Best Practices in Advancement Services – Categories
I. Advancement Management
Personnel Management
· Advancement Metrics for Fund Raisers
· Calculating and Communicating Fund Raising
· Cross Training
· Performance Standards
· Team Management
Project Management
· Change Management
· Compliance Reporting
· Developing Policies & Procedures
· Risk Assessment
II. Donor Relations & Stewardship
Gift Acknowledgement
· First-time Donors
· Gift (Tax) Receipts
· Memorial and Honorific Notifications
· Thank You Letters – Major/Principal Gifts
· Thank You Letters – Annual Fund Gifts
Donor Recognition
· Annual Reports and Other Publications
· Awards (Philanthropic)
· Giving Societies / Membership Programs
· Honor Rolls
· Signage, Walls and Namings
Donor Stewardship and Reporting
· Annual Fund Stewardship
· Customized Stewardship Plans
· Endowment Financial Reporting
· Faculty Endowment Stewardship
· Scholarship / Fellowship Stewardship – Current-Use Funds
· Scholarship / Fellowship Stewardship – Endowed Funds
· Philanthropic Impact Reporting
· Program Endowment Stewardship
Events
· Campaign Gala Events
· Cultivation Events
· Donor / Beneficiary Events (students/faculty, program directors, curators, persons served, etc.)
· Donor Recognition Events
III. Information Management
Database Management
· Data Access & Security
· Document Imaging & Archiving
· Enterprise Content Management
· Interfaces
o External
o Internal
· System Implementation
· System Selection
· Web Communities and On-Line Processing
Reporting
· Dashboards and similar tools
· Data analysis tools
· Data warehouse technologies
· Standard reporting
Support
· Help Desk and Request Management
· Request Processing, Tracking and Reporting
IV. Prospect Development
Administrative Documents
· Forms & Formats
· Prospect Management Policies and Procedures
Data Analytics and Data Mining
· Building a Gift Pyramid
· Prospect Analytics
· Screening Implementation
Prospect Relationship Management
· Organizing Your Fundraising Team for Qualification/Disqualification
· Prospect Capacity Rating
· Prospect Identification
· Prospect Relationship Management
Prospect Research
· Prospect Coding
· Resources Researchers Use
· Using Social Media
· Valuation / Monetizing Research
V. Records Management
· Anonymous Donors and Gifts
· Applying Recognition Soft Credits
· Challenge & Matching Grants
· Donor Advised Funds vs. Donor Directed Funds vs. “Serving as Agents” Funds
· FERPA
· Following Donor Restrictions – Gift Agreements – Understanding the Complexity of Pledges – Conditional Pledges
· Gift Agreements
· Gifts in Kind – Recording and Receipts
· HIPAA for Fund Raisers
· List of Compliance Standards – IRS, State, Financial Standards and Your Organization -- Rules, Policies
· Managing Data Security Breach
· Matching Gift Administration
· PCI Compliance
· Personally Indentified Information
· Pledge Write-off Standards
· Practicing Good Data Management
· Properly Recording Benefits Associated with Gifts (including auctions)
· Stock Gift Dos & Don’ts
· Recording and Tracking Planned Gifts
· Recording Intentions to Give
•VI. Industry Trends
· Data Integration
· E-Communications
· Online Fundraising
· Social Networking & Online Communities
· Wealth & Philanthropy
· Web 2.0 Tools