Pam Russell
Director of Communications
CASE
+1-202-478-5680
russell@case.org

For Immediate Release
May 19, 2008

CASE, SPSS Name First Recipient of Data Mining Internship

Project to drive awareness of data mining, help improve educational fundraising results

WASHINGTON, D.C.--A campaign administrator with Johns Hopkins University has been selected as the first CASE Peter B. Wylie Data Mining Intern for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

The recently announced internship is for professionals interested in following a career path focused on data mining and predictive modeling in higher education and independent school advancement. It is named after and supported by Peter B. Wylie, a national expert and leading author in the field of data mining. Wylie's books include Baseball, Fundraising, and the 80/20 Rule: Studies in Data Mining and Data Mining for Fund Raisers. The internship is also supported by SPSS Inc., a global provider of Predictive Analytics software and solutions.

Dan Luperchio, the campaign administrator in the School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, will begin his two-month internship at CASE headquarters this June in Washington, D.C.

"This internship will provide Dan a residency at CASE and the resources to work on a jointly approved data mining and predictive modeling project that will drive awareness and use of data mining in institutional advancement and fundraising," says Chris Thompson, vice president of research and information for CASE.

SPSS Inc. has also contributed to the internship and is donating use of its data mining software. Predictive Analytics allows organizations to better understand and predict future prospect behavior by analyzing, modeling and scoring demographic data and transactional data from operational systems as well as attitudinal data gathered through constituent feedback and surveys.

"SPSS software gives organizations across all industries an unprecedented level of insight and prediction from their data to better solve a wide array of challenging business problems, including campaign effectiveness," says Alex Kormushoff, senior vice president of Worldwide Field Operations at SPSS. "We are excited to partner with CASE and Peter B. Wylie to make this internship a reality, and we look forward to our continued work in enabling the academic community to improve fundraising efforts to achieve its goals."

Adds CASE President John Lippincott: "CASE has a strong commitment to driving the widespread use of data in decision-making. We are pleased that this partnership will bring visibility to data mining and the ways it can contribute to successful advancement programs."

About data mining
Data mining is the statistical practice of interrogating very large data sets for underlying patterns that can then be used for decision-making and to make predictions of outcomes. It often makes use of exploratory data analysis, pattern recognition, and visual model-building tools rather than relying solely on traditional inferential techniques. With the power of modern computing to manipulate very large data sets, data mining is now frequently used in business intelligence, financial analysis, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, market basket analysis, DNA analysis and terrorism information awareness.

About CASE

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in London, Singapore and Mexico City, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education is the professional organization for advancement professionals who work in alumni relations, communications, fundraising, marketing and other areas.

CASE is one of the largest nonprofit education associations in terms of institutional membership. Its membership includes more than 3,400 colleges, universities, independent elementary and secondary schools, and educational associates in 74 countries around the world. It serves nearly 65,000 advancement professionals on the staffs of its member institutions.

CASE helps its members build stronger relationships with their alumni and donors, raise funds for campus projects, produce recruitment materials, market their institutions to prospective students, diversify the profession and foster public support of education. CASE also offers a variety of advancement products and services, provides standards and an ethical framework for the profession, and works with other organizations to respond to public issues of concern while promoting the importance of education worldwide.

About SPSS Inc.
SPSS's Predictive Analytics technology improves business processes by giving organizations forward visibility for decisions made every day. By incorporating predictive analytics into their daily operations, organizations become Predictive Enterprises-able to direct and automate decisions to meet business goals and achieve a measurable competitive advantage. More than 250,000 public sector, academic and commercial customers rely on SPSS technology to help increase their revenue, reduce costs and detect and prevent fraud. Founded in 1968, SPSS is headquartered in Chicago, Ill.

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