Advancement Tech Best Practices

Introduction

Advancement teams are vital for ensuring the financial stability and growth of their institutions but they face significant challenges—both internally and externally. They are charged with engaging donors across an increasing number of channels in an ever more complex fundraising landscape.

Many institutions face hurdles with outdated and fragmented technology systems that hinder operational efficiency and personalized appeals. By modernizing these systems and integrating sophisticated analytics and AI applications, advancement leaders can significantly improve donor data management and overall fundraising effectiveness.

Embracing these strategies will enable advancement leaders to navigate the pressures of reduced funding and increased demands, ultimately driving long-term success for their institutions. With a forward-thinking approach, they can transform challenges into opportunities and ensure their institutions thrive in the future.

Challenges Faced by Advancement Leaders

Advancement leaders will face several significant challenges in coming years, some within and some without their organizations. These challenges require strategic planning and effective solutions to overcome and drive long-term success.

Departments are disconnected and have competing goals

Interdepartmental collaboration is a huge challenge, particularly in large universities. Many constituents are oversaturated with solicitations and inconsistent messaging, as representatives from each part of their school life come asking them for money.

In some organizations, marketing and fundraising teams compete for budget. Others have “shadow CRM” systems to hoard their best donors. The result is inefficiency, inconsistency, lost opportunities, and poor constituent experiences.

They’re expected to do more with less

Recent federal funding cuts have exacerbated an established downward trend, with both state and federal governments granting less money for educational institutions. Combined with declining alumni in some regions due to the recession-caused Enrollment Cliff, many institutions are under increased pressure to fill financial gaps through fundraising.

Throw in a capital campaign or two, which are heavily reliant on fundraising, and advancement leaders can really struggle to meet their goals.

Fundraising is getting more complex

Charged with growing donor support with fewer resources, fundraisers must manage engagement across a spiraling number of communication channels, including email, social media, and direct mail. Scaling these efforts with limited resources can be challenging, but it’s essential for maintaining strong donor relationships.

A broad survey by Salesforce last year found that a lack of digital engagement training was holding nonprofits back from making the most of their digital tools and strategies. Some organizations have seen a higher service demand without the capacity to increase service delivery.

Their tech can’t handle personalized appeals

Many institutions struggle with outdated and fragmented technology systems that hinder operational efficiency. Modernizing these systems and ensuring they are user-friendly can significantly improve the management of donor data and overall fundraising effectiveness.

Planning to update and integrate fundraising systems involves mapping the inputs and outputs to the institution’s core CRM as well as understanding how different teams and systems use the data, and what for. The need for ever more sophisticated analytics and AI applications requires leaders to effectively manage and use their data in ways they never have before.

Breaking down data silos is critical for getting the coveted 360-degree view of the donor. This is especially important in higher education fundraising because of the complexity of datapoints on a single alum across the years of their engagement with the institution.

For example, modern advancement engagement often leverages datapoints from their academic record, housing history, extracurricular activities, clubs, and volunteer activities, as well as donation history and their wealth profile. This data, if stored in disparate systems, cannot easily be surfaced for a more personalized and effective donor appeal.

Priorities for Advancement Leaders

Focus Area: Efficiency

Shared Vision

Create a shared vision for transforming student learning through effective use of technology, involving all stakeholders. Align this vision with established frameworks or standards to ensure community participation and long-term success.

Implementation Planning

Develop a comprehensive plan for building and sustaining technology infrastructure, evaluating digital learning resources, and providing professional learning and coaching. This ensures informed decisions and effective use of resources.

International Society for Technology in Education

Essential Conditions for Effective Tech Use in Schools

Focus Area: People

Change management is a concrete management methodology that helps build buy-in among people impacted by change, provides necessary information, supports them through the transition, and reinforces required behaviors for success.

Procsi® ADKAR Model

The ADKAR model is a popular framework to guide people through transitions.

Awareness: Understanding the business reason behind the change and its value.
Desire: Analyzing the desire for or resistance to change among individuals and stakeholder groups.
Knowledge: Assessing the skills and information needed for a successful transition and identifying gaps.
Ability: Evaluating stakeholders’ ability to implement the change and addressing any gaps in behaviors, skills, funding, and resources.
Reinforcement: Nurturing and sustaining change over the long term by providing support and encouragement.

Heller Consulting

Professional Development for Change Management Guide

Steps to Advancement Success

Unify donor engagement

The antidote to inconsistent communications and oversolicitation is to design a unified donor engagement journey. Especially important in large universities where different departments and colleges have their own systems, this will allow for the personalized approaches and reporting that donors now expect.

Donor personalization best practices

Leveraging data to build automated, personalized engagement strategies is key to maintaining connections with donors. Marketing automation tools can scale these efforts, making it possible to engage with a larger number of donors without sacrificing personalization.

Aligning donor engagement with specific giving opportunities maximizes impact. Automating recommendations based on donor engagement history and surfacing donation impact can build donor trust and loyalty—both are enabled by an efficient tech stack.

Align your team on shared goals

The first step towards integration is understanding each other’s roles and departmental goals. This involves regular meetings where team members share their primary data points, key performance indicators, challenges, and successes.

Using shared metrics quantify the institution’s standing and provide a clear picture of overall performance, identify fundraising priorities and allow better tracking of progress. A unified vision and story across the organization ensures everyone is working toward the same objective as well as producing a consistent experience for constituents.

Use visual tools like relationship maps to illustrate areas of overlap and mutual dependence. This helps in clarifying how different roles support the entire team

Integrate your school's advancement office

An integrated advancement team can significantly enhance the success of an institution by improving coordination, aligning workloads, and achieving greater outcomes across teams like marketing, fundraising, and IT. By working together, team members can ensure that their efforts are well-coordinated, leading to more efficient and effective operations. This integration allows for better alignment of tasks and responsibilities, ultimately resulting in improved performance and outcomes.

Streamline and bolster your tech stack

Every organization wants to grow its donor base in a cost-effective way but understanding how that is done is more than just a CRM conversation. Technology and advancement leaders should take a broad view of your ecosystem and determine what can stay, what can go, and what can be enhanced. You should develop a Technology Roadmap that identifies the technologies beyond your CRM that bring efficiencies, optimize your return on investment, support your current needs, and have the capacity to grow with you.

How we approach advancement tech at Heller Consulting

In an operational assessment, we work collaboratively with our advancement clients to help them identify what areas of the organization they’re trying to impact.

Review existing technology, process documentation, reports, staffing charts, and training materials to audit how the organization is performing current work
Identify gaps between the current state and the organization’s goals
Develop an action plan that includes clear recommendations for people, process, and technology changes that will positively impact the operational goals

The organization can then put the action plan to work, or we can help with operational streamlining services that include:

Business process mapping and documentation
Training, staffing plans, and change leadership
System configuration and support

Preparing for the Future of Advancement

The coming decade’s most successful organizations will be led by forward-thinking advancement teams that are making decisions today about what their constituents will need in the future.

Leaders from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education indicate that technology and data integration will be the key themes of coming years. Many predict that development in AI will allow advancement teams to increase reporting, storytelling, and drive more meaningful engagement (and ideally more donations).

AI can help predict donor behavior, identify high-potential donors, and personalize engagement strategies. These technologies enable nonprofits to optimize their fundraising efforts and improve donor retention. By understanding the evolution of CRM features and leveraging these modern capabilities, digital leaders can transform donor relations and drive meaningful engagement.

To truly unify donor relations requires an alumni metric model that starts early in the constituent’s relationship with the organization. Future-proof advancement teams are capturing data that measures alumni engagement and tracking engagement effectiveness.

To face an uncertain future, advancement leaders must prioritize fostering interdepartmental collaboration and breaking down silos within their organizations, aligning goals and creating a unified approach to donor engagement. Investing in modern, integrated technology systems that support personalized appeals and sophisticated analytics will be crucial. These systems can help manage the increasing complexity of fundraising efforts and ensure that institutions can effectively engage with donors across multiple channels.

By embracing these strategies, advancement leaders can navigate the pressures of reduced funding and increased demands, ultimately driving long-term success for their institutions.

Heller Consulting specializes in empowering education organizations to shape the future by providing effective technology solutions that raise funds, enhance student engagement, strengthen alumni relations, and streamline operations. We understand the unique challenges faced by education advancement teams and offer tailored strategies that align with institutional goals. Heller Consulting has expertise in implementing Salesforce advancement packages like Kindsight’s ascend and supports institutions with their tech roadmap and change leadership needs.

Our expert consultants, many with experience in higher education advancement teams, take the time to understand the specific priorities and challenges of your institution. They help implement powerful fundraising strategies and tools that enable effective donor engagement, track giving trends, and maximize contributions. By leveraging data-driven insights and streamlined processes, Heller Consulting supports efforts to build lasting relationships with major donors, alumni, and corporate partners, ensuring the institution’s long-term success.

In addition to fundraising, Heller focuses on enhancing student and alumni engagement by implementing tools and strategies that foster meaningful interactions and help institutions reach their revenue goals. With a proven track record of delivering customized solutions, Heller Consulting helps educational institutions achieve their vision and elevate their impact.