Study reveals inefficiencies in productivity as major barrier to success in fundraising management
Washington D.C. (June 28, 2017) — Ruffalo Noel Levitz, leading provider of higher education fundraising and enrollment products and services, released today results from a study of major and planned gift officers. Key findings indicate traditional approaches to fundraising management fail to address the new challenges in higher education and increased demands on advancement professionals to be more productive. As institutions’ fundraising goals increase, major and planned giving is emerging as significantly more important to higher ed success.
The study is informed by a survey and follow up interviews administered this spring to 270 gift officers exploring factors including portfolio size and annual prospective donor visits, common performance metrics and sentiments around wealth and propensity ratings.
Analysis of survey results revealed five key challenges as reported by major and planned giving professionals:
-Prospect pools are large and gift officer time is limited
-Wealth Ratings are only moderately helpful
-Total dollars booked is the top performance metric
-Focus on the right prospects with limited time is a key barrier to success
-Gift officers want to use their time differently
"This study – the first to survey such a large number of gift officers – confirms that traditional approaches to major and planned giving are becoming outdated and ineffective," says Brian Gawor, CFRE and vice president for research at Ruffalo Noel Levitz. "Respondents reported they were able to visit with only 52% of their prospect pool per year, indicating that a significant number of assigned prospects are not receiving an in-person contact each year. In major and planned giving this means many donors ignored and millions in donations lost.”
Challenges, including decrease in enrollment and retention and rising student financial aid needs have amplified pressures on institutions to achieve higher fundraising goals. Major and planned gift commitments account for the vast majority of the funds given by donors to higher education.
"We are seeing an increased demand for gift officers to be more productive and secure results in a much more challenging and complex environment,” says Stephen J. Meyer, president and CEO of Ruffalo Noel Levitz. "We see institutions succeed when they apply new technologies and sales automation best practices to increase their productivity. Ruffalo Noel Levitz is using these same data-driven best practices from top researchers, new digital tools, and insights from over a million alumni we’ve connected with to address this need and support institutions in increasing their ROI on fundraising management.”
With the launch of a tiered Planned Giving solution set – Pipeline Builder and Coverage – Ruffulo Noel Levitz provides institutions access to productivity tools and resources they may not otherwise be able to allocate to their fundraising efforts. In leveraging a community of experts and trained professionals, innovative technology, predictive analytics and modeling to qualify prospects by wealth and affinity, advancement staff will have the opportunity to focus their efforts on qualified prospects and exponentially increase productivity.
Key Challenges Reported by Major and Planned Giving Professionals is available at http://learn.ruffalonl.com/MGPGProductivityMediaKit.html.
For more information about Ruffalo Noel Levitz, visit https://www.ruffalonl.com.
About Ruffalo Noel Levitz
Ruffalo Noel Levitz is distinguished by its powerful array of technology-enabled enrollment and fundraising services that have been used by more than 3,000 colleges and universities and numerous nonprofit clients worldwide. Increased pressures across a more complex and challenging landscape demand that colleges and universities take a new approach to fundraising management. Innovators in advancement, Ruffalo Noel Levitz is reinventing fundraising management in higher ed by disrupting the status quo with its innovative, holistic, data-driven best-in-class tools. Leveraging a deep knowledge of the industry, Ruffalo Noel Levitz provides institutions the ability to scale their efforts by tapping into a community of support and resources. As a result, institutional advancement is able to achieve optimal performance and increase their productivity and gift cultivation.