Advancement Services Programs

2010 Circle of Excellence Awards Program
Judges Report

Entries Received: 16

Winners:
Overall Operations
No Awards Given

Gift/Bio Administration
No Awards Given

Donor Relations/Customer Service
No Award Given

Information Systems
Gold Award: Princeton University - Tiger Tracks

Prospect Research
Silver Award
Brown University - Revolutionizing the Role of Research: Prospect Development as a Catalyst for Driving Campaign Success

Bronze Award
University of Michigan - DevContacts 3 (DC3)

Other Programs
Silver Award
Tufts University - UA4YOU: The Evolution of an Advancement Intranet

Ingenuity is a key enabler during these last few years, and organizations that are creative are those that are going to continue to remain at the top. As judges, we continue to see new examples of ingenuity that lead to significant improvements in advancement operations - which in turn help to leverage fundraising and engagement. As with previous years, its not easy to choose winners and congratulations are in order for all the entrants. Again, 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 the category, 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. Improvements in effectiveness and efficiency were important in the evaluations and these entries also stood out.

Everyone should be encouraged to make submissions to the awards. There are many great ideas and its important for all of us not to be "buried" in the day to day work and to be able to step back and gain some perspective on the value we add to our organizations.

Gold Award - Information Systems - Princeton University, Tiger Tracks
In challenging times where resources are stretched, organizations that can motivate and manage volunteer pools effectively will be able to use this to capitalize on their fundraising and engagement activities. This award was almost a unanimous decision for a gold award by all the judges who recognized the leverage provided by a volunteer management system that extracts information from the database of record and allows a pool of 3,000 plus volunteers to see and utilize this in real-time over the Internet.

Systems such as these enable ease of interaction with an organization and help to drive campaign progress with fundraising statistics, biographical information, actions and contacts and management of fundraising teams. This is a very comprehensive approach and is one that all of us should take notice of.

Although Tiger Tracks is unique to Princeton, it speaks to "modern" approaches to leveraging the use of your internal database, not only with your staff but directly with your end "customers". This is where we all need to move. Just a few of the measureable results: increased fundraising, better statistics on volunteers and how they initiate giving and improvements in data quality.

Silver Award - Prospect Development - Brown University, Revolutionizing the Role of Research: Prospect Development as a Catalyst for Driving Campaign Success
This entry represented the clear embodiment of changing what was previously a passive and reactive prospect research group into one of the key driving forces that helped with the success of a major campaign. The groups increased the number and quality of prospects, collaboration with fundraisers, added insights, modified and created policies and helped find volunteer leaders. This is an example of the type of prospect research focus that all of us should try and aspire to. Statistics and charts helped to track and measure the success s of these endeavors.

Silver Award - Other Programs - Tufts University, UA4YOU: The Evolution of an Advancement Intranet
There were a number of entries of internal Intranet sites and help systems this year, and picking a standout from what were all good entries was challenging, but the judges felt that Tuft's entry was the best. The project represented a best practice approach - database driven, use of analytics to help plan and design, assist in centralizing tools, resources, expertise, discussions and many other critical elements of the fundraising business for 185 staff. If you want a good example of how to do a project like this - have a conversation with the staff at Tufts.

Bronze Award - Prospect Development - University of Michigan, DevContacts 3 (DC3)
Its always challenging to get fundraising staff to enter the donor contacts and this entry helps enable that for a fundraising organizations with over 450 staff. DevContacts is a desktop application that allows fundraisers to enter their contacts on their desktop or laptop and when they are re-connected to the network, the contacts are automatically uploaded into the main fundraising system. On the surface, this may seem "trivial" but the university is currently using a mainframe computing system - one that is extremely "unfriendly" for use by end users and was simply not being used for entering contacts. Over 4,000 reports were submitted in just under five months, which are orders of magnitude higher than what was previously uploaded to the mainframe. This project not only improves development officer productivity but enhances institutional knowledge and records of contacts and conversations - which as we all know, help lead to increased giving.