Advancement Services
- Making the Most of Your Database: Bridging the Gap between Data and Results
- Bridging Capital Campaigns and Reporting
- Capacity Ratings for Corporations and Foundations: Prioritizing Your Top Prospects
- Crossing the bridge - Prospect Management: Turning Data into Decisions
- The Researcher as Fundraiser: How to Build Relationships, Communicate Effectively and Manage Your Time as a Prospect Researcher
- Bridging the Response Gap; Making your IT Team More Efficient
- Creative Ways to Increase Annual Appeals and Communication through digital mediums
Making the Most of Your Database: Bridging the Gap between Data and Results
Session 1: Thursday, Feb.18 9:15-10:30 a.m.
Detail: There is an abundance of information in your database – but how can you turn that information into something that will help your team improve its development performance? What can it tell you about your advancement operations and your prospect pool? In this session, you will learn how the advancement team at Georgetown University maximized the value of its database information by:
- Improving targeted development outreach using marketing segmentation
- Tracking constituent engagement using a variety of Alumni Relations and Annual Fund indicators
- Identifying program-specific prospects using predictive analysis
- Analyzing giving trends to identify new major gift and annual fund prospects
During this session we will address: 1) What kind of data you need for each of these projects, 2) How can you make the most of the data you have, and 3) What do you do if you don’t have much in the way of data?
Presenter
Amy Carrier is the Director of Research and Prospect Development at Georgetown University. She has been at Georgetown for over five years, serving as Research Analyst and Associate Director of Prospect Management before moving into her current role. Prior to joining Georgetown’s advancement team, Amy was the manager of the Alliance for Regional Stewardship, a network of civic entrepreneurs working to address the issues facing today’s regions. Ms. Carrier has studied at Trinity University, Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Georgetown University, and the University of Colorado Denver. She has spoken at the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement, the Conference of Jesuit Advancement Administrators, and the American Planning Association, and taught statistics at the University of Colorado Denver’s Graduate School of Public Affairs.
Bridging Capital Campaigns and Reporting
Session 2: Thursday, Feb. 18 11:00a.m. -12:15 p.m.
Detail: This presentation will discuss the development, creation and maintenance of Oregon State University’s Campaign Reporting system, which has become the basis for consistent reporting methodology and delivery of data to the Foundation, University and supporters during our $625 million campaign. The presentation will be a non-technical overview of the system including where the data comes from, processed and reported. It will also discuss the collaboration that exists between the development side and the programming side that allowed these reports to come to life!
Presenter
Jeff Merth is a Programmer Analyst for the Oregon State University Foundation. His responsibilities for the Foundation include business intelligence, data warehousing, and information security. He fell in love with an Apple II+ in 1978, and since then has helped people use computers for dozens of interesting and unusual projects, like storage area construction tracking, ski rental reservation management, and cigar humidor depreciation reporting. He received a BA in computer science from Macalester College (Minnesota) in 1990.
Capacity Ratings for Corporations and Foundations: Prioritizing Your Top Prospects
Session 3: Thursday, Feb 18 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Detail: Capacity ratings for corporations and foundations play an important role in prioritizing and strategizing among top prospects for major giving: this is beneficial whether an institution is in a campaign environment, or simply trying to optimize its relationships with businesses and foundations. This session focuses on ways to rate giving capacity when an organization is the rated entity, as opposed to rating the individuals behind the organization. Areas of discussion include developing standards for rating corporate and foundation capacity, as well as changes in capacity that can stem from the economic crisis. The session explains methods and research resources for calculating capacity ratings based on variables such as company revenue, donation amounts from the organization by gift/grant category, and the relationship of the organization to your institution.
Presenter
Matthew Kujawa began his career in prospect research in 2006 as a Corporate & Foundation Research Strategist at the University of Washington. In this position he focuses on corporate and foundation research to find donors to support a broad range of programs, initiatives, and centers/institutes at the university. In addition he has conducted research on East Asian prospects (both individual and corporate/foundation) to support the international development efforts at the university. He received a Master of Arts in International Studies from the University of Washington in 2003, and a BA in political science from the University of Minnesota, Morris, in 1991.
Crossing the Bridge - Prospect Management: Turning Data into Decisions
Session 4: Thursday, Feb 18 3:45 – 5:00 p.m.
Detail: Can you identify your top prospects? Do you know how much money will be raised in the coming year? Will your campaign reach its goal? Which of your gift officers are effective fundraisers? If these questions matter to you, a strong prospect management system also matters to you. This session will cover the basics of creating an effective prospect management system, including what to track; reports to inform your decision making; and meetings that are focused on the right priorities. Thoughtfully designed and implemented, a strong prospect management system will help your organization stay on track for fundraising success.
Presenter
Betsy Cooper has been the Director of Prospect Management and Research at Reed College for eight years. Previously, she was a prospect researcher at the University of Colorado Foundation. She earned her BA from Cornell University and MLS from Rutgers University. She is the president of the Northwest Chapter of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA-NW) and has served on the board of the Portland Symphonic Choir.
The Researcher as Fundraiser: How to Build Relationships, Communicate Effectively and Manage Your Time as a Prospect Researcher
Session 5: Friday, Feb 19, 9:15-10:30 a.m.
Detail: The role of the prospect researcher has historically been reactive and desk-bound. As our profession matures, we are seeing a paradigm shift to recognize the benefits of better partnering with our major gift officers. This session focuses on ways to build these relationships, including rebranding yourself in a proactive role, stepping outside your comfort zone, building trust, effective communication and understanding your fundraiser’s needs. We’ll also discuss how to balance your professional and service roles so that we can provide good customer service while managing the correct workload that furthers the organization’s mission.
Presenter
Kelly Riutta has been a Research Strategist at the University of Washington since 2006, a librarian and freelance researcher since 2003 and held positions in various non-profit organizations for over 15 years. Leading up to her non-profit and analytic work, Kelly spent 10 years in the customer service industry giving her invaluable experience building relationships and managing interpersonal dynamics. She holds a BFA from Northern Michigan University and MLIS from Wayne State University and is serving her second term as Director at Large/Webmaster for APRA-NW.
Bridging the Response Gap; Making your IT Team More Efficient
Session 6: Friday, Feb. 19, 11:00 a.m -12:15 p.m.
Detail: As a service manager for an Advancement system, do you wonder if your team is being as productive and responsive as it could be? Learn what techniques and tools increase your team’s responsiveness and at the same time deliver the features and systems the business needs. Over the past three years, the IT team within Advancement at University of Saskatchewan has adopted ‘agile’ methods such as ‘scrums,’ ‘iterative development,’ and concepts of Agile Project Management. These methods have increased the throughput and efficiency of the team on delivering valuable business functions that users need. This session is designed to give managers and business staff insight into these methods and how they can be used.
Presenter
James Johannesson is the Director of Advancement Operations at the University of Saskatchewan. James has 10 years experience in advancement leading areas that have included information technology, prospect research, gift processing, data and information support. James has a background in information management and business analysis having spent over 23 years at the University of Saskatchewan in various information technology roles as a programmer, business analyst and database administrator. James’ areas of interest include project management and information and data management.
Creative Ways to Increase Annual Appeals and Communication through Digital Mediums
Session 7: Friday, Feb. 19, 2:00 – 3:15 p.m.
Detail: We will explore the myriad of digital methods available - text messaging, social networking sites, YouTube, other online avenues - and discuss their effectiveness in communicating and soliciting with our constituencies.
The session will explore methods and practices of other non profit organizations who have successfully used digital communications to raise awareness and funds. What can learn from them and how can we apply their success our own Annual Giving programs?
Presenter
Lacie LaRue started in Annual Giving as a student caller at Iowa State University, where she received a BA in Spanish. Since graduating, she has held annual giving positions at Portland State University and the University of Maryland. She came to Oregon State University as the Director of Annual Giving in 2007.
