Challenges

■ Data was segregated by department and not available in real time

■ Inability to view and mine individual or aggregated data hampered decision making

solution

■ Ellucian Advance™

Results

■ Better and easier access to data through online capabilities and easy end-user reporting tools

■ Improvements in operational efficiencies and ef-fectiveness through intuitive user interfaces and dashboards

■ Enhanced accountability and management of development staff through improved reporting capabilities

■ Personalized communications enable more effec-tive outreach

enabling peRsonalized and moRe effeCtive outReaCh and fosteRing aCCountability

Ease of access to increased amounts of data and sophisticated reporting and tracking tools are helping the University of Colorado Foundation (CU Foundation) make better-informed decisions and foster more accountability for outcomes. The gains are enabled by Ellucian’s Advance, a donor management and alumni relations web-based software solution.

“Advance gives us access to more data that helps us plan and track more effectively, and the increased visibility makes our development officers and managers more accountable,” said Stacey Coseo, business systems analyst at the CU Foundation.

The ability to access and interpret data, which in turn makes decision making more informed, is critical to the foundation’s fundraising efforts. The CU is a complex, multi-location organization: the staff of 200 are located at the Boulder, Colorado Springs and Denver campuses, in the foundation’s central offices in Boulder and in the university president’s office. Before implementing Advance, in-depth, real time data was not readily available to the individual offices, nor was it possible for management to view data aggregated across the foundation.

Today, real-time data is integrated across the departments and is accessible to authorized viewers from the web. The foundation has created more than 200 reports within Advance that have been customized to meet the needs of each department.

“Advance brings key data elements into one place and lets us focus on the connections among a variety of elements and then deliver solutions that positively impact fundraising goals,” said Coseo. For example, staff members pull weekly reports of gifts donated through the foundation’s public website and integrate that data into Advance. Data is also pulled from the foundation’s financial and administrative solutions. “The data has helped make our research group and our reporting a lot more robust. Advance is extremely sophisticated when it comes to reporting.”

Staff can use various tools within Advance to drill deeper into the data. “The entity overview is very robust, and the users who want more data can go deeper through the page tree,” said Coseo. “It is fairly easy to navigate even for people who aren’t power users.”

To make it easier for staff to access pertinent information, the foundation has created shortcuts for the most-used reports that appear on the main page displayed to users. For example, the suspense report is displayed on web pages for staff within the Gift Administration Department so they can readily see how many funds are aging or in suspense. Shortcut buttons that display various metrics related to development officer activity are displayed depending on job title.

“This visibility is really important because funds in suspense are not available for the university to use and it is easy for them to fall off the radar,” explained Coseo. “Now, they are front and center and include information about why they are in suspense.”

In spite of the recession, the foundation has raised record donations for the last five years. Its current annual goal is $115 million. The continued increases are due in large part to initiatives and successes under way at the University; however, the data and its accessibility within Advance have played a contributing role.

“We have many reports that are integrated to meet multiple needs,” said Coseo. “And we have multiple reports with multiple fields so that users can get to the information they need. All these tools give us better tracking and help us develop the best possible plan.”

“ Advance gives us access to more data that helps us plan and track better, and the increased visibility makes our development officers and managers more accountable. ”

Stacey Coseobusiness systems analyst

University of Colorado Foundation

tRanspaRenCy of data fosteRs moRe aCCountability

The access to the wealth of data also helps make development officers more accountable for meeting their goals. The shortcut buttons displayed on their front web page, as well as links to four commonly used productivity-related reports, provide an overall view of their prospects, proposals, contact reports, and tasks. The customized productivity-related reports provide the framework for supervisors to have regular and ongoing communication with each member of their staff regarding their activities and results.

Development officers also use Advance to create and manage their proposals. Most officers manage 8 to 24 proposals a year. A programmer at the foundation customized the proposal form so that officers cannot omit any required elements. For example, they are required to enter an expected date that is no longer than 18 months from the start date and there is a minimum required ask amount depending on their job title. The new form requires that a document substantiating the proposal and a contact report be attached to each new proposal. “All these tools gives us more complete data to be more effective and they make our development officers more accountable,” explained Coseo.

data enables peRsonalized and moRe effeCtive outReaCh

Other key benefits of Advance is personalization and automation capabilities that enable more effective solicitation. For the telephone outreach program (foundation call center), the data for calling is initially pulled out of Advance. The solicitations are based on the prospect’s primary affiliation (school/college/

program) designated in Advance. Data for the call center is refreshed on a routine basis. Results of the calls are recorded in Advance (whether it is a gift, pledge, no pledge, no answer, etc.). Over time, this will provide valuable data to know who is willing to give a gift via the phone and who is not receptive to student calls.

After students complete the calls, the telephone outreach program vendor—using data from Advance—sends next day emails to confirm: specified pledge, unspecified pledge, credit card gift, request for more information, and request for updated contact information. The call center also mails confirmation of pledges to donors and sends letters to those prospects requesting additional information. All of this is possible through Advance and the vendor’s software. As an additional bonus, the foundation is growing its matching gift program because the matching gifts functionality alerts staff when a company or employee has matching gift potential.

The foundation also executes a robust direct mail solicitation program to its large constituent base of 780,000. Most recently, at 2011 calendar yearend, the foundation mailed over 300,000 appeals to mail solicitable alumni and CU-Boulder parents. Using Advance, the staff was able to deliver more personalized solicitations. Prospects were asked for a gift based on their campus, primary affiliation (school/college/program), most frequent gift (which might be different than their school or college), and previous giving history.

Advance also allows the foundation to highly sort out the targeted prospects. For example, in the data pull, the foundation might exclude any individual with a foreign address from the mailing.

“ All the data speaks to performance and results. We can access and interpret results to segment donors more logically and fine tune our next outreach. And our communications are much more personalized because we have better data going in.”

Stacey Coseobusiness systems analyst

University of Colorado Foundation

about elluCian

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The possibilities for personalization are vast and valuable. The calendar yearend mailing had 22 different segments. “Advance lets us segment deep into our base. We didn’t have this capability before,” said Coseo. “The ability to customize our communications makes outreach more effective and presents a better image of the university. Prospects can connect with the tailored message and are more willing to give their support.” Following a direct mail campaign, foundation staff now record who received the appeal in Advance. They also track by appeal codes who responded with a gift to the solicitation. Over time, the foundation staff will be able

to know who responds to direct mail and who does not. This will allow the staff to make reliable data-based decisions for future mail campaigns, eliminating costly mailings to unreceptive recipients.

The cycle of adding to the database, reviewing data and outcomes, and refining and personalizing outreach is a strong contributor to the success of the foundation. “All the data speaks to performance and results,” emphasized Coseo. “We can access and interpret results to segment donors more logically and fine tune our next outreach. Our communications are much more personalized because we have better data going in.”