Adjusting Your Gaze
CURRENTS Article In an interview with CURRENTS, predictive-modeling expert Peter Wylie discusses his work, including his latest analysis of lifetime giving at a broad range of higher education institutions.

Getting the Full Picture
CURRENTS Article At independent schools, community and small colleges, and large universities alike, CRM is widely used at both ends of an individual’s education experience—during the recruitment and admissions process and throughout the years that follow departure from school. To a much lesser degree, CRM is beginning to be deployed as the student matriculates and advances through school.

Office Space: Sweeping the Data Clouds Away
CURRENTS Article Managing an unwieldy data system can be overwhelming, but by prioritizing projects and assessing processes, the database can become a friend rather than a foe.

Advance Work: Here We Are
CURRENTS Article Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts in England found the perfect way to get alumni to update their address and job information: offer them the chance of some free publicity.

AdvanceWork: Experience Nottingham
CURRENTS Article Keeping track of alumni after they’ve graduated can be difficult. Nottingham Trent University shifted the burden by organizing a contest that rewarded alumni who confirm or update their directory information. More than 4,300 alumni entered the contest, and one lucky winner walked away with a Nottingham weekend-for-two prize package that included a stay at a luxury hotel and tickets to several local attractions.

Winners at Heart
CURRENTS Article Profiles of 12 winners of CASE’s 2004 Circle of Excellence awards. The winning alumni relations programs offered creative ways to generate revenue, use technology, or support a campus cause. In the development categories, campuses showed how to use flash e-mail annual giving solicitations and speech-writing students to attract donors. Communications winners relied on humor, creativity, and unconventional publications. And top advancement services shops highlighted the importance of identifying top campus prospects, working as a team, and maintaining accurate data.

Keeping Better Tabs
CURRENTS Article Taking a page from the commercial sector’s customer relationship management playbook, education institutions are developing alumni relationship-management systems that promise to revolutionize how alumni offices do business. This story highlights efforts by the Association of Alumni and Alumnae of MIT, Harvard University, and the Iowa State University Alumni Association.

AdvanceWork: What's in a Name?
CURRENTS Article Six different ways campuses define the term "alumni"

Tech Support: Putting Paper in Its Place
CURRENTS Article Document imaging (the electronic storage of paper files) can help control paper clutter. Ley summarizes what he learned from establishing such a system for managing development records at Southern Methodist University. He recommends involving computer services personnel, gift records and prospect research staffers, and other development officers and administrators who will use the material.

AdvanceWork: All Access Required?
CURRENTS Article Advancement Services with John H. Taylor