Advancement Services Programs

General Observations

As judges, it's always exciting to see great ideas and innovations that lead to significant improvements in advancement operations. It's not easy to choose winners and it should be noted that congratulations are in order for all the entrants. Each and every entry clearly demonstrated creativity, hard work and the desire by advancement services staff to move the organization forward and provide solutions to real and complex problems.

As with previous years for this category, the entries that stood out were those that had clearly defined objectives, fulfilled the mission of the institution had creative solutions and where the results were clearly articulated. Effectiveness and efficiency was important in the evaluations and these entries also stood out.

The judges would like to encourage services staff members to be key innovators in improved processes rather than just awaiting service requests. The judges would also like to encourage more shops out there to enter the awards and to get their work and ideas out in front of more people.

Overall Operations

Gold Medal

California Polytechnic State University - Endowment Spending Rule Analysis and Model

• This project was timely and crossed boundaries of the organization and helped to manage the complexities of a problem that many of us face in our own organizations, especially with the current economic conditions. The project was data driven using statistical modeling and the results were used to both inform, education and set policy. It's a clear example of how sophisticated analytics can be integrated into decision making to provide a superior solution.

Gift/Bio Administration, Compliance and Ethics

Gold Medal

University of North Florida - Data Efficiency and Integrity Enhancement Program

• A great example of how a good technical approach to a problem greatly improved the efficiency and effectiveness of data entry. We often faced with "doing more with less" and most of us are always looking for improvements in how we utilize resources. Rather than "cutting corners" this project increased the amount of information entered into the system - simultaneously improving the quality and reduced the turnaround time for data entry.

Donor Relations/Customer Service

Gold Medal

Dickinson College - Stewarding Scholarship Donors

• Standard marketing research points to the ideas that people want a personalized approach and an experience rather than just a transaction. It is a Web-based approach that helps to integrate the stewardship function from start to finish and encourages all participants to communicate through mechanisms that they're used to using. As the entry states "The devil is in the details" and the solution is one that helps to manage what is a very complex and very personal approach to sustaining relationships with donors.

Information Systems

Gold Medal

Northern Michigan University - Major Gift Office Metrics

• The management of a major gift program is critical of all organizations particularly as competition for donations continues to increase. The old "80-20" ration has give way to ratios where a smaller number of major donors are contributing an ever larger amount of money. This entry is a metrics driven approach to managing major gift officers who had to deal with a prospect pool that was very much in an early stage of development. The assessment tool was based on a creative combination of points that extended beyond some of the more traditional types of metrics.

Prospect Research

Gold Medal

Arizona State University - Funding for a New American University

• This was a good approach to linking the support for overall goals of the institution to prospect research and demonstrating the alignment with the university. The project included wealth screening, a qualification process and then using the information to help build a prospect pipeline in a proactive and managed way across the organization.

Other Programs

Gold Medal

Northern Michigan University - Student Call Centers

• How to Interview without Interviewing and Train without a Classroom: Advancement services portfolios continue to change and this award focuses on improved hiring and training techniques for the student call center. These techniques include interviews during call center shifts and immersion training rather than training in classrooms. When caller retention and productivity are both improved, it means more dollars on the door. There are good lessons here for many telemarketing operations.