Fundraising Talks
News and updates from the USM Office of
Advancement Research

Upcoming Events


Do New Officer Roles Call for New Rules in Portfolio Management?

When: September 21, 2022


Webinar: Get Ready for Giving Tuesday: Move your Mission Forward this Giving Season & Beyond

When: September 28, 2022


Congratulations! Celebrating Alumni Career Milestones and Increasing Alumni Engagement

When: October 13, 2022


Webinar: Understanding Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Hedge Funds: A Prospect Research Perspective

When: October 25, 2022, 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Tell Me More...

Looking for funding opportunities? We've identified a few funds that might be useful to you. Visit the links below to learn more about the requirements and deadlines for these opportunities. 


Constellation Energy

Deadline: October 1, 2022


National Academy of Education

Deadline: October 6, 2022


JetBlue Foundation

Deadline: September 30, 2022


The M&T Charitable Foundation

Contact Us

Director of Advancement Research
301.445.2709

Office Clerk
301.445.1950
Letter from the Director

The use of technology in philanthropy is rising. A trending idea in higher education is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to help with teaching, learning, and other institutional operations. Ethically utilized AI can be beneficial in many areas of higher education. Colleges and universities receive and store heaps of data in student information systems and other customer relationship management systems. The data stored in these systems is useful only when it is transformed into knowledge that can provide direction and insight that allows leaders to make meaningful and strategic decisions at their institutions.


According to a special report from Educause on Artificial Intelligence, AI “refers to the leveraging of multiple technologies that together create a device or construct that accomplishes certain tasks formerly requiring human input.” There are several references to the Educause QuickPoll results included in this report, which should help higher education leaders understand more about the challenges and benefits of AI. In higher education, “the principles of AI underlie a range of innovative systems, including analytics, robot writers, virtual experiences, and intelligent tutoring systems.” However, based on the QuickPoll results, AI is not in use at many educational institutions, as there is not enough enthusiasm for adapting AI for tasks such as “planning curricula, making or contributing to financial aid decisions, development and fundraising, and making or contributing to admissions decisions.” AI is mainly being used in instructional settings to monitor students and their work. Today, few nonprofits use artificial intelligence tools in development and fundraising. Though most nonprofits are not yet using AI for fundraising, there is immense potential for it to provide personalized engagement and communications, match donors to different causes, and identify donors for fundraisers. There are still some challenges and concerns to address, such as data privacy and the transparency of algorithms used by corporate entities. 


I hope higher education institutions will embrace digital transformation and make complete use of emerging technologies to advance their mission successfully. Nonprofits can reap the best results by combining the strengths of AI and human talents.


As always, please feel free to reach out to us with questions, comments or any assistance with fundraising research!


Best Regards,

Sapna and USM Advancement Research Team

Did you know?

The University System of Maryland Foundation has access to a library of recorded webinars from the Annual Giving Network (AGN) that you may watch at any time from your computer. While we cannot currently gather in person for professional development events, this work from home period provides a great opportunity for you to learn on your own time! Please click here to see what webinars are available from AGN.
 
If you are interested, please email Linda Bowman (lbowman@usmd.edu) and she will help you access these webinars for free. Please do not try to access these webinars on your own, as you will be charged a fee.

Please also note that the Foundation only has access to free AGN webinars, not workshops. Workshops are available at a marginally discounted rate.

Five Key Performance Metrics for Fundraising With Artificial Intelligence

Traditional direct-response fundraising requires different performance metrics than fundraising activated by AI. According to NonProfitPRO, "Artificial Intelligence can now be used to enable behavioral economics modeling (BEM), the well-established field that combines economics and psychology to comprehend how and why people behave the way they do when making financial decisions." This article outlines five metrics that can give fundraisers tools to understand the unique value proposition of behavioral economics modeling activated by AI. 

Prospect Management Metrics: Showing Our Value, Elevating Our Work

In this blog post by Janet Weimar, Manager, Prospect Management, University of Iowa Center for Advancement, Weimar describes the path she took to produce her two-page report, "Prospect Management Highlighted Accomplishments and Key Impact Indicators." Weimar notes that she stopped thinking of metrics as targets to be reached, but rather as ways to reflect on past work and as a way to map a path forward. Reading about her journey may help your prospect management team create something similar. 

Good, Better, Best: How to Become a Tech-Powered Nonprofit

Many who have worked in the nonprofit sector for decades can remember when the work of development and financial offices was done on paper and stored in filing cabinets. Now, technology has replaced the majority of this work and nonprofits must be sure that they are leveraging the full capabilities of modern technology. According to npEngage, the five tech-driven changes here to stay for nonprofits are: 


  1. Business intelligence dashboards provide an easy access point for all kinds of data. 
  2. Integrated platforms that communicate with one another replace disparate systems for development, accounting, online donations, and even email communications. 
  3. Key information and processes are immortalized within technological systems, providing stability to organizations in the case of staff turnover, reorganizations, or other disruptions.
  4. Access to real-time data allows organizations to be proactive, rather than reacting to 30- or 60-day-old data reports to make critical business decisions.
  5. Tools for frontline fundraisers not only put data into the hands of the people who can use it to raise money for your organization, but also allow development staff to update donor records and perform other key tasks without adding to the CRM administrator’s workload.


How can your office evolve its technological systems from better to best? Click here to read npEngage's strategies. 

EAB Survey Confirms Higher Ed Advancement Talent Crisis

As you have most likely heard, hiring and retaining talented staff has been a struggle within most industries for the past few years. To understand this phenomenon, EAB conducted a survey of more than 120 higher education advancement leaders about their hiring and retention experiences from June 2021 to May 2022. Some key findings from the survey include:


  • EAB's analysis found the median vacancy rate among surveyed institutions was 14%. In contrast, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a nationwide vacancy rate of 6.9% for May 2022. 
  • Online job postings for advancement professionals in the education sector increased 40% from June 2017 to June 2022, reaching a five-year high of 2,333 unique listings in June 2022. 
  • Among advancement staff, fundraisers are leaving their positions at an outsized rate. While frontline fundraisers constitute 28% of staff at small shops and 30% of staff at large shops, they account for 50% and 39% of departures at small and large shops, respectively, from June 2021 to May 2022.
  • Eighty-two percent of advancement shops surveyed now use a remote or hybrid work policy to promote retention. 
  • Only 45% of respondents provide career pathing and only 35% of respondents conduct employee engagement surveys at least annually.


Read more here. 

When Advancement Meets Academia

According to the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, fundraising is increasingly in the job descriptions of deans, department chairs, and center directors. Fundraising is trickling down to faculty as well - which makes sense, given many faculty member's strong relationships with students, parents, alumni, and industry leaders. They are uniquely positioned as story tellers who have first-hand experience with the students and causes that donors aid. However, faculty members often hesitate to step into a fundraising-engagement role because they lack time, have negative misconceptions about fundraising, and do not have a large understanding for the development field. In order to address this with faculty, fundraisers should appeal to them as teachers and explain to them that they can tell the stories of their programs in ways that inspire donors. Click here to read more, including real-life implementations of the strategies mentioned above.