate your advancement shop in 2021

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By Maureen Procopio

Let’s be proud of our 2020 accomplishments, and enter 2021 in the thrive-mindset; in the be-bold-mindset; in the excel-mindset. Here are five ways that will help get your advancement shop there, five ideas that are worth investing time and resources into.

 

1)     Forecast gift revenue to gain and give better insights

Pipeline forecasting is often based on a fundraising definition rather than a gift revenue calculation. Strategic insight for annual and campaign planning focuses primarily on pipeline forecasting.

Tactical insights are derived from asking: What is our gift revenue forecast? It is valuable to understand how past, current, and future fundraising performance was affecting revenue, especially as 2020 showed itself to be so unpredictable.

Organizations seeking to expand into gift revenue reporting should start thinking about how their fundraising data interplays with accounting and revenue data.

The nugget here is not to remove pipeline forecasting from your toolbox; rather it’s to add gift revenue forecasting. It will give you the ability to respond quickly in emergencies and unexpected situations, while still planning for the long-term.

UC Berkeley and Williams College are doing some good work in this area; Michiel Westerkamp, president of Raising Insight is an expert in this area.

 

2)     A healthy organization is reflected in its metrics and goals

Establish metrics and goals that support your organization’s values as well as the health of your pipeline. What mattered pre-pandemic is different than what matters now.

Integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles alongside development priorities in metrics and goals. This must be top-down and recognized advancement-wide.

For instance, the UO’s advancement team is actively fundraising for five DEI initiatives focused on specific diverse campus populations. Each initiative has goals to increase alumni and donor engagement, raising funds from a broad base of mid-level donors. Metrics and goals are established at individual and unit levels across advancement.

Expand and strengthen your pipeline through various pipeline engagement, development, and growth strategies. Establish metrics and set goals that endorse and encourage the proper outcomes.

Don’t allow a rigid reporting platform to sabotage your good intentions.  If you’re changing metrics but are delayed in changing the reporting dashboard, clearly communicate what metrics are new and what metrics are no longer relevant. Lack of clarity around metrics and goals affects morale and satisfaction

 

3)     Invest in digital transformation for advancement services

What does digital transformation look like for your team? It should include investments in new and existing technologies to expand the pipeline, talent investments for effective implementation of digital programming, and removing silos among your various teams. Make this the year to inspire, innovate, experiment, and create. Your advancement services team will make that happen!

 

4)    Seek and share information with your team and colleagues

Teams are most effective when information is shared openly and freely. This will save time and money. If you have access to information from other units, divisions, teams, or leaders, think about who needs that information (such as data, reporting, access to people or meetings, updates to processes, etc.).  Find ways to combine it with other information to make it more powerful.

What is the one piece of information you are missing that will bring you to the next level? Seek out that information. Conversely, what is a piece of information that you have that can help a team member or another unit operate better? Be proactive in offering information and squash any hoarding tendencies.

 

5)     Position your organization for DAF payouts

Donor Advised Funds received 12.7% of individual giving in 2018, but distributions from DAFs are not keeping up. When will we see reforms that require DAFs to distribute donations that benefit mission-driven charities? Organizations receive DAF gifts at a higher rate by expanding attempts to solicit gifts from DAFs. Partner with your friends in prospect development to develop a strategic plan.

 

In closing…

Some of these ideas will take more time and more resources than others. Establish a taskforce to elevate for 2021. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Here’s an updated picture of Ginger, who hasn’t changed.

 

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

Digital Transformation in Advancement…It’s What you Make of It

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By Maureen Procopio

A sophisticated advancement services organization goes hand-in-hand with striving to be a digital maturing organization. Digital transformation can be such an overwhelming concept, but it’s really what your organization is ready to take on, and more importantly, where your leadership will actively plugin and support.

“Digital Maturity goes far beyond simply implementing new technology by aligning the company’s strategy, workforce, culture, technology, and structure to meet the digital expectations of customers, employees, and partners. Digital maturity is, therefore, a continuous and ongoing process of adaptation to a changing digital landscape.”

Similarly, as I tried to understand digital transformations in advancement, I learned that these also occurred in many spaces and on various spectrums.

  • Large scale database conversions in tangent with organizational restructures are on one end of the digital transformation spectrum. For example, a wholesale assessment of an entire advancement services organization and its relationship with data and its database, as it simultaneously embarks on a CRM replacement.
  • Incremental changes happening around the organization but not at a large scale are at the opposite end of the spectrum. Examples of these can be a gift services team moving toward a paperless implementation; a development analytics team providing business intelligence reporting for campaign assessment; the creation of cross-functional teams to create successful digital engagement outcomes.

Perhaps you recognize your organization in some of these examples?

Active leaders and other success characteristics

Any organizational transformation is more successful with leadership buy-in (or leaders who drive the transformation themselves) and their accompanying financial investments. With that, here are three resources that help underscore or jump start your own organization’s move toward digital transformation. All of these studies highlight the importance of leaders in any digitally maturing organization.

The Survey of Digital Media in Advancement, conducted by CASE and mStoner, Inc.

This research team talked with advancement leaders who set out to digitally transform their organizations. These are leaders who are “actively working to put in place people, practices, processes, and systems that would enable their offices [differently].” They found that a digital advancement operation:

  • Attempts to reach people where they are
  • Innovates in programming by using new approaches involving digital tools
  • Relies on digital analytics in decision making
  • Emphasizes digital communications internally and with stakeholders
  • Operates from the perspective of a single institution rather than a siloed department
  • Empowers staff to experiment, innovate, communicate

 

Achieving Digital Maturity, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Deloitte.Digital

Likewise, this study doesn’t assume that digital maturity is a destination; rather it’s a “continuous and ongoing process of adaptation to a changing digital landscape.” After surveying 3,500 leaders, vendors, and industry experts, they were able to narrow down the attributes of a digitally maturing organization. These are:

  • Organizing teams cross-functionally;
  • Looking out 5 or more years in strategic planning;
  • Scale small digital experiments to enterprise-wide initiatives;
  • Attract, retain and develop digital talent at all levels of the organization; and
  • Secure the right leadership with the vision necessary to lead digital strategy

Unlocking Success in Digital Transformations, McKinsey & Company

This study “points to 21 best practices which make a digital transformation likely to succeed.” These characteristics fall into five categories:

  1. Leadership (having the right, digital-savvy leaders in place),
  2. capability building (building capabilities for the workforce of the future),
  3. empowering workers,
  4. upgrading tools (giving day-to-day tools a digital upgrade), and
  5. communication (frequently via traditional and digital methods).

With a dire warning that less than 30% of transformations succeed (yikes!), this framework will be important for change-makers at all levels of advancement to digest.

There are many questions for advancement organizations to consider regarding digital transformations. Not all organizations can enter this process in a large-scale process due to budget, timing, leadership buy-in, etc. But many teams can move the organization toward critical, incremental changes to become a digitally maturing organization.

 

Questions and ideas to consider

  1. Determine where your leadership fits in. With whom should you start conversations?
  2. What does a 5-year road map look like for your organization? Who’s involved?
  3. Inventory your technology tools and vendors. What’s their purpose? Did you find any redundancies or gaps? What are they meant to achieve?
  4. Where are your teams organically partnering? Are there cross-functional teams that need support, or silos that need disruption?
  5. What does the talent pipeline look like in your organization? Remember DEI as you assess your next steps.
  6. How does your advancement team build new institutional partnerships and capitalize on fresh information hubs and sources?

External resources

Talk to people! There are vendors, consultants, and experts ready to help. Oregon State University Foundation and the University of Colorado are farther along the spectrum of digital transformation and they’ve always answered my calls for help.

EAB has excellent research on the topic of Preparing for Advancement’s Digital Future. BWF’s Digital Fundraising Model highlights nine steps to identify, cultivate, engage, and steward donors.

The evertrue platform is used by many advancement shops, including the UO and OSU (read about their DXO pilot program), to create digital engagement officers to accelerate a personal engagement experience.

Sure, this takes time and money. But start talking to folks to inform what these next 5 years could look like for your advancement organization. Post your ideas and tools in the comments.

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

Intentional Equity

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By Maureen Procopio

I want to be intentional

Am I doing enough? For me, I must be intentional in striving toward equity. How will I participate? How will I contribute? Am I a part of the solution, or the problem? My intention is to be a “good ally”, I need to listen more than I speak. Do my research. Yes, I can do that! Here are a few tools I’ve collected along the way to be intentional.

Understand and take action

Outlined below are two studies that provide actionable analysis and recommendations. Use these to bolster your advancement organization’s: strategic diversity action plans, talent management budget requests, and increasing resources for professional training and development.

  • Cause Effective’s study, “Money, Power, and Race: The Lived Experience of Fundraisers of Color,” provides insights into the bias experienced by fundraisers of color and provides recommendations to improve equity at nonprofits. The report contains an eye-opening “In their own words” segment including topics such as experiences with implicit bias and racism, experiences with tokenism and microaggressions, and on having to work harder to prove themselves. The actionable section of this report is “What we can do” with recommendations and strategies to implement in our organizations based on the roles we have. Because, as is so aptly stated by this report’s authors: “Each of us has a role to play in disrupting the tightly-woven nexus of money, power, and race upon which the status quo rests.”
  • ALG and AHP published this 2018 study on Diversity and Inclusion in Healthcare Advancement: Changing Behaviors and Outcomes. This data and experiential informed study reveal how “diversity and inclusion lead to better business outcomes, ways to have brave conversations about diversity with your teams, and tools to ensure you’re creating sustainable change in your organization.” Although the focus of this study was the healthcare field, the recommendations and observations are applicable across nonprofits. For example, pointing out the false assumption related to the pipeline of talent and its impact on the outcome of the diversity in teams. “Just as with myths about diversity among donors, myths about diverse talent in the advancement profession are destructively self-perpetuating.” The study points out two barriers for organizations to self-examine:
    1) Implicit Bias
    2) Threshold requirements that unnecessarily restrict hiring.
    The actionable heart of the ALG/AHP study challenges leaders to have brave conversations with their teams about diversity, and the authors permit us to feel uncomfortable.

Who’s doing good work?

The Equity Index as a starting point

The Black Students at Public Colleges report and analysis by the USC Race and Equity Center is a 50-State report card examining equity at public higher education institutions in the U.S. The researchers used four indicators to create the index:

  1. Representation Equity
  2. Gender Equity
  3. Completion Equity
  4. Black Students-to-Black Faculty Ratio

This study is important for your advancement organization’s equity assessment because you should be able to recognize what good equity work looks like in your region, peer cohort, or among your aspirational peers.

For example, Portland State University showed up as #11 in the list of institutions with the highest equity index scores. PSU is just up the road from the UO, so I did some digging and learned about their equity lens. Not only do they have a high equity index score, but they also tout a diverse student body. Sure some of it is geography, but much of it is intentional work.

The University of Utah was #7 on the list, so I went searching again. Their EDI landing page is a call to action: to engage, to support, to commit to antiracism. This presents as a university that is a safe place for students of color. Again, more intentionality.

PSU and Utah are a couple of institutions that are serving equity, not just inviting it. The researchers and authors of this report give important recommendations for institutions to achieve equity across the four indicators, suggesting that leaders identify those who excel in the various areas and speak to them. As is underscored in the aforementioned reports and studies, equity work is all of our responsibility, not just the chief diversity officer.

CASE

A few years ago, CASE updated their study on increasing diversity in advancement, including observations, metrics, and initial recommendations. I recently reviewed this for an upcoming DVIII equity-focused panel discussion and noticed that the recommendations include some introductory best practice concepts. However, for advancement organizations that are at the earlier stages of expanding equity and diversity at their organization, jump to the “Recommended Practices for Increasing Diversity” section.

I wrap up with this…

I’m still learning and growing. I continuously seek and collect resources, aiming to build my equity toolbox. I’ll make mistakes but know that I’ll learn immensely from my mistakes. Equity work is for all of us to do. One person cannot do it all. Making it intentional has helped me grow and contribute to my organization and the advancement field. This is all of our responsibility.

What am I missing? What can you share? Post your ideas and tools in the comments.

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

Feasibility Studies are a Team Sport

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By Maureen Procopio

Congratulate Ginger on her new position at the University of Oregon!  So says my LinkedIn email announcing another DO on a new, awesome job adventure. This got me to thinking: 1) There are jobs during the pandemic. 2) Organizations are hiring. 3) Ginger likely vacated another job which leaves another institution with an opening…which they may or may not refill.

According to GG+A’s June 8, 2020, weekly COVID-19 impact survey, 72% of advancement offices implemented budget cuts and controls, and 63% put hiring freezes into place. Regardless, shops will continue to hire when the absence of a person in a role will adversely affect the institution, but we must do this smartly.

Which brings me to what I’m proposing today: Combine internal data analysis with the perspective of your talent management team to make data-informed position decisions. In partnership with the UO’s Senior Director of Strategic Talent Management, Chelsey Megli, we began analyzing a unit’s performance data before they decided to refill a position.

The feasibility study asks, Is it feasible to hire? At what level can we support this unit? Our partnership is about layering the talent management side of advancement, with the prospect data and fundraising metrics side of advancement, and bringing this to stakeholders.

Providing feasibility studies in partnership with talent management is very rewarding, where data-informed decision making is actionable. Let’s walk through how this looks.

Discretion, impartiality, curiosity

The data represent years of hard work and deep relationships. The outcomes could reveal unexpected insights regarding the unit or personnel. These should be treated discreetly and respectfully. The analyst should approach the insights curiously and without conclusions. Ask questions instead of passing judgments. The analysis should be impartial to allow those with the vested interest to have all the information they need to make the right decisions.

The parties involved

As potential openings emerge, a partnership among the talent management director (or HR director), the data or business analyst, and the unit head is the basis of a great feasibility team.

  • The talent management director will give the talent perspective regarding the resource and budgetary landscape. They’re taking into account several information sources including internal and external talent, leadership opinions, and will want the decision-makers to balance all of these perspectives. They will be close partners with the analysts.
  • The analyst takes on a diplomatic role providing neutral, data-informed reports. They have access to and understanding of: prospect and proposal data, contributions (fundraising) totals, and the campaign (if relevant). They should bounce interpretations of data off of the talent management partner early and often. Critical thinking is key here.
  • The unit head has a “vested interest” in filling the position. This person may struggle with impartiality because they’re aiming for quickly refilling the role or perhaps wanting to fill the role at a preconceived level. Conversely, this person may be the requesting party and could be a ready partner who is open-minded to receiving the analysis.

Some scenarios

Here are two feasibility studies and outcomes.

A professional school on campus had a director of development position opening. The expectation was to hire an assistant director of development.
  • From the donor data, we saw 96% of giving residing at the lowest levels of the giving pyramid, resulting in recommendations for engagement and pipeline building opportunities
  • Very few gifts and prospects resided at the higher levels of the pyramid (major and principal giving levels).
  • Additionally, we discovered declining enrollment numbers for 10 consecutive years, which resulted in declining alumni and therefore declining donors at all levels. This will affect current and future pipeline growth.
  • With that analysis, our feasibility team recognized an opportunity for elevating a current team member and validating the hiring of an assistant director of development.
  • The data we used included: donor counts by range (5 years), total giving by range (5 years), prospect and potential counts, as well as our institution’s IPEDs enrollment trends data.
A cultural program was deciding how to fill two open development program positions.
  • We used proposal outcomes data to understand the team performance with the number of solicitations funded and declined, as well as the dollars raised by these development officers. What was found was that the biggest gifts were received by non-unit DOs.
  • Further, we found that deferred solicitations were not showing up as we would have expected. This could help shape potential future deferred giving conversations.
  • After diving into the data, we recognized a dearth in grant dollars, causing us to ask what this meant. We were surprised by this because the prior position emphasized grant writing.
  • Campaign projection scenarios were created to illustrate different ways to achieve the unit goal.
  • With these insights, the feasibility team was able to make recommendations to the unit lead.
  • The data we used included prospect and proposal data, as well as fundraising totals for the campaign.

The recommendations

Consider providing a menu of potential scenarios and recommendations for future steps. Solutions are not the end-game… finding insights are. You can do this effectively in charts and bursts of information.

Layout strategic approaches with tactical partnerships. Your analysis may find not only insights for a talent-related decision, but also impacts for improved unit effectiveness. If you believe there’s stakeholder appetite, go that extra mile to identify strategies and partnerships to work with these insights. Clearly state the unanswered questions and your future recommendations. Don’t leave anyone guessing.

When and why you’re using the report

The analyst will partner with the talent management director to present the findings and recommendations. Whereas the analyst plays the neutral and objective party, the role of the talent management director adds the right interpretation and flavor for the unit head to create a menu of options to move forward with data-informed scenarios. The meeting should be a dialog with questions, and contextual explanations and offers of additional analysis. Future uses of the report include:

  • Packaging your case for your budget manager and HR director.
  • Making the case to hire the position with your VP, AVP, dean, provost, and other stakeholders.
  • Starting conversations about organizational changes in your team or unit.
  • The talent management director can use the analysis to inform conversations with prospective candidates or search firms.
  • Once hired, the analysis can be implemented as a tool for onboarding.

Smaller shops and non-higher ed

This approach fits our large advancement shop. Smaller shops or non-higher ed may not need to dive as deeply into your data. Brainstorm with your analyst the questions that will provide insights into and direction for the stakeholders in your staffing decisions. Some ideas that may inform your hiring and/or resource investments:

  • What is the age of your donor population by giving range?
  • What regions are your gifts predominantly flowing from?
  • If you are in a campaign, calculate different scenarios for achieving the goal. What type of hiring would it take for each scenario?

Wrap up

Feasibility studies are a way to use data to impact organizational decision making. Hindsight is 20-20, and we can use that to be informed in our future decisions. In looking at the data and the personnel we’re able to make data-informed recommendations on future-state staffing for that team. My partnership with talent management has provided many insights and allowed for data-informed strategic decision making. So go for it! Be a team player with TM!

I want to hear from my TM colleagues. How have you partnered with your data analysts to inform your own strategies?

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

Who’s Ginger?

What’s Your Benchmarking Competency?

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By Maureen Procopio

Are you sitting on a pile of benchmarking reports for FY19 that you received over the last couple of months? And to top it off, you just closed out the current fiscal year, which means you need to start the reporting cycle all over again while making sense of last fiscal year’s benchmarking reports.

Join the club! Receiving, understanding, and utilizing benchmarking reports takes a bit of practice and some coordinated effort. It all starts with surveys.

Upping your benchmarking competency will elevate the grasp of your organization’s performance, especially how it compares to your peers.

Actively engage in your data

What data do you need to understand your organization’s performance? More than that, what analysis would show you whether your organization is trending in the right direction?

Focus on surveys that provide analysis that shows performance over a period of time, as well as a comparison against a cohort of peers.

Submitting the surveys and receiving the reports have the potential to overwhelm organizations with a lot of information. Because of this, UO Advancement created a survey steward and liaison role. Responsibilities include streamlining our survey submissions and making sure we submit the right data at the right time, for the right things. But the most important part of this role is to make sure we use the results by actively engaging in the data and analysis.

In this context, when an institution is actively engaged in results, they have identified the most ideal ways to capitalize on how to use it for benchmarking, strategizing, and decision making especially for the decision-makers. How has your organization traditionally measured performance against peers? How has your organization tracked your performance year-over-year? Are you putting strategic analysis in front of your leaders?

Partner with the experts

Connect with the experts behind the data. Understanding survey requirements and the nuances of your data will better prepare you for using the results and analysis. You may learn that there are segments of data you do not submit to particular surveys. Knowing this upfront and the reasons why sections were skipped will help you prepare for the output better. It may also help you become a better data advocate.

Build and nurture relationships with colleagues who have the expertise that you need for reliable and accurate survey submission.

  • Database experts who will pull the data for the surveys,
  • Colleagues involved with data governance and those with knowledge of data definitions,
  • Advancement operations colleagues with access to and understanding of budgets and staffing data,
  • Fundraising colleagues with knowledge of fundraising definitions and policies,
  • Alumni relations colleagues who conduct engagement activities and have knowledge of recording these activities in your database.

Know the definitions of the survey terms and what the surveys are measuring and know what they are not measuring. To make the annual survey process smoother each year, create documentation to achieve a standard annual approach.

The VSE

What is it? The Voluntary Support for Education survey collects data on fundraising at U.S. public and private colleges and universities, as well as K-12 organizations.

Why it’s important

Acquired by CASE in 2018, the Council for Aid to Education managed the VSE from 1957 through 2017. Suffice to say, this is a rich source of data that you can use to benchmark your institutional fundraising performance longitudinally, against peers, or both. Consultants and news outlets turn to VSE as a standard source of the charitable sector’s performance.

Accessing the data:

Activate your DataMiner account which gives you access to the raw data and standard VSE reports. This is free with your CASE institutional membership. Next, invest in the 2019 Voluntary Support for Education digital publication which includes trends, analysis, and outlooks for the year ahead. It’s worth the investment (discounted with your CASE institutional membership).

VSE Tips:

After reviewing the annual publication and CASE’s 2019 press release, think about your institution’s performance in particular areas of interest. For example, in 2019 alumni giving declined and foundation support increased. This could be interesting to look at for your institution. Perhaps your institution made increased efforts and investments in planned giving, and looking at the average value of bequest intentions or realized bequests for your institution will reveal insights for your stakeholders.

The AEM

CASE’s inaugural Advancement Engagement Metrics survey was launched in 2019 and the results were just released.

What is it?

This survey looked at alumni engagement through a common framework across four modes of engagement: philanthropic, volunteer, experiential, and communication.

Why it’s important?

There has not yet been a standard measurement of engagement in our industry until now. This survey tool aligns with the CASE study on Alumni Engagement, which standardized engagement as a metric.

How the UO is using it

The UO is assessing how to use this information. Right now, we are reviewing the results and baseline outcomes from CASE. Additionally, we pulled the set of raw data from Dataminer to look at the submitted data to understand the landscape of AEM responses. Internally, the UO is identifying how we can close some gaps in data collection to improve on more robust survey submission for FY20.

Consultant benchmarking studies

What are these?

Consultants (e.g., BWF and GG+A) and collaboratives (EAB) are paid partnerships that conduct organized benchmarking studies either annually or as requested by the institution. For example, EAB conducts an annual Advancement Investment Performance Initiative which analyzes participating institutions’ advancement FTE counts, salary ranges, resource investments, budget allocations, fundraising performance, and other data points. They couple this with VSE analysis to report on institutional ROI, cost to raise a dollar, fundraising performance by gift range, etc.

Why they’re useful

The unique coupling of fundraising and budgetary investment data creates analyses to help organizational leadership better understand performance. Also, being in a consulting relationship allows your organization to capitalize on the relationships that these firms have developed with industry experts and leaders. Their perspectives can add unique context to the data analysis and deepen your knowledge of what’s happening in the field.

How you can apply the findings

Consultants know how to talk to leaders and make the analysis relatable.  When leaders understand how their performance compares to their peers, it adds a layer of intelligence to the analysis than if they were just looking at the plain VSE data.

Bringing it together

Getting stakeholders’ attention:

Combining information that is top-of-mind for your leadership and stakeholders is your priority. Avoid drowning anyone in data, reports, or analysis. What will help your different audiences be strategic? Decide how to present the data visually and concisely. Here are some considerations and ideas.

  1. Present information as a story and in bite-sized chunks. Use your consultant or CASE experts to help you with ideas.
  2. Compare your organization’s annual fundraising performance against the VSE grand total fundraising over 5 years. The interplay of annual fundraising totals and VSE grand totals are interesting. Fundraising is volatile year-over-year, but it can have a stabilizing effect on the VSE grand totals, as a lagging effect.
  3. Compare VSE grand total for a set of peers and aspirational peers. Are there outliers for your institution or other institutions? Research the context and note it for your audience.
    • Include alumni giving, foundations, organizations breakouts.
  4. If your organization has a consulting partnership, ask about the available benchmarking reporting. Will they recommend a set of peers or can you select your own?
  5. Engage the internal experts that you partnered with to access and pull the data. They will have interesting reporting and analysis ideas.

Surveys are the basis of achieving your benchmarking competency. Without surveys, your institution cannot be consistently and continuously measured.

Share your benchmarking ideas in the comments. Happy benchmarking!

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

 

 

 

Succeeding in Student Success

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By Maureen Procopio

This blog post is about our 2019 study: “Achieving Best Practice in Student Success Advancement Programs” … a timely topic as our advancement offices are (re)examining the importance of student success in fundraising priorities. We interviewed four public research institutions (three of which are AAU institutions) about how their advancement units interact with other areas of campus to achieve student success. We learned that student success is achieved in many ways, but some themes emerged.

Key observations:

How will advancement professionals contribute to achieving student success, especially in the post-pandemic higher education landscape? These study observations may help you as you consider what you might do differently.

  1. Enrollment management, student affairs, and financial aid speak a different language from development. Partnering effectively will benefit from building this vernacular and understanding.
  2. Enrollment management counterparts sometimes didn’t see themselves as part of the fundraising process. Recognize that this thinking may exist with your campus partners and consider ways to make changes and build productive partnerships.
  3. Institutional student success programs are pride points and are an important part of student success programs. This study benchmarked the programs, outlined below.
  4. Microgrant programs have been shown to increase graduation rates by double-digits and also decrease time to graduate. The availability of crisis funds is crucial in today’s pandemic, helping our students offset unexpected expenses.

Applying Best Practices to our Work

Tactical Approaches for Advancement

The institutions structured their student success fundraising teams differently but had similar tactical approaches that we were able to tease out as best practice suggestions.

  • Assigned DOs: Dedicated centralized development officer(s) who raise funds for student success programs across multiple units can create efficiencies among staff and other resources, and build internal expertise.
  • Communication: Encourage regular, intentional communication between development officers and student success program staff to build a strong partnership. Map out the points of contact among these partners.
  • Donor Funding Brochure: Create a predetermined menu of student success funding opportunities for donors to select from. The list should be developed in partnership between development officers and student success program staff. This is a great place to include microgrant funding opportunities.
  • Stewardship Considerations: Include student success program stakeholders in the stewardship process through thank you letters from program directors and program participants, newsletters describing the impact of gifts, and invitations to program events.
  • Capitalize on Institutional Expertise: Each institution had a colleague who had previously served in an enrollment management role or had a long-standing point of contact within advancement, which served to be instrumental in bridging communication between enrollment management and advancement. This was the case with all institutions we spoke with.

Overcome Language Challenges

The effective communication flow between fundraising and enrollment management units was the result of an experienced liaison who spoke the language of both units and understood each unit’s mission and how they each impacted the other. This person acted as a resource for development and enrollment colleagues alike, providing policy guidance, and sometimes conducting training for colleagues.

 An Example of Helping Development:

One institution shared the example that “first-generation and low income” has a different meaning to donors than it does when translated to a scholarship. “We share in the investment of these scholarships,” the Director of Student Financial Affairs stated when she explained why it’s important to assist development officers.

Building an understanding of terminology and “lingo” between the development and enrollment management worlds is recommended as it not only helps processes move along more efficiently, but it also aids in more effective fundraising.

Solutions:

  • Intentionally identify an employee in each unit to take on the role of expert and coordinator of information between the two areas. This will help in building the knowledge base between the two units resulting in successful scholarship administration.
  • Who has expertise and experience that already exists in development and student affairs or financial aid? Is there an employee who can share information and processes, find opportunities, and quickly overcome challenges (or avoid them)? Formally recognizing this as a position expectation can incorporate accountability to ensure the sharing of information and limit the loss of these assets due to attrition.

Benchmarking Institutional Student Success Scholarship Programs

Elevating student success as an institutional priority will likely be on many administrators’ minds right about now. Each interview from this study touched on institutional scholarship programs on each campus as a vital part of the student success plan. The ideal programs exist on a continuum of tuition support to infrastructure for all students. The matrix below outlines the initiatives that each school was able to bring to their programs.

Comparison of Student Success Initiatives:

  • Student advising services is the most central of needs for all students and is built into the programmatic infrastructures for all of the institutional scholarship programs except Institution A, a highly decentralized institution. Their academic advising appears to be linked to programs within units.
  • Institutions B and C have campuses geographically located near state borders that draw students from out-of-state. They recognize them as a part of their immediate communities of need.
  • Institution D’s scholars’ program is the only one of the four programs that covers room and board.
  • The UO’s PathwayOregon offers full tuition and advising for in-state students while experiencing the sharpest disinvestment from the State of Oregon.

Steps to Student Success

How can we narrow the divide between enrollment management and advancement? Capitalizing on natural connection points is an important first step. Making a concerted effort, and relying on staff who have lengthy tenures to build partnerships between enrollment management and advancement will work now, but what is a long term solution?

A review of literature, formal phone interviews, and consultation with industry experts affirmed the divide between the two units – “Advancement is an afterthought.”  Don’t be an afterthought. Lead the way. Start with these steps.

  1. Assume that student success programs will elevate as a priority at your institution.
  2. Learn the financial aid, enrollment management, and student success language and lingo.
  3. Share information and build relationships between areas on your campus that participate in your institution’s mission to achieve student success.
  4. Find someone who could be a bridge for communication for advancement. They could be right under your nose.
  5. Interested in learning more? Connect with Maureen Procopio for a copy of the full study: Achieving Best Practice in Student Success Advancement Programs: Partnership & Communication Between Campus Stakeholders

As always, reach out if you have questions about this topic or study. I welcome your comments and questions.

A huge thank you to my former partner in crime, Carl Bell, who was integral in conducting this work on student success.

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061

The Difference Makers

maureen

By Maureen Procopio

Elevating campuses to their next level of greatness in research, student success, and programmatic innovation in the new-normal (post-pandemic) will require building a critical mass of donor relationships, the segment of donors who we’re in a relationship with that we can count on in good times and bad.

The pandemic crisis has caused an outpouring of support for campuses. The mid-pyramid donor segment has been the difference maker at this time. They have stepped up as a giving segment to make critical and targeted impacts.

More than just dollars

Are dollars the only indicator of success for campaigns? Prior to the pandemic, I researched the public campaign goals of twenty institutions investigating whether any had set non-dollar goals. While all celebrated progress toward their public dollar goals, only three referenced a public engagement goal, and just one publicly touted their first-time donor count. Dollars matter and so do relationships. Attaching an engagement goal to campaigns implies that relationships are also an important outcome for a fundraising campaign. Building a stable foundation of relationships can set institutions up for stability in times of crisis.

The difference makers

During the pandemic, donors at all levels have responded to calls for campus crisis funding and needs, but early indications suggest that the mid-pyramid segment has been the difference makers.

Their giving in critical mass resulted in rapid change, by aiding our students in crisis. Additionally, as we met the immediate needs of our students, we also have been evaluating the longer-term needs of infrastructure in the new normal: research, science, technology, and sustaining student success in a post-pandemic era. This transformation will require our loyal, principal gift-level donors to step up for our institutions.

To survive the next crisis, institutions should have a strong and deep base of relationships at the ready to immediately activate. How do you embrace the newly-emerged difference makers and build relationships with this segment? To emerge from that crisis, institutions must rely on their principal gift donors. Combined with the difference makers, the change can be transformative.

Next steps and calls to action

In partnership with your advancement leadership and campaign strategist, consider these questions with prospect research and analytics, as well as talent management and/or financial services.

  1. Assess staffing and resource investment: What’s your staff and resource investment in the different donor segments?
  2. Assess metrics and KPIs: Do your metrics or key performance indicators incentivize engagement and relationship building?
  3. Prepare your pyramid to identify your different segments based on relationships: Do you have ways to measure the strength-of-relationship for a donor segment? Such as an engagement score?
    1. Does it make sense to create pyramid scenarios that represent transformational change and crisis mode?
    2. Can you emerge a segment of “difference makers”?
  4. Attach importance to engagement: What are your non-dollar campaign goals? Are they publicly stated?

Answering these questions can help you understand the balance your organization places between growing the critical mass parts of the pipeline and the transformational giving at the top of the pyramid.

I welcome questions and thoughts on how we can continue to think through this.

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061