Advancement Services should be the foundation supporting the rest of Advancement.  For me the case for investing in Advancement Services comes down to three factors: efficiency, support for Advancement (fundraising, member relations, alumni relations, stewardship, finance, communications, government relations--whatever comprises Advancement at your institution), and support for constituents (donors, prospects, alumni, members, parents, the public). The return on that investment (and the next gift) comes when Advancement Services sends out timely, accurate, and clear receipts; the system they maintain keeps accurate records on donors and gifts; the system reminds Development Officers of their next planned contact; the system helps identify new prospects; the system produces reports that accurately track progress and support forecasting; the system enhances (and doesn’t get in the way of) communications between the institution and its constituents; and systems run reliably, so staff and constituents have access when they need it. 

Efficiency

Efficiency seems simple enough: if you don't have the right resources (people, tools, training, procedures) you will waste time and money.  It will take you too long to do everything, you'll be too rushed to do the job right the first time, and you'll spend a lot of time fixing mistakes.  Complaints from internal and external audiences will be frequent, perhaps the norm (until people get so fed up they no longer bother to complain and simply work around you).  You'll spend all your time fighting fires and won't be able to get to anything that's not an emergency.  (This is not to imply that throwing more staff or money at the problem will necessarily solve it-- leadership, management, and prioritization are also critical.)

Support for Advancement

Supporting colleagues also seems reasonably straightforward.  Advancement Services needs to have the resources and training to provide good customer service.  It needs to get data into and out of the database in a timely manner, produce accurate reports, respond to requests, anticipate needs, keep up with changing technologies and policies, and all the other things I mentioned in Ingredients of a High Performing Advancement Services Shop.

Support for Constituents

Supporting constituents may not leap to mind as part of Advancement Service's role, but it's critically important.  In his presentation Advancement Services - The Advancement Cornerstone?, John Taylor cites statistics from a 1999 study by TARP Research.  Among other things, TARP found that: 

• Twice as many people are told about a bad experience as are told about a good one.
• One unhappy customer will tell ten others. Thirteen percent of them will tell at least twenty other people.

In his blog post on evaluating fundraising programs, Measuring Success The Buffett Way, Jason McNeil asks What measures might Warren Buffett use to evaluate development effectiveness?  He suggests several, including donor retention. Donor retention can definitely be affected--positively and negatively--by Advancement Services. 

• Do donors get timely, accurate receipts and thank-you letters?
• Are they listed properly in the honor roll and other publications?
• Are constituents' names spelled correctly on the correspondence they receive?
• When constituents request changes (e.g., to spelling, phone numbers, or addresses), are they made promptly and accurately?
• Are constituents on the mailing lists they've asked to be on? Are they removed from those they don't want?

It's not within Advancement Services's power to guarantee that donors will continue to give or that constituents will be satisfied and supportive, but Advancement Services can definitely drive them away.

The program for a recent show at Berkeley Repertory Theatre described their facilities department using words that are perfect for much of what Advancement Services does: "to help you forget about what happens behind the scenes."  In general, Advancement Services should be invisible to constituents.  Behind the scenes, however, they should be leading the way to ensure that operations run smoothly and that policies, procedures, technologies, and training support the institution.

Thanks to Charlie Hunsaker for his input on this post.

Here are the factors I think contribute to a high-functioning operation.  They are not usually found in a single person (although in a small shop they might have to be); ideally it's a team effort.  (If your organization has one person with all of these skills, it should do its best to keep them happy.) 

Let me know what you think, and whether I'm missing anything.

• Collect and enter data accurately and efficiently.
• Understand and use automation appropriately.
• Understand the business they and their colleagues are in (fundraising, communications, membership, finance/accounting, events management, governmental relations, public relations) so they can make good decisions, plan ahead, and provide good service.
• Understand all the touch points in relations with constituents so they can help build a 360 degree view of relationships and interactions.
• Understand the laws governing their work (IRS, FEC, HIPAA, FERPA).
• Understand their organization's policies and procedures.
• Understand the capabilities of the software and hardware they work with.
• Develop and maintain detailed procedure manuals.
• Be able to train colleagues on business processes, policies, regulations, software, and hardware.
• Understand how data flows into and out of the system(s) they use.
• Keep up with new developments in technology (e.g., databases, mobile devices, new media).
• Provide great customer service.  Be responsive, proactive, anticipate needs, keep customers informed of timelines and issues.
• Provide quality control so systems take in accurate data and produce accurate reports.
• Understand the strategic vision for their organization so they can capture the right data and develop the right reports.
• Help colleagues understand system capabilities and what data is available so they can request appropriate reports.
• Manage projects, budgets, and people.
• Communicate effectively internally (to A.S. staff, fundraisers, and other colleagues) and externally (fielding inquiries and resolving problems for donors and prospective donors).
• Market the department's services.
• Play well with others.

Modified 1/13/10 with input from Rob Saunders and Valerie Lambert.

The article is also included in a special report on business intelligence and a vendor list that, unfortunately, says little about how vendors are addressing this area.  But if you're interested in what's happening in the donor database marketplace it's worth browsing.

• Although 99% of respondents accept matching gifts, only 67% actively ask individual donors to request matching gifts.
• 29% of respondents reported raising over $250,000 in matching gift income in 2008. 63% raised over $50,000.
• 87% of respondents said matching gifts accounted for less than 10% of their gift income last year. 6% reported that matching gifts provided 10 - 20% of their gift income and a handful reported over 20%.
• Nearly 50% reported that their matching gift income has increased over the past 3 years. Only 2.4% reported a decrease.
• Only 24% of respondents said they have employment information on at least 50% of their constituents. The most effective methods for gathering employment data (cited by at least 30% of respondents) were alumni directory surveys, collecting business cards at events, individual surveys (follow-ups to address changes, etc.), phonathon staff asking for employment information, and an information update form or similar mechanisms on the web site.
• 72% said they include matching gifts when calculating donor recognition in gift clubs or other donor recognition levels. 65% include matching monies when calculating corporate recognition levels.
• 51% send a postcard, letter, or email to the individual telling them when the corporate matching gift arrived.

The full survey results are at http://www.supportingadvancement.com/potpourri/surveys/matching_gifts_practices/matching_gifts_practices_results_2008.htm

Note: This list is now being maintained on Social Source Commons: http://socialsourcecommons.org/toolbox/show/1661  Anyone can edit the list by logging in there.

1. Left unattended, databases will turn into piles of mush. Therefore, develop data entry policies and procedures, and train everyone who enters data.
2. Excel is not a database, and is one of the leading causes of dirty data. It is difficult to enforce data entry standards in Excel. (like only allowing legal U.S. state codes). And anyone who can update your spreadsheet can see and change anything.
3. Someone needs to be in charge of training, user support, and data quality (see #1). At a small organization, this might be a small part of someone's job. At a large organization, it might need to be a whole department.
4. Run backups religiously. Be sure to test them periodically to make sure you can recover data.
5. Keep a copy of your data off-site. This can be done by using an online backup service, a vendor that provides offsite storage and retrieval, or even by sending a backup home with a staff member. The latter is risky, however. Data taken off site is subject to theft, loss, copying, and malicious acts by disgruntled employees.
6. Do all you can to prevent staff from downloading sensitive data (like social security numbers or credit card data) to laptops or memory sticks. Use encryption on your laptops and memory sticks. Tools like Identity Finder, Proventsure, SENF, and Spider will scan your computers for sensitive data.
7. Require strong passwords. Do not share passwords. Change passwords regularly.
8. Monitor your data entry. Run reports that look for common errors. Identify staff members who repeatedly make errors and provide additional training. If the errors continue, take away their data entry permissions.
9. Run your database on a need-to-know basis. Give staff and volunteers access to only the data they need to see or change to do their jobs -- but make sure that they do have access to the data they need.
10. Make sure your database has enough security options. You should be able to provide read-only access. You might want to have the ability to provide read-only access to just a portion of your data, like names and addresses but not gifts. You should be able to provide update access to only certain portions of your data, like updating addresses but not entering gifts. You should be able to restrict access to functions like posting a gift batch or importing online donations. And you should be able to restrict the ability to run mass updates or delete records.

The report focuses on 15 systems that each received 10 or more responses. (The five that received the most responses were The Raiser's Edge, OnDeposit, GiftWorks, CiviCRM, and eTapestry.) Both GiftWorks and eTapestry are available donations through TechSoup Stock.

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The conference included sessions on topics like managing Advancement Services staff, data management, decision support systems, outsourcing, fundraising trends, social networking, vendor and system trends, data mining, ethics and accountability, project management, gift processing best practices, donor stewardship, and overall Advancement Services best practices.

The conference organizers did a fantastic job of pulling everything together, and I was happy to have participated.  I'll certainly go again.

I will be speaking on two panels: "Meeting the Future of Fund Raising" and "Systems Strategies and Vendor Trends." The full list of sessions is at http://advserv.org/Default.aspx?pageId=197277.