From the Nominator

"Indiana University’s advancement community has a long-standing history of serving our alumni through fundraising and alumni engagement work. Recently, there has been an intentional focus on acknowledging the connection between an alumni’s engagement and giving at IU, resulting in a complete picture of our alumni’s impact.

Historically, IU could track, measure, and plan for fundraising success but not for alumni engagement. In response to this need the IU Alumni Association, in partnership with the IU Foundation, developed the Alumni Engagement Dashboard, a system-wide platform that measures, tracks and reports on the alumni engagement successes of our advancement community.    

The Alumni Engagement Dashboard provides the data that tells the story of IU alumni’s engagement experiences. This integrated, enterprise-wide solution gives schools and units a way to track and measure the work of alumni engagement at the individual school, unit, and campus levels. Users can access real-time data that measures, tracks, and reports how IU alumni interact with the university. These metrics were developed based on Council for Advancement and Support of Education standards and modes of engagement, tracking activity in the following four areas: events and experiences, volunteer opportunities, charitable contributions, and citizenship/communication. Definitions of the activities assigned to each category can be found in our supporting materials.   

This instrumental tool strengthens the work of IU’s advancement professionals, providing a measurable and consistent method of tracking the generosity and commitment of IU’s alumni base."

From the Judges

Your entry demonstrated passion and commitment, and your project was well-aligned with the award criteria. The panel adores this project because it brilliantly highlights the significance of alumni engagement beyond financial support and identifies areas for improvement or celebration. The impact of making alumni relations a shared responsibility across the university, the collaborative advisory group, and the established continuous feedback loop are commendable. It is a good example for other dashboards and effectively conveys the strategic objective. Good work!