DRIVE/Cast 2021 Sessions
On Your Mark, Get Set, Bake: Recipes for Reproducible Reporting with RMarkdown: Part One
Ever find yourself running the same report for multiple departments or prospect pools? Wanting to re-run an analysis, but forgetting how you undertook it several weeks, months, or years back? Frustrated over how best to combine multiple data sources? Rmarkdown may be a solution for you. This open source solution provides users with a format to combine analytical processes with documentation. It's flexible enough to run workflows in a multitude of languages (R, Python, and SQL, among others), produce various output media, and automate reporting.
This session will be followed by a Part Two Workshop at 4:00 PM.
Building an Evidence-Based Case for Big Data
One need not look very hard to find evidence of the value of big data in the for-profit sector. This being said, building a case for big data analytics investment is much more challenging in the nonprofit space, where clear big data victories are not yet widespread and our small teams are strapped and wary of investing resources in anything but the lowest-hanging fruit: major gift fundraising.
With a leap of faith as well as a strong belief in the value of big data, over the past two years, the University of Michigan Analytics Team has transformed into Data Science & Decision Support. This is not merely a rebranding but instead reflects a break from our traditional focus on major gift analytics. In particular, we intentionally reallocated attention away from major gift prospecting and toward big data initiatives that benefit historically neglected teams including events, annual giving, and marketing.
The purpose of this presentation is to explain the rationale behind this decision and to share our early evidence that the investment will ultimately benefit the entire pyramid—including the major giving pool. We'll explain what we mean by "big data" and "decision support" and how we made such structural changes despite a budget frozen by the pandemic. We'll also highlight case studies across events, annual giving, and marketing that have benefitted from our shift in focus. These anecdotes will include quantitative impact metrics that can be shared with leadership and perhaps help to build a case for greater analytics investment in the future.
On Your Mark, Get Set, Bake: Recipes for Reproducible Reporting with RMarkdown: Part Two Workshop
This will be an interactive workshop based on the Part One Session at 2:45 PM.
Using Natural Language Processing to Align Faculty with Funding Opportunities
Can Natural Language Processing techniques help identify which funding opportunities would be best suited for different researchers? Learn how The University of Chicago is using Doc2Vec and advanced text analysis to help match faculty members with research funding.
New Campaign Models: Learn How Utah State University is using Data to Inform Their Next Campaign
Over time, Higher Ed campaigns have become more dependent on big gifts from a few donors. We get focused on those big donors and by the time the campaign is complete, we realize we haven’t cultivated a full pipeline to prepare us for fundraising life post-campaign. As we add the reality of a struggling economy due to the current pandemic, we need to re-think the campaign model. In this session, Matthew White and Rachel Richards from Utah State University will present their innovative approach to fundraising and campaigns leveraging the full gift pyramid.
Stairway to Data-Driven Organizations: How New York University and the University of Washington Democratize Data
The New York University (NYU) Development and Alumni Relations (UDAR) team and the University of Washington (UW)Advancement Analytics team will take you on a journey and share how they were able to jumpstart unique data analytics initiatives from inception to maturity in less than a year. Their journeys center on aligning technology with leadership visions and goals, while also empowering front-line fundraisers and marketers to uncover opportunities and take action on critical business insights. They will share an approach that helps them accelerate the implementation and deployment of specialized dashboards, improve the endorsement of their colleagues, and secure high adoption by diverse teams and non-data users. They will demonstrate how their approach can help instill a data-driven culture, and share strategies on how to tackle unique challenges presented by digital data and legacy systems while trying to provide flexible self-service analysis tools. They will also showcase UW’s Email Marketing Dashboard that serves over 50 units, three campuses and over 100 marketers and advancement staff, and NYU’s BI portal which contains more than 60 Dashboards and self-service reports that serve more than 300 fundraisers and development associates and staff and more than 20 schools and global camps.
Big Data and Machine Learning Infrastructure Dialogue: Bits and Bytes from the Field
Join us for an interactive discussion with a dynamic group of trailblazers and technology thought leaders who will share their insights and perspectives on how to build, implement, and scale big data and machine learning infrastructure across a variety of sectors, functions, and business applications.
Taking Engagement to the Next Level: Using Engagement Metrics to Make Decisions and Identify Efficiencies
Hear from a panel of your peers as they share how their institutions are using engagement metrics to refine their approach to alumni engagement and fundraising. We’ll cover what data they chose to include in their engagement metrics, how they shared the results with their teams to ensure adoption, and how data can be used for future engagement strategy, while also supporting annual giving and major gift efforts. Leave this session with a plan for analyzing your constituent data so you can take the next step to turn that data into meaningful change for your institution.
Closing Key Session: Dataclysm: A Conversation with Christian Rudder
Christian Rudder is the author of the New York Times bestseller Dataclysm, and co-founder and former president of OkCupid. In this session, A.J. Nagaraj will interview Christian on several topics of interest to development and alumni relations professionals. We will hear Christian's thoughts on balancing the qualitative against the quantitative, translating technical analysis for decision makers, presenting graphical depictions of data in an easily comprehensible fashion and, finally, considering the implications of data use for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Questions from the audience will be encouraged as well.