Fundraising Nerd

More hiring! Research Analyst, Records Specialist

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:43:00 +0000

I am hiring two more positions at Portland State -- a research analyst (prospect research -- great for a person who is naturally curious, analytical and a strong writer) and a records specialist (supervising a team of students to perform data entry, and doing data entry -- great for a person who is good at managing others, and very detail-oriented). My team is amazing: smart, hard-working, dedicated, resourceful and strategic. If that sounds like the environment in which you want to be, then consider applying.

Hiring a Director of Donor Relations

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:21:00 +0000

I am hiring a Director of Donor Relations, who will be responsible for ensuring timely and accurate donor stewardship by managing donor relations efforts and providing stewardship to top donors. If you are good with both people and systems, have experience in fundraising, and like communicating the impact of philanthropy, you may be the perfect fit. Check out the job description and apply!

CASE VIII

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 22:05:00 +0000

I'm at the CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education) District VIII Conference in Seattle, watching Jessica Balsam, Susan Hayes-McQueen, and Jennifer MacCormack present "How To Train Your Dragon." I'm not actually really live-blogging, as I've just got too much going on at this one (I'm on the program committee), but wanted to give a shout-out to CASE and the awesome ladies of UW's research shop.

I love their metaphor of the dragon: big unwieldy data sets, aka the "too many prospects" problem. Check out Jessica, Susan, and Jen's article by the same name in the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement's Connections to learn what they did about it: their campaign preparedness list and their Discovery Challenge.

I will be tweeting (@amandajarman) from time to time, so keep up with me there. I may post a few things here too, depending on how excited I get.

The Million Dollar List

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:39:00 +0000

Thanks to hot tipper Chris M. in Vancouver for passing along this great tidbit from the Meyer Memorial Trust fall newsletter:

Ready to think big? The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University has published The Million Dollar List, described as "the nation's most complete data on million dollar gifts" and "the only public and free record of publicly reported gifts of $1 million or more since 2000." The site includes a list of top donors and recipients in each state, including Oregon's list.

Getting Socialized

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:15:00 +0000

Though I keep claiming I'm tired of talking about social media, the two keynotes at this year's Association of Advancement Services Professionals conference got me pretty excited about the topic. As well, I got a chance to hang out with Josh Birkholz, and he told me how he uses robots to do his tweeting for him. I started to realize that there is hope for the lazy and the busy.

So I'm going to plunge back into social media. I've just used ~~Twitter Feed~~ HootSuite to link this blog to @amandajarman. I'm working on some other tricks to make myself more ubiquitous on the internets. Suggestions? Tweet at me, or comment below.

Positioning Advancement Services for a Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:04:00 +0000

It's the last day of the conference. Tom Chaves from Lehigh University is presenting on "Positioning Advancement Services for and in the Next Campaign." Using the opportunity for investment in advancement presented by a campaign, Tom's team was able to increase current staff salaries by 13.11% and grew the team by 33%. They project growing the entire advancement team by 40%.

Advancement Services must position ourselves relative to the overall mission of advancement -- state things in terms that resonate with non-operations staff. Tom'a team did internal and external surveys. If your leadership mentions other organizations as comparisons, use those a your benchmarks when you do your external surveys. Consider external validation -- bring in a consultant.

To drive investment in Advancement Services, start small and market your success. Tom started by changing job titles. For example, gift processors were called accounting coordinators, and were renamed advancement services coordinators. He also used all-staff meetings to explain Advancement Services and what they did. Rather than a stale PowerPoint, they created a fun YouTube video based on the office.

In 2008, Tom brought in an external consultant to evaluate perceptions of Advancement Services within the institution. This is also when they changed titles. Besides gift processors, they also changed "report writer" to "information analysts." In 2009, they became more proactive in how advancement services interacted with technology. The advancement staff overall was fairly siloed in their use of technology. Advancement Services started to insert themselves in conversations about technology use and acquisition, positioning themselves as the first point of contact for technology needs.

In 2010, they worked on reporting. All reports had been ad hoc, and could take up to 2 weeks. "Hopefully it was right, because who knows if they would remember why they requested it," Tom said. They were able to shift to a self-service reporting model. Eighty percent of their ad hoc reports are now self-service, so their analysts can focus on more interesting projects, not just list production.

Also in 2010, research moved into Advancement Services, and they did a wealth screening. They also started doing an analysis of their last campaign, which wrapped up in 2009.

This year, they began planning for how they would use technology in the next campaign. They did a lot of research and created a plan, a key component of campaign planning. A campaign plan was to presented to their board in June, and included the tech plan. They also used the AASP salary survey to show that staff were not compensated adequately. And they were approved to hire new staff.

In 2012 they are focusing on new technology -- mobile access to data, analytics, proactive training. Tom also wants to create an Advancement Services "job family." Some of their jobs are in finance, some in development, and some in I.T. This change will allow for more of a career path for operations staff.

Lehigh's management team felt that technology should be s key part of their campaign, so he started with that buy-in. To create the plan, they formed a team including representatives from all aspects of advancement. They did a survey of internal staff to understand more about the advancement team's needs from operations. They also surveyed peer institutions. They identified 12, and received results from 8.

They defined the role of technology in a campaign as supporting the campaign to scale significantly by increasing efficiency without significantly increasing the size of the staff. They also did some visioning -- to be the internal organization that advancement staff seek out experts in technology. (Their vision statement is much longer; I'm definitely paraphrasing.) Tom positioned Advancement Services as the foundation of advancement, shifting the perception that operations are something off to the side.

(Side note: Tom recommends -- if you are presenting to a group, talk to each person individually ahead of time to get both buy-in and feedback.)

The key recommendations they formulated: replace reactive with proactive; employ a consultative model; and utilize project management discipline. They decided to accomplish this through adjusting their current staff alignment; hiring new staff; and creating a technology budget that would support key initiatives across advancement, by centralizing current technology spending.

He made a really nice matrix demonstrating reactive vs. proactive on a ten-point scale (1 - 5 being reactive and 6 - 10 being proactive). For each initiative (e.g. training and support), they defined what reactive looked like (training only when a need is clearly demonstrated) and proactive (full training schedule published in advance, monitoring), and rated themselves on the scale.

They also looked at how to employ a more consultative model. They key attributes their team needed: customer focus, proactive, analytical, providing training and support. They also realized that they can't do everything in-house, that they needed to be able to utilize external resources like consultants to accomplish some projects.

Tom made a Cartesian diagram, with budget and staff as the axes. In each coordinate, he put a car, e.g. High budget and high staff = Ferrari, low budget + low staff = Buick. This is a nice way to use a metaphor for senior staff to envision where they want the organization to be.

It's lovely to hear someone talk about marketing Advancement Services, a topic near and dear to my heart. This is one of my favorite parts of my job, and is so crucial. I think Advancement Services may be the only team in my workplace that's ever been accused of "over-communicating." It's so important -- what we do is complex and hard to understand. If we don't advocate for ourselves, few others will!

Stop irritating your donors

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:30:00 +0000

Next up: John Taylor on "Reengaging the Disenchanted Donor, or, How to avoid ticking them off to begin with!" Since stewardship has just become part of my shop, I am very eager to hear this best practices session. AASP has been developing best practices for a variety of Advancement Services disciplines.

At John's shop, North Carolina State, stewardship reports to him, and is being expanded to include donor communication.

John is starting out with what disenchants donors. First, not following a donor's intentions tends to make them angry. This might be because the intentions were not clearly documented at the beginning. Not using the gift is another issue. It's amazing that folks donate to our organizations, and then we fail to spend the money! Or, they give us a gift, and then never hear from us again.

John points out that disenchantment is not confined to major donors. Institutions can make big decisions that upset broad swathes of donors. As an example, one university gave its president a second house! This angered many alumni. Another example: an all-women college made a "surprise" announcement that it was going co-ed.

If you ask donors how they want to be communicated with, make sure you honor that. For example, John got a call from his alma mater. He was on the do not call list, and got called by their phone fundraisers three nights in a row! Each night he told them that he was on their do not call list..but they kept calling.

One of the biggest reason we lose donors is that we fail to adhere to the donor bill of rights. John says that nonprofits outside of higher education do a better job of adhering to this than higher education institutions do. He suggest posting the bill of rights on your organization's website. One of the most challenging aspects of this is donor intent -- honoring the donor's desires for how the funds will be spent. The best way to accomplish this is through a gift agreement. Make sure it is clear; irrevocable; will stand the test of time; and is clear regarding recognition, in particular whether a building or fund can be "un-named."

John recommends not including endowment terms. Reference your policy, as it may change. Don't go into great detail regarding scholarship and fellowship terms, or reporting requirements.

On your pledge agreement, ask donors how they would like their name to be written in recognition of their gift. If they are going to be paying part from a donor-advised fund or a matching gift, include a sentence that says if the above-named entities do not pay, the donor will pay. Then when the payment is received from the fund or company, write down the original pledge and book the payment as a separate gift, with a soft credit to the donor.

Donors also become disenchanted because (in descending order) they no longer feel connected to the institution, feel compelled to give to other causes, were being solicited too often, felt their donation was mismanaged, assets were mismanaged, or did not keep accurate records of their donations. This is per the 2008 Bank of America Study of High Net-Worth Philanthropy.

Communications is key -- gift agreements, donor intent, regular & consistent reporting. Reporting is not only for endowment donors. Send a report of how money was used to your annual fund donors too. How many donors contributed, how much was given, and what was done with the money? Consider doing a "thank-a-thon" using your phone fundraising callers. Segment your calls so that students are calling donors to their programs.

For endowment reporting, include the frequency (but not the specific date) in your gift agreement. Provide them within 90 days of the close of the fiscal year. Err on the side of providing too much information. Include the book value, the market value and clearly define them both.

To steward scholarship donors, send a thank you from their recipient. Make writing the letter a condition of receiving the scholarship, but don't let the student send out the letter without vetting it first. There's nothing worse than a poorly-written letter from a scholarship recipient.

Invite donors to special events for free -- art openings, lectures, etc.

There are some ways to figure out which donors are disenchanted. Look at alumni participation rates by class year, sudden drops in revenue, and analytics. Conduct an attitudinal survey which looks at demographics, loyalty, overall experience, student experience, and alumni experience. Pay attention to the open-ended questions.

Consider doing a donor relations survey. In John's experience, donors remember when they get a thank you from a student or former professor, and don't care so much about a letter from the president or a development officer. Birthday and holiday cards are worthless. Higher ed is terrible at providing specific information about the impact of the gift itself.

Don't be afraid to apologize. If you've upset a donor, communicate and don't try to find someone to blame. Don't blame a staff member. Self-deprecation is also not the answer. Do provide reassurance that you have addressed the issue.

Understand and meet the donor's expectations. Thank them in a timely and appropriate way -- issue a receipt within 48 hours. Don't treat everyone the same -- thank them in a way that is appropriate to them.

Negativity does not mean you should leave them alone. But don't wait -- the longer you wait to re-engage, the less effective it will be. Donors that are more than six years lapsed in their giving probably will not give again.

Venture philanthropists are interesting birds. Don't come back to them for a new gift until you have an interesting project. Do make sure to ask for their input and to communicate the impact of their gift.

Tips for Social Media from Jay Frost and Occupy Wall Street

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:00:00 +0000

I just stuffed myself full of food, and now will be listening to Jay Frost from FundraisingInfo.com. He'll be talking about social media in a keynote titled "Popping the Question: Moving from Engagement to Action With Social Media."

Jay is talking about how to move constituents from "liking" us to loving us. If we focus only on engagement, we may train our constituents to interact with us in a limited way.

The Red Cross raised $37 million for Haiti relief efforts with text giving. Jay says the real story here is peer to peer fundraising. How do we maintain relationships with these donors, whose names we do not have, because they gave via text?

The audience is diverse. Latino/as are the fastest growing market in the U.S. Use of social media by this group is higher than average. Being in social media gives us the opportunity to reach this demographic, which is also a fast-growing segment of college students.

The audience is global. Most people on social media are outside the U.S. Social media is the easiest way to get in touch with non-U.S. residents.

A report by SEI shows that 70% of pentamillionaires (assets of $5M or more) use social media. Other studies bear this out -- the affluent are on Facebook. And, they are influenced by social media. The more someone earns, the more likely they are to be influenced.

College graduates are 1.5 times more likely to blog than high school graduates. They are twice as likely to post photos and videos and three times more likely to post an online rating or comment.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is making huge use of social media. One key organizer is Priscilla Grim in New York City. Jay did an interview with Priscilla, and we all get to see it first!

From a march on September 17 of a few hundred people in New York, the movement has grown to thousands of protesters around the country. They are making savvy use of social media. Jay asked what lessons we can learn from the OWS?

"I worked at one place that wanted to Twitter by committee... You can't do that," Priscilla said. You have to trust the people you hire, she says. The Occupy movement are united by a broad framework and mission statement. Each blogger or tweeter then provides their own spin within that framework.

"They not only pulled it off, but they served Fox News their ass," said Priscilla.

OWS put out a call to raise $12,000 to out out a paper publication: The Occupy Wall Street Journal. In a few short weeks, they raised $75,000.

Movember, which raises money for prostate cancer using a walk or run model, but instead, men grow mustaches for pledges. They raised $16 million this way.

Jay's suggestions:

Twitter. Find people to follow. You'll find fresh content 3 to 5 days ahead of listservs.

Engage in conversation. Some development officers are actually engaging in conversations with major gift donors via Twitter. Young people don't like to talk on the phone. Text them instead.

Manage your social life. Use tools like Hoot Suite to make this easier.

Get mobile. You must embrace smart phones.

Fill the room at a special event. Use Facebook to advertise your event.

Advertise campaigns on your background.

Leverage your content. Repurpose information from tweets to make a newsletter.

Launch a ribbon campaign.

Create a "social ad."

Download your followers/connections.

Learn from your competition.

See your donors' networks.

Social media can be done. It can't be left to marketing alone, but must be owned by fundraising. Invest in social media. Put your money where your mouth is.

Clean Up That Database

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:45:00 +0000

Vered Siegel from After School Matters is presenting "Easy Wins: High Impact, Low-Effort Ways to Improve Your Database." When we inherit a new database, we think, "Why on earth did someone do things this way?" Someone put things in your database for a reason: they had good intentions, they understood a part but not the whole, they thought "it might be useful some day," or "someone told me to."

Start by shutting down all permissions. Then make a plan. Figure out who controls the delete function. Your database might be like Wikipedia -- anything written there becomes "true." Vered says that when you shut down permissions, "being an a--hole is inevitable." Examine everyone's job roles and set permissions accordingly. Control access to deleting very carefully. Change the theory of power and permissions. Just because you are the VP doesn't mean that you should have access to all database functions. Fewer permissions = better.

Vered likes to run what she calls a "query for null." Look for any records missing mandatory pieces of information: address, city, state, zip, gender, marital status, etc. Once you identify the missing spots, set some metrics for improvement, like targets for address completion or phone number completion. Do some data appends to fill your gaps. She also does a "query for discord," e.g. Marital status is blank, but there is a spouse listed; a record has a male title and gender is equal to "female."

Align your fund tracking with your general ledger. Make it a goal to reconcile fundraising and accounting to the penny.

If possible, lock fields so that selections are limited. For example, make it impossible to choose a code that is tied to a prior fiscal year.

Figure out who your allies are. Create "power users" and encourage them to talk amongst themselves. Empower your data entry staff -- it's the most important investment you can make. They know your database from the ground up, and will be future managers. Encourage questions.

Modernizing gift processing with automation

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:18:00 +0000

Mary Ehart of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is talking about "Moving Your Gift Processing Operations into the 21st Century." Moving into the 21st century is not just about technology, but also training and capabilities. Often it's chief development officers who are dragging their operations shops into the 21st century.

Five years ago, CHOP did 45,000 gift processing transactions per year, all fully manual. Now, they handle 108,000 transactions per year, and 75% are automated. This change was driven by an internal audit, an increased volume of gifts due to a campaign and big event gift processing being pulled in-house. At the same time, finance was doing a project to clean up their funds.

The game changers they faced were a focus on online giving and a focus on new donor acquisition. They decided to outsource their web hosting and their direct mail processing.

When they began their project, their staff was focused on accurate keystrokes. They were distanced from the technology in place and were apprehensive about new technology and processes. It's important to assess whether your staff will be able to come up to speed with training, or whether they are "just not that into it." Gift processors want to know what to expect -- now, and in the future. At the same time, CHOP's training program was focused on hind-sight problem-solving and corrections.

CHOP also assessed the physical size of the office, and equipment needs and capacity.

They prepared for the change by being transparent with staff, so that they wouldn't hear things like "automation"and "high volume" in the hallway. They communicated early, even when they didn't have full information about what was going to happen.

They held team meetings to discuss lockboxes, scanning gifts for an audit trail, and more imports and less hands-on data entry (this was a source of nervousness). They also made it clear that roles and job descriptions would change.

They chose their technology by going through an RFP process. Document why you chose the vendor that you chose. When looking at online providers, they looked at two primary factors: the user interface and how the back-end integration would work.

They also chose a scanning system, so that checks and other documentation are attached directly to the gift. They do not retain paper copies, unless it's for a major donor or board member.

The chose to outsource their direct mail gift processing. They made the business case for this by looking at metrics for their shop. They tracked batch entry over six months and extrapolated how many additional staff they would need based on their projected increases in giving. CHOP worked with their outsourced vendor to devise work flows and exception processes. CHOP reviews the exceptions and does some spot-checking, but they do not review every gift. This outsourcing reduced their turnaround time from 2 weeks to 1 - 2 days.

When implementing this kind of change, go for some easy wins. They created a temporary fund to deposit checks while waiting for a fund to be created. They prioritized entering and receipting large gifts. They also started opening all mail at the front desk -- sometimes checks would sit for weeks because the mail had been addressed to someone who was on vacation.

Another tip is to work with your vendors. CHOP's IT was very busy, and they were able to have vendors program solutions for them instead, while meeting the standards of in-house IT.

CHOP was able to move from five temps and five full-time processors, and all staff (including the Executive Director) had to pitch in and enter gifts to keep up with the volume. Due to automation, they've been able to eliminate the temps. They did hire an import processing coordinator.

They also created a new quality assurance position. They revised all job descriptions and actually bumped everyone up a level, so raises helped ease the stress of change. As well, they reassessed one job description to create a director of gift administration, who works with finance on fund issues.

CHOP implemented an incentive program for their staff based on quantity, accuracy and difficulty. Staff can earn up to $500, and earn points on a weekly basis. This proved to be motivational.

To sustain a change like this, establish policies and procedures; ensure staff are aware of the big picture; and work closely with finance. Use incremental improvement to continually refine your processes. Consider doing an external audit to ensure you are meeting best practices, staffing is adequate, staff deployment is correct, and you are ready for your next campaign.

Final lessons:
It's not only about gift processing -- you need to work with many different staff at your institution.
Always look ahead -- know the plans and think ahead to meet new needs. Get buy in along the way.
Provide continuity -- show the roadmap and continually improve.
Automation will provide consistency to narrow the margin of error.
Analyze -- make a good business case for automation. Know your numbers.
Automation does not necessarily mean fewer staff, if your processing volume is increasing at the same time.
Figure out the competencies that you need.

Living in the future right now

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:30:00 +0000

David Lawson from TrueGivers is presenting "The Realities of Real Time Data." David says "the future really is here," but your institution may have put up roadblocks to "hide from the future." One of my favorite expressions is "I love living in the future."

Smart phones and tablets are the driving force behind 24-hour data. We have to figure out how to deliver the right data to the right people at the right time.

In the past, we only allowed certain people in our systems. Now we are looking at a 360 degree view -- but not just 360 degrees in our silo, but 360 degrees in our organization. We want to know everything about our constituents.

The first issue with real-time data is accuracy. Real time means we can't vet everything.

The next issue is completeness. This brings up issues with consistency. David is displaying a Cartesian coordinate of accuracy and consistency.

The next issue is relevance. The data must be meaningful to the data consumers. What's relevant for one person is not relevant for the next. Most shops start with meeting the president's needs, and then work their way down from there.

Finally, there is timeliness. We want data that is both accurate and on time. U.S. intelligence agencies knew that 9/11 was going to happen, but they simply could not put the pieces together in time. We don't deal with life of death issues in our shops, but our ability to be timely could mean the life or death of our campaign.

Balancing all of the above.

Security is another factor. The biggest threat to security is the device, not the hacker. Specifically, the loss of the device is the threat. We must be able to encrypt down to the weakest link, including thumb drives.

In terms of cloud computing, universities and other non-profits will never spend as much on security as the companies who are hosting your data.

Hosting data onsite at a university is like "having a 7-11 in the middle of a prison. It's going to get knocked over."

Data cleansing is key. We must figure out how do do this in an automated fashion, e.g. real-time address verification. But we can't refuse to put things in our system until they are perfect.

David's real time checklist:
Source location
Source quality
Source security
Source update frequency
Source connection -- how are you accessing it?
Internal locations -- where is the data going?
Internal quality checks
Internal security
Internal update frequency -- if the end user has another way to the source, and it's updated more frequently than your system, they will know.
End user access points -- can your users access your data via mobile device?
End user permission levels -- what data can people view?

David was just asked what to do when a development officer finds the one mistake out of thousands. David says, "Whoever complains the most about the data raises the least amount of money."

The report queue must end. We must focus on self-service. This is not a job security issue -- there is still plenty to do!

Dashboards should be interactive -- you should be able to click on the data to drill down. Lead with pictures. Sixty percent of people are visual learners, so use data visualization.

Use constituent opt-ins -- survey results, submitting address updates, advocating for the institution -- as a piece of your affinity scoring.

Social networking users has surpassed email users. Executives who resist this trend and 24-hour data "hope the future doesn't happen until they retire." Twenty-two percent of Internet time is spent socially.

Fundraising is getting back to where it started -- it was all based on socializing. Then along came direct mail: we "threw it over the wall" and hoped our donors would throw money back.

In 2010, thirty percent of devices used to access business data were personal devices. In 2011, this number rose to forty percent.

More than 80 percent of IT organizations agree that tablets and other consumer devices will be an integral part of how we do our work. They also agree that this will increase the workload of IT staff, that senior executives will expect these devices to be supported, and that this trend will increase morale and productivity.

This behavior will be driven by our donors -- they expect this kind of connectivity in their office, and they will expect it from us. They've been cutting us some slack because we're nonprofits, but this slack is ending.

Look at yammer -- the corporate Facebook. Jive is a similar workspace application. People are starting to "follow" data, and are accessing data in a feed format. Just because social networking has been used for inane purposes doesn't mean we should overlook the utility. When everyone started illegally downloading music, it should have been a major clue that there was a market for accessing music online. David says: "Legalize social networking."

Analytics -- own your scores and rankings. It can't be a mystery any more. We have to understand how it works so we can explain it to our end users.

Web analytics are crucial. Being able to track activity on your website is increasingly important and possible. Facebook now has analytics available.

We have to stop thinking our users are dumb. Talk with them about the process and the problems. They might have great ideas. We have a new generation of development officers who are technology natives.

Who do you want to be? A traffic cop, or Steve Jobs? You can be innovative and a control freak at the same time. Let the data be free, and be a control freak behind the scenes by using your business rules.

Blowing up your records and gift processing operation

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:16:00 +0000

Caroline Chang from Stanford is doing a follow-up to her presentation with Debbie Anglin from GG&A from two years ago. GG&A did a business process review, including benchmarking, to look at gift and record processing. The focus was on efficiency, accuracy, timeliness and customer service. This presentation was actually tremendously helpful for me as I considered how to appropriately staff my Advancement Services team.

The study benchmarked staff needed, cost per transaction, adjustments to entries, and degree of automation. Most organizations process gift within three to five business days. It also benchmarked records entry, but sadly, I was unable to type fast enough to get that information down. The percentage of automation ranged from less than ten percent to more than eighty percent, and adjustments ranged from one percent to twelve percent. The main difference between shops was the degree of integration between gift processing and records management. As well, shops varied in the extent to which data entry was distributed beyond the operations shop. The ratio of records processors to database size ranged between 1:44k and 1:200.

Today, Caroline is going to focus on how she acted on the recommendations that resulted from the business process analysis. Senior management committed to implementing the recommendations received. They broke down the report into 35 recommendations, assessed which needed I.T. solutions, and prioritized by cost savings, importance, quick wins, and do-ability.

One of the first steps was to reorganize the staff. The records manager retired, creating an opportunity for freedom of design. At the same time, Stanford needed to reduce staffing. They committed to cutting staff once they had achieved a greater degree of automation. It was also clear that they need to deliver better customer service, both internally and externally.

To begin, they mapped every workflow in their shop, including their front desk. They did this internally, but Caroline would recommend hiring this out. They looked for duplication of efforts and multiple handoffs, then brainstormed what they would like the workflow to look like. Then they thought about what the organization had to look like to make this happen. From there, they rewrote all job descriptions.

When they began, there were three distinct organizations: records, gift processing, and central files. These teams were reorganized under one manager, divided into four units: customer services (formerly front desk), automated services, general services, and specialized services.

Customer services takes all phone calls from donors, and sends all correspondence (e.g. matching gift forms). Automated services deals with anything that is received electronically. Specialized services deals with all high-value gifts, $10k+, ACH, wire transfers, securities, pledges and pledge payments. General services deals with everything else -- uploading new documents to imaging, annual fund gifts, white mail. This is the biggest group with the highest volume.

They implemented this change with an all-staff meeting to give the background, distributed the new job descriptions, and interviewed each staff to determine where each staff thought their skills would fit. Almost all staff placed themselves where Caroline thought they would be. For the two that didn't, they had conversations about why the person was not a fit for the position they desired.

They also developed success factors for the staff -- what staff need to do to be successful, what management could provide to increase the success of the team. They developed training for each of the areas, and trained all of the staff, so that everyone would be cross-trained.

They determined this was working because the lag time for end of year annual gift processing was only three days' behind, rather than several weeks. They also saw improved collaboration between the four teams. Ultimately, they had the quietest fiscal year end they'd ever had.

They are also working on a lockbox. They plan to double-check all gifts by receiving images of all of the remits and cross-checking this with the data file, to make sure that hand-written notes are captured. They anticipate saving more time at the front desk than in processing, since mail doesn't need to be opened, and checks do not need to be deposited.

They are also working on online gift transmittal using workflow software to reduce delays in gift processing due to delays in receiving documentation and setting up new funds.

Next year, they'll be working on improving their next of kin acknowledgments; uploading securities transfer data automatically; and proactively doing NCOA updates.

Stanford is also working on a pledge statement system, rather than a pledge reminder system. Schools have been responsible for doing their own pledge reminders. The rate of actual reminding has varied greatly across units. The statement will be like a bank statement, showing all pledges by household, and what's been paid on each pledge. These will be sent out three times a year, but donors can choose to receive them less regularly. Donors can also choose to receive them by email, by mail, or both. The email reminders will link to a site where donors can view their giving history, and can also look at past statements. Stanford is also using workflow to have development officers review and approve pledge statements, with the hope that ultimately development officers will feel comfortable enough with the system to not need to review.

Case studies in cross-silo teamwork

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:29:00 +0000

Monica Keith from Washington & Lee Univerity is presenting on collaboration across ogranzaional lines. The synopsis promises to cover several topics of great relevance to my work this year: online communities, scholarship tracking, prospect management systems and developing training systems. These are all on my plate for this year, so I am eager to hear what she has to say.

Monica finds herself more and more "coming out from behind the computer" to build relationships with colleagues. The keys to this are management, leadership and collaboration. She recommends that Advancement Services serve as the navigator. People don't know what we do, so we are the ones who have to build bridges, since nobody is going to come to us if they don't understand what we can provide. She will walk us through some case studies, and the opportunities for collaboration that each presented.

Monica is beginning with database conversion, the classic giant project for Advancement Services. Post-conversion, we have an opportunity to identify new possibilities. Are there things we can do now that we could not do before? In Monica's case, this was prospect management and soft crediting. Post-conversion training sessions provide an opportunity for Advancement Services to market ourselves by showing off what we are already doing. Regular trainings also provide the opportunity to build a core base of users who can give feedback. Focus on your users' immediate needs, anticipate needs, provide additional software training beyond your database, and provide handouts which will become your procedures manual.

Defining report requirements for prospect management provided a huge opportunity for Monica's team to build trust and collaboration with development staff, provide partnership that produced useful information, and to elevate the reputation of her team.

Now Monica is talking about scholarship stewardship. This is often messy, as it involves various departments across campus. Providing annual reports to scholarship donors required multiple spreadsheets and was very time-consuming. Monica's shop was able to pull together the data into their constituent database, and to provide a report on which scholarships had been awarded, to whom, and then to generate scholarship reports to donors. A key step in this process was communicating the value of the providing the required information to financial aid and the business office. The scholarship stewardship process was reduced by 4 weeks, the number of students writing thank you letters went up dramatically, and the director of stewardship was able to spend more time on stewardship and less time on tracking.

Now, social media -- lots of folks are coming to Monica with many ideas about social media, begging the question of to what extent this falls into the fundraising operations shop. She's been a part of a few web redesigns, where nobody raised their hand to generate the content. Advancement Services can provide the backend, but who manages the messaging?

Email is Monica's next case study. A lot of people are sending emails, often to the same people. They have a traffic control issue. And some staff are sending directly from Outlook, providing no opt-out option. Monica figured out their alumni could get over 200 emails per year from them.

They are addressing this via a communications audit, a survey of alumni and will be developing a plan. Monica hopes to see a planning calendar that coordinates appeals, emails and events. She also hopes to see more strategic use of email by analyzing open rates and response rates.

This is a hot topic for this crowd. Apparently this is a common problem. It's certainly a problem in my shop.

Social Media Strikes Again

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:53:00 +0000

AASP's opening keynote is The Convergence of Social Media, Social Networks and Nonprofit Organizations by Allison Fine. She is beginning with the recent uprising in Egypt, where social media played a huge role. Now individuals have the organizing power that used to be possessed only by institutions like unions and political parties. Allison calls these individuals "free agents," who are now crashing up against the walls of institutions, including nonprofit institutions. Institutions have spent a huge amount of time fortifying themselves with bureaucracy to control, including messages. Then we hire young people who share their lives online without a second thought.

Allison encourages us to stop thinking of social network relationships to be less real than in-person relationships.

The tools of social media has a common set of characteristics -- they are ubiquitous, inexpensive and easy to use. And they are relationship-based, rather than based on broadcasting from one to many. Our constituents expect to have a conversation with us -- this is a difficult cultural shift for century-old institutions to make.

Allison thinks that social networkings are "re-humanizing" our organizations by reminding us of how to talk with others, rather than at others. This requires that we be transparent, remember we are part of a network, give more credit than we claim, and listen more than speaking. What stops us from realizing these possibilities is fear: of loss of control of the message, and harm to our reputations. Both of those things have already happened online. We already can't control the message online; what we can do is participate in the conversation.

To start using social networks, begin with social media policies (what can and can't employees say). Then go online and listen to what people are saying about you. If you are hearing criticism, use the opportunity to engage and hear feedback.

Allison gives the example of the Humane Society. They spent 18 months friending people on Facebook, without asking for any money. After building those relationships, they raised $650,000 for Spay Day.

Now she's talking about Peggy Patton (spelling?) from Portland, OR, who has been raising money for a kind of anemia. She read about a challenge to raise money on Facebook, and decided to learn how to make a Facebook page to attempt to win the challenge. Her fundraising went viral, and she raised over $100,000 and 3,000 friends for the cause, and won the challenge.

Now for a few do's and don'ts/ odds and ends:

Dealing with wing nuts or criticism -- listen and respond. Lack of agility will worsen the situation.

Allison also mentioned that bloggers must post at least 3 times a week to maintain traction. (Sigh... That hit me where it hurts.) She suggests that having multiple voices can help to make sure your blog is frequently updated.

Don't use social media to broadcast your press releases -- it's a misuse of the tool by attempting to use it for broadcasting rather than conversation.

Don't use social media channels only for fundraising. There's nothing wrong with making an ask, but that shouldn't be the only content.

Don't go live with a fully-formed plan. Harness the "spirit of co-creation" to use the channel to ask for advice, including on how to raise money.

Allison is a big fan of Hoot Suite to manage Twitter feeds.

Allison just predicted Facebook may become the AOL of social networking due to their privacy policies.

Live Blogging from Chicago

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:05:00 +0000

I'm at the Association of Advancement Services Professionals Summit in Chicago. I'll be live-blogging from the sessions as best I can on not enough sleep. Staying out late and jet lag have got my circadian rhythms all kinds of confused, so here's hoping it's coherent.

Sweet Chart, Dude

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:42:00 +0000

Thanks to hot tipper Brian F. in Portland for passing along this image from Epic.graphic by way of I Love Charts.

p.s. I can't believe it's been a month since I blogged! It's summer, and I've been busy fleeing a wildfire in Eastern Oregon. For real.

Whew! APRA Wrap-Up

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:30:00 +0000

Well, it's over. I'm at the Austin airport, exhausted and drained of presentation adrenaline. The above image was a gift from Stacy B., a member of my team, and companion at the conference. She gave it to me to commemorate my presentation. As you can imagine, I love, love, love it!

The presentation itself went really well. I talked too fast, which is normal for me. I've been working on this, but it's my perennial challenge. My friend Jess B. talked too fast in her presentation also. "That's because smart people talk fast," I told her. People alternately loved or disliked my use of historical charts, just as they alternately loved or disliked my very-enthusiastic presentation style. If you want to check out a similar presentation I did (with more historical charts than this one, and a more measured pace of speaking), you can find it here. And if you made it there in person: thank you! Thanks for attending, participating, and giving me great feedback (both overwhelmingly positive, and helpfully constructive).

I'm also pleased to report that the middle of my slideshow did not suddenly contain a million photos of my cats that I had to scroll through, as happened in my anxiety dream last night. But they are really cute cats!

The folks I talked to tended to have very positive reviews. On a local note, APRA-NW was out in full force. Represent!

There were two points of controversy this year: 1) the much smaller swag bags APRA offered (personally, I'm pro); 2) the appointment of someone who works for a vendor as APRA president. As you can imagine, this latter controversy was the more substantive issue. Word around the conference is that everyone has a lot of respect for Michael Quevli, the incoming president, but also a healthy dose of suspicion toward Blackbaud, the vendor-behemoth that has been buying up smaller vendors left and right, and which was the "gold sponsor" of the conference.

All in all, this was a great conference. I was really impressed with the quality of the sessions, and it's always lovely to be around my people, the fundraising nerds of the world. I also fell in love with Twitter all over again, and @amandajarman may just become active again. No promises though.

The Hardest Presentation to Blog: Data Visualization

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:35:00 +0000

Kwame Everett, Kim Priebe, and Emily Rowe from the University of Chicago are presenting on "Visualizing Data to Drive Change." This is definitely the session I most wanted to see at this time slot, but I'm a little nervous, since I'm presenting on the same topic in less than two short hours. I am hoping that I don't cover the same ground.

They are leading with a pie chart -- bold! The pie chart addresses reasons to produce effective reports: sensitive messages, communication, scope of work, historical record, justifying your work. The upshot: effective reporting helps to establish a culture of accountability, manage up, and expand your influence.

Start with a thesis, e.g, "We need more staff in California." Use this thesis to shape what you include in your report. Think about your audience as well: does your message match your audience? Use the visual that best fits your audience. The most important thing is getting someone to read your report. Experiment with your data and question your assumptions.

This is a challenge to blog, for two reasons: 1) it relies heavily on graphics, which I can't reproduce here; 2) I'm preoccupied with my upcoming presentation. The presenters are doing a great job, showing some great case studies of how they used data visualization to make your case.

And now the presentation veers toward much of what I'm going to cover. Uh oh for me! Again a pie chart! Will the presenter discuss the controversy over pie charts? Okay, no... Whew, looks like I am going to do something a little different. Man, I am self-absorbed this morning.

This presentation is doing a better job than mine will of actually showing data visualization applied to prospect management data. I do have some very minor quibbles -- 3-D bar charts are never a good idea in my mind, but I think this team has clearly done a great job of incorporating data visualization into their work.

Sorry I can't report back on this, but short of taking a photo of each of their slides, I'm stuck. As an aside, this certainly implies something about the utility of PowerPoint slides for most presentations. It was fairly easy for me to report back on all other presentations I've seen here, without needing to show you the slides. This begs the question of whether requiring a slideshow is really the right idea. (I am not trying to comment on the quality of the slideshows I've seen here, but I think one could make the argument that the presenters could have presented just as effectively without a slideshow, or with minimal slides.)

UPDATE: I heard from a lot of people who attended this presentation, and were blown away. Nicely done, U of Chicago! One attendee at my presentation used a great phrase: "high interest, low priority," and I think that's where data visualization falls for a lot of shops. Kudos to this team for actually making it happen, and for using data in compelling ways to make convincing arguments.

Clean Your House! Prepare for your Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:19:00 +0000

Susan Hayes-McQueen is presenting "Between Campaigns: Ready, Set... PREPARE!" The role of the research/analytics shop is critical in campaign planning. The key is to actually plan, rather than reacting to other people's plan.

Really important: write it down. (True confessions: I'm not always so good at this.)

The UW's campaign in the 90s looked very different from the campaign they did in the 2000s. Susan says, "Campaigns are a kind of fashion." She just referenced yesterday's excellent presentation by Rob Scott and Chris Pipkin, and noted that this presentation is geared more to the giant comprehensive campaign.

For a research shop, the "between campaign" period is very important. For frontline fundraisers, this period may be a little boring. At the end of a campaign, fundraisers are focused on closing gifts and stewardship. Researchers are focused on starting to evaluate what worked and what didn't work. This includes which prospects are left on the table. The question is, did we maximize our potential?

Susan is showing a chart from Rob Scott -- he analyzed whether fundraising turnover actually harms long-term relationship building. The data says yes. The more managers a prospect had, the lower their giving was. This is an example of the kind of post-campaign analysis that research shops should be leading. One might ask: Were our asks high enough? What behaviors did our best fundraisers do?

It's important to do this quickly. Once the campaign is over, interest in this kind of data wanes quickly.

After the campaign ends, it feels like a "lull before the storm." There's a lot of staff turnover among the fundraisers. This is the time for research to step up and start preparing for the next campaign while analyzing the last campaign.

Susan likens these "in between days" to a busy weekend day. You get a lot done while trying to recharge your batteries.

"Have a cup of coffee": reflect on the last campaign while envisioning the future.

This is a good time to make a to-do list. Susan mentions this is especially important because we tend to announce not only that we are in campaign, but surprise! We've been in campaign for the last 2 years.

This is also a good time for spring cleaning: database conversion (don't do this in a campaign!), clean up your data, buy new data.

Hire the help: recruit volunteers, young leaders, prepare for your feasibiity study.

Take stock of the pantry: develop your initial campaign pyramid, assess your pools (mapping, affinities, linkages).

Sharpen your tools: forms, policies/procedures, reports, accountability measures, scores, capacity ratings, research tools.

Stock up on prospects: screening (asset and peer), modeling, data appends, systematic proactive research. This might be a good time to form a principal gifts advisory council.

Get the kids out the door: it's time for some discovery work. Motivate the fundraising team. UW did a discovery challenge to help motivate their fundraisers. Susan says she does not have a magic bullet for this -- getting discovery accomplished is a challenge in every shop.

Pay the bills: find out if there's anything the research team is not providing to the management/principal gifts team. What exactly do they need to be successful?

Expired condiments: update those old profiles, capacity rating, and affinity scoring.

Talk to the neighbors: talk to your peers. What's fashionable in campaigns these days? Cruise vendor websites too.

Make sure the kids know what's next: communicate -- A LOT. Make sure the fundraising staff knows what you are doing behind the scenes.

When the campaign starts, keep track of institutional priorities. Do some fine-tuning to your processes, reactive research and stewardship reports. Be alert and ready to adjust to disruptive technologies, i.e. the next Google or iPad.

Make sure that you find a place at the table. Make sure the basics are in place -- your database, profiles, research techniques, ratings, affinity scoring, assignments and other coding.

Train, train, re-train, and train some more. Build your relationships with your fundraisers. Build your "emotional bank account" with them. Learn who doesn't know how to sort Excel, who will never open an email, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Learn about change management to help folks not freak out in the face of a campaign. Campaigns are inherently complicated, overwhelming, and scary. Research should deal with the big scary complexity, freeing fundraisers to get out the door and build relationships.

Somehow you have to carve out time to get the proactive work done.

A Fascinating New News Model

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:34:00 +0000

The keynote presentation is by Ross Ramsey, Managing Editor of the Texas Tribune. Ross leads off by describing the watchdog role of media. Nice quip: "Congressmen are less likely to twitter their tender vittles when we are watching." He also talks about our government as being like open-source software: designed to be hacked. And the decision-making process relies on research and information. Journalism is key to providing this information.

Now there is a technology question: what do we do with all this information? Ross talks about his 15-year-old daughter: "She's never going to get news off her front porch." This makes me feel a little better about my recent consideration of canceling the Oregonian. I have to admit: once I got an iPad, I simply stopped reading the newspaper. Now it shows up every day, I think about reading it, and then recycle it.

Now everyone has access to the resources that only journalists and librarians had. Instead of a "morgue room," full of microfiche and clippings, we now have "electronic stacks." Most news after 1995 or 1998 is now available online.

When they launched the Tribune, they made a conscious decision that paper and "12-year-olds with good throwing arms" were not the future of news.

Ross is talking about the bad format of government data. The Tribune is working to digitize public data and make it accessible. They transcribed everything said on the floor of the Texas legislature this year, and made it available 72 hours after the session ended. As a researcher, I find this to be an incredibly noble pursuit. In fact, I have posted here on this very blog about the poor formatting of government data.

Now Ross is talking about their business model: they created the newspaper as a nonprofit serving the public good, because they felt that the traditional ad revenue model would not be successful in this economy. They apply for foundation grants and ask wealthy people for donations. They sell subscriptions to premium publications, but then offer those publications for free later. They believe that leveling the playing field, and not creating special forums for the elite, is important.

The Tribune also allows people to republish their content, via a simple "republish" button on their website.

It's not enough to just tell people what happened, Ross says. It's important to tell people why it's important, to give context. "News is not enough," he says. Context and analysis are crucial, as is giving people the tools they need to do their own research and analysis, like databases, maps, charts, etc.

The Tribune's value proposition is that the decline of news is a threat to democracy. This is how they fundraise for journalism. They also disclose contributions when they publish articles about someone who has given to the Tribune.

Ross talks about the line between public and private. A lot of the work they do is in that gray area between the two. For example, the Tribune published a list of public employee salaries. One woman called and asked that her data be removed. The Tribune declined.

You shouldn't have to disclose why you want public information. "If it's public information, make it public."

What is out of line? Sex used to be off the table, until the Clinton/Lewinsky era.

Ross is mentioning the David Wu/unwanted sexual advances story broken by the Oregonian. Now any story will wind up on the Internet, and it's up to each reader to judge the provenance of the story. New York Times vs. guy in pajamas.

The speed of reporting is much faster now. It's much easier to gather data in the Google era. The critical role of the reporter is to analyze and provide the tools for news consumers to do their own analysis.

I had no idea what to expect from this keynote, and came away absolutely amazed by the Tribune and its business model. And I have renewed hope for journalism and the future. The decline of excellence in journalism, and particularly the lack of context for news, has long been a concern. It looks like the Texas Tribune has re-discovered the public good-oriented mission of journalism, and figured out a very interesting way to fund it.

"We're here to do journalism; we're not here to be business people," Ross said.

APRA 2011 by the Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:11:00 +0000

There are 830 attendees at this conference, with 33% being first-time attendees. This number includes 14 people from Egypt, Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Next year's conference will be in Minneapolis. I'm sorry I probably will not attend, since this is a truly stellar conference, and certainly the best offering for prospect researchers and prospect managers. This year, I've been really impressed with each session I've attended, which is unusual for a big conference like this.

Managing Change with Kaizen

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:01:00 +0000

My first session this morning is Creating and Managing Change by Jennifer McCormack from the University of Washington. You'll notice that none of the sessions I'm going to are actually about prospect research or prospect management, which is appropriate since I'm no longer directly responsible for doing research or prospect management. I miss it sometimes, but the opportunity to be a change-maker in many aspects of advancement services makes up for it.

Jennifer's presentation is focused on kaizen, or incremental change. Jennifer manages 8 people, and she enjoys "channeling the energy" of her team to create change. Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy of small and continuous improvements, embracing the belief that a process can always be improved, even when it seems perfect. Kaizen doesn't end with a single decision, but rather involves constant analysis, feedback and change. Jennifer says this process makes a team "limber." It is important that kaizen be embraced by an entire group -- it cannot be practiced by a single person in a team environment. Finally, kaizen requires rigorous feedback and incremental change, which can identify small problems before they become big ones.

Kaizen was made famous by Toyota, and involved the idea that workers are closest to the manufacturing process, and have the best vantage point for identifying problems. Kaizen is also customer-centered: in a fundraising shop, there are internal customers (development officers who request reports from report writers) as well as external customers (donors). On my team, we call development officers our clients, so we maintain our focus on customer service.

Jennifer recommends process mapping to identify wasted steps or problems in a process.

Kaizen seeks to get at a root cause. A problem-solving method to get at this is the "5 Whys." This is a process of asking why something isn't working, and then continuing to ask why. Jennifer's example is really great, so I will just repeat it here:

New leads are not being qualified by fundraisers.
Why? Fundraisers are not keeping track of updates to the prospect pool.
Why? Fundraisers are not reviewing the quarterly new leads report.
Why? Fundraisers are not opening the email with the report attachment.
Why? Most emails sent to listservs are ignored.
Why? The email is not perceived as important if it's not directly addressed to them.

The change: send reports directly to fundraisers with new leads highlighted and follow up with email or a phone call as appropriate.

Jennifer says the "aha moment" generally does come with the 5th "why?," though it can take more or less. One attendee commented that this is very much like the thinking of a 2-year-old. Why? Why? Why?

A more complicated approach is to use a fishbone diagram, which evaluates people, technology, the environment or culture, and materials. I'll post a link to an illustration of this concept. This method overcomes a weakness of the 5 Whys, which is that it can be easy to miss things. Since the fishbone focuses on specific facets of a problem (e.g. materials), it can help to suss out issues.

Kaizen also assumes that each member of your team is an expert, and that ideas are equally valued at all levels. The idea is to "look for wisdom from 10 people rather than one."

Jennifer just mentioned the book "Switch," by Chip and Dan Heath. It is a great book about change! I gave it to my team as a holiday present last year.

Kaizen involves having "kaizen events." Gather the team; identify issues or needs; analyze (5 whys); define the change; take immediate action (if this is not possible, then don't make this part of your plan); evaluate through the feedback cycle (does this work, can we improve it?, what other issues arise). Rinse; repeat.

Sidebar: Kaizen is big on cleaning your desk to free yourself of clutter. This is a really big component of the Getting Things Done method, about which I shall post at some point.

Ask specific questions -- describe what is wrong, not why it's wrong.

Jennifer is talking about the Virginia Mason Foundation in Seattle. A couple of years ago, I saw their chief fundraiser present on their use of kaizen. It was really exciting! The entire organization implemented kaizen. The fundraising team used this to analyze whether it truly takes 18 months to close a major gift. They mapped the process of cultivation, and found that most of the 18 months was actually wait time. In kaizen, time is waste.

Virginia Mason changed their process, using a "pull system," which let the prospect control the pace of the next step. They employed "visual control" methods to see individual prospects' movement through the cycle. They were able to reduce their time from identification to solicitation from 18 months to 5.7 months. They also discovered that the type of prospect (research-identified, board-identified, and physician referral) made a huge difference in lead time and average gift amount. Physician-referred prospects made the largest gifts (average $455,000) and took the shortest lead time (2.9 months).

Jennifer points out that you can implement kaizen on a small scale. It need not be an organization-wide program, like it was at Virginia Mason. But if you are going to try to make change with a team, they must all embrace the kaizen method.

Jennifer brought kaizen to the University of Washington to identify opportunities for improvement in a between-campaign period. (Because as soon as you finish one campaign, you are preparing for the next one.) They looked at the new leads issue above. Jennifer split her team into three working groups to look at financial analysis (do fundraisers trust our ratings?), proactive/prospect identification (do we build a convincing case for new leads?), communication (do we communicate our work to fundraisers in a way that builds confidence in new leads?).

These teams talked to fundraisers to get feedback, and also talked to peers. As an example, the financial analysis group uncovered multiple concerns from fundraisers, including the age-old concern with ratings based on real estate. Based on this, they developed several "improvement commitments," including asking fundraisers for additional wealth information that would help to focus the rating. The proactive research group uncovered that the explanations accompanying new leads were often not sufficient, e.g. "alum with $1 million home." They addressed this by providing more thorough explanations, identifying what the ideal prospect for each school looked like so that they could measure each new lead against the ideal, and providing strategy tips, e.g. "This prospect would probably be interested in the Sustainability Lecture."

Jennifer is wrapping up with ten tips for implementing kaizen. My favorite: don't worry about being perfect -- start now.

Doh!

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:29:00 +0000

I just realized today's sessions start at 9, not 8:30. I could have slept for an additional 30 minutes. Doh!

Oh well, this seems like a great opportunity to review my presentation before tomorrow. I'm presenting on data visualization again -- Picture It: Visualizing Your Data's Story. Yes, that is a Golden Girls reference.

Project Management, or My Brain is Too Full to Think of a Clever Title

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:19:00 +0000

I'm at one of the sessions I probably most need: "Project Management: Making Life Easier," by Shelby Radcliffe. Project: A job that is done once. Shelby argues that we are all project managers. For those of us who work in fundraising operations, our natural tendency to create checklists, and even to put things we've already done on the list -- just so we can check it off -- is what has led us to our career choice in the first place.

The best projects work because of the quality of the planning. Investment of time in planning saves time overall. Project leadership involves: motivation, negotiation, team building, communication and decision-making. Consider, of these, which are your strong suits, and what do do to compensate for your weaknesses. Similarly, consider the project plan from project design to planning to testing to implementation, and consider which parts you are least likely to be good at. For me, it's definitely finalizing and maintaining the end result -- I love the planning, but grow bored toward the end of the process. Once it's been figured out, I'm ready to move on to the next thing.

Shelby is highlighting some of the common challenges in project management. Clarify issues of authority through negotiating your role. This is common for prospect researchers, who often have stellar management skills, but lack authority in the organization. Deal with confusion through defining roles. Address scope creep through project agreements. Change can be handled through mid-project redesign. Shelby does not recommend, "Who Moved My Cheese?" It's good to realize that if you are a project manager, you are probably comfortable with change, but most people are not. Morale can be bolstered by identifying success markers -- break the project up into milestones that can be celebrated along the way.

When deciding how much a project needs to be planned and documented, consider time, resources, partners, visibility, stakeholders. Bucknell, where Shelby works, uses what she calls the "Starbucks method": dividing projects into tall, grande and venti. Each project requires a different level of documentation. This helps to prevent her team from becoming overwhelmed by project management requirements. Shelby requires a project plan in writing for every project. Projects are much more difficult to change once they are underway, so doing thorough documentation up front can prevent major problems down the road.

Communication is also a key. Shelby points out that folks in the research world are very much relationship managers, but not with donors -- with our colleagues. We can also be a key bridge between the introverted I.T. staff and the relationship-oriented development staff. Also, the less fun it is to communicate... the more important it is.

Time planning -- however long you think a project will take -- double it. And, if you need five hours to do a project, block out five hours on your calendar. The key to time planning is to be "aggressive and appropriate."

We talked a bit about reminding project team members without nagging. Give context for the reminder, work through the supervisor if you need to, send out regular progress updates to create positive competitive pressure, use flattery where applicable.

Evaluate every project. You'll learn: how to replicate what worked in a similar project, team dynamics, strengths and weaknesses of yourself and other team members. You'll have something to brag about. People who come after you will thank you.

Resources for project management: Project Management Institute, which has also published a big old book. Consider working with I.T. and other departments to come up with a common framework for project management at your institution. Talk to someone who works in construction management (college campus -- talk to your facilities department) or your I.T. department -- you are likely to find solid expertise here.

Someone asked a question about using software. Shelby says, it depends on how much this is a piece of your job. Maybe it's a tool you use personally, but don't expect others to use. Consider using a blog to communicate about your project.

Re-thinking Campaigns

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda Jarman) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:35:00 +0000

I'm at a session presented by Chris Pipkins and Rob Scott titled "Is It Time for a Re-Think of the Conventional Comprehensive Camoaign?" originally designed by Darrow Zeidenstein, who could not be at the presentation. This is a topic of great fascination to me, and I'm really excited about it.

The 80-20 rule became the 95-5 rule. Chris says, "We celebrated that arms race...Life in a campaign tends to be a bit sexier." It's true -- in a campaign, you have more funding, you can hire people, it's exciting, there are big gift "glamour moments."

Now we are in a constant campaign mode. New Presidents feel they must be in a campaign within two years of arriving, and we now have only a year or two between campaigns. Dollar goals and possibilities may conflict with institutional priorities, and may drive the campaign. Annual giving and alumni relations are in decline. Chris notes that alumni relations has an opportunity to be reinvigorated through promoting engagement.

Darrow asked VPs, is it time to call a time out on campaigns? Their message was overwhelmingly "no." Campaigns are still a great way to align constituents with university goals, drive investment in advancement, coalesce the university community around high-level themes, and compel donors to their largest philanthropic commitments. Disturbingly, driving investment was the top pick of VPs, and compelling donors to their largest commitments was the lowest pick.

There are some concerns related to campaigns: pressure to accept unacceptable gifts, obsession with campaign trappings, donor fatigue.

The question to ask: "Is it an efficient and effective way to achieve our broader institutional strategies?"

Institutional strategies (vision/mission/positioning and competitive pressures) and operational readiness (maturity and capacity of advancement operation, breadth and depth of prospect pool, and leadership buy in of operation) must be assessed prior to developing the campaign model.

Chris is quite funny. He got the audience to moo in response to discussing the "herd mentality" with which many institutions approach campaigns.

Somewhere between the comprehensive campaign and the marketing campaign is what Darrow has identified as an "area of innovation." This involves "strategic micro campaigns" and "income growth strategy." The micro campaign is targeted and short, and the income growth strategy focuses on growing your base.

This presentation is dense, and I know I'm leaving a lot out. One fascinating concept: what if we evaluated our campaigns based on funding completion rate (initiatives achieved) rather than dollars raised.

There's a great data visualization showing how all the pieces of development come together ("A Steampunk View of Development"), which may be the exact view I was trying to think of when Tufte challenged his audience to come up with the one big idea graphic. I'll ask Rob and Chris if I can get a copy of this to post here.

Apparently the new CASE standards are now referring to an eight-year campaign period. Holy cow!

Now Rob is talking. MIT has run three mini-campaigns since their last comprehensive campaign ended in 2004. That said, their mini-campaigns were $500 million campaigns. But they were very targeted around specific initiatives, with the last being for student support. In some ways, this is like returning to the classic capital campaign model, because some people (donors, program/academic staff) will be left out. This was especially true for MIT's energy and cancer research campaigns.

This has definitely got me thinking about how we might implement a series of "phased initiatives" rather than doing a traditional campaign. Susan Hayes-McQueen from University of Washington just asked what I was thinking about: how does this model look different from distinct pieces of a comprehensive campaign? Per Rob, it could look very similar, but did not require the same kind of campaign superstructure that a true comprehensive campaign did, e.g. volunteer leadership, campaign collateral, etc.

Someone just asked how to measure the impact of changing the logo and brand. Rob: "I have no idea." A discussion ensued as to the efficacy of doing this kind of work, and the amount of time often spent on logo design, vs. actually getting out the door and raising money.

Use a micro-campaign to create a buzz around areas of excellence for the institution, your institution's "big hairy audacious goals." This can be a great way to ask people we would ask anyway, but to give them the opportunity to join something big and great.

This can also be a great way to make sure the institution's priorities drive the gifts you raise, rather than having the gifts you raise drive the priorities.

There's an interesting conversation about whether this kind of campaign should include a "dual ask," for the annual fund and a major gift. This campaign model involves a smaller number of donors, so may not include an annual fund ask. This is interesting, as in general, campaigns have been conceived of as a way to elevate annual giving in perpetuity. That doesn't seem so much to be a feature of the micro-campaign, which is largely driven by principal gifts.

Marijana Radijc from Oregon Health Sciences University is talking about their experience following the mini-campaign formula. One challenge they've faced is constant planning for mini-campaigns, as well as continuing to fundraise for "core/evergreen" needs. Rob recommends maintaining core staffing for core needs, while adding incremental staffing for the campaign. There's also some question as to whether academic leadership has the patience and tenacity to a) hold off on their priorities; b) be in continuous planning mode. One political advantage of the comprehensive campaign is that a lot of planning can be done all at once, and everyone gets a seat at the table.

I asked Rob about the old saw that a comprehensive campaign elevates the baseline level of annual giving, and asked how this plays into that. Rob responded that this has more to do with increased investment in advancement, a revenue generator, rather than the magic of campaigns. In fact, he has seen institutions cut their staffing after campaign, followed by a concomitant drop in annual giving.

Rob now proposes a radical difference ("The folks on FUNDSVCS will probably skewer me"): do a total resources campaign, which looks at private philanthropy, sponsored research, and institutional investment ("Our skin's in this game; come and join us.")

Rob is a big believer in using campaigns to illustrate the efficacy of investing in advancement. "Give us a dime, and we'll return a dollar."