About the entry

The University of the Pacific received a $125 million endowment gift in 2013, of which more than $90 million established a match program for which donors who invest $50K or more get a 1-to-1 match. In its first 162 years, Pacific had 886 individual endowments, and in four years the match has motivated 162 more to be funded. With $70 million still to be matched, the University of the Pacific faced a massive increase in annual reporting. With Snavely Associates' Ovrture product, Pacific revolutionized its approach and are offering each donor their own endowment website, complete with video, impact and financial data. The University of the Pacific now has website activity data to focus their efforts.

From the Judges' Report

The University of the Pacific provided a new way for engagement, executing a relatively new innovation, through reporting via donor portals. The panel considered the planning and implementation design to be excellent in that it fully leveraged the technology resources available. It also provided a great model for institutions exploring options in how to respond to unique and large scale matching opportunities, which many institutions could consider daunting and complex. This particular response showed great stewardship of resources, but did not minimize its creativity in execution. There was a sense of innovative development with clear objectives that stood out. Although UOP used an outside agency, the panel agreed that the model serves as one that could be replicated using either an external vendor, or in house knowledge and resources. Creating a space for donors to engage with information and impact reporting in a user friendly way is a trending issue for institutions. In comparison to other donor portals that have been done, this one stood out as being done very well.