Austin community college
ACC Foundation Leverages Blackbaud Solutions to Streamline Scholarship Donor Communications
Higher Education Institutions
I think the donor portal is a really great way for
donors to see the impact they’re making.”
Austin Community College Foundation relies on Blackbaud Award Management™ to help their small staff effectively match students to scholarships. With the recent addition of Blackbaud Stewardship Management™, the foundation’s process became even more efficient by providing an online portal that allows donors to easily follow their funds and the achievements of the students they support.
ACC Foundation streamlines communications to
scholarship donors, offers them online portal
Austin Community College District serves more than 70,000 students
annually and is among the largest in the nation, with 11 campuses located
across Central Texas and more than 100 programs in 10 areas of study. The
college provides flexible, accelerated learning opportunities, and real-world
experiences to help students complete their education on-time and graduate
workforce-ready with many students receiving a two-year degree and
continuing on to advanced job training or to large universities such as the
University of Texas and Texas A&M University.
In recent years, Austin Community College Foundation has annually awarded
$1.5 million in scholarships to 750 students who are selected from over 3,000
applications. “We are a small staff, especially for the size of our college,” said
Operations Coordinator Ann Schubert, one of three foundation employees.
“Without an online application and a way to review those applications and
award, there’s no way we could manage. We just wouldn’t be able to handle
that many applications.”
The foundation adopted Blackbaud Award Management in 2014 to provide a
streamlined, flexible, and efficient process for students to access scholarship
awards and to better serve the nearly 200 donors who make those
scholarships possible. With the 2020-21 school year, the foundation
enhanced its ability to report back to donors by adding Blackbaud
Stewardship Management, which it found to be more “robust” than other
products on the market.
Providing Donors with a Clear View of Their Giving
With Blackbaud Stewardship Management, a donor can easily and securely
access a comprehensive view of their entire giving history and the financial
performance of their funds, as well as the stories of the scholarship recipients
the donor has assisted, all accessible online in one central portal.
In addition, the foundation now uses Blackbaud Stewardship Management
to generate an individualized annual report for each donor—saving hours of
manual work by eliminating the copying, pasting, and designing that Schubert
previously did herself to create similar individualized reports. “We can just
download donor reports from the system, and we don’t have to create them,”
Schubert said. “That saved a lot of time.”
As the foundation transitioned to the new system, it sent each donor a printed
report, generated using Blackbaud Stewardship Management, by mail with
an invitation to access the new donor portal. With the start of the following
school year, Schubert began pointing donors to the portal by email with plans
to share annual donor reports with electronic links. Printed reports will only be
available upon request—a shift that will save the foundation even more time
and resources.
“We can just download donor reports from the system, and we don’t have to create them. That saved a lot of time.”
Promoting Gratitude with a Personal Touch
The new stewardship management tools enhance the foundation’s
established system of matching applicants with diverse interests and
needs to the right scholarships through Blackbaud Award Management.
Blackbaud Award Management already provided the foundation a
component that requires students to write thank-you letters to donors
before awards become final, while offering students access to donor
profiles that help them personalize their thank-you letters.
Now, with Blackbaud Stewardship Management, donors can easily access
pictures, bios, and thank-you letters of the students they have supported
at any time through the portal. The portal also allows donors to check
changes to their endowments and learn about campus news, activities,
and further giving opportunities. The foundation can provide a “Donate”
button on the page as well.
Schubert credited Blackbaud’s responsive customer support team for
helping staff adapt to new processes and tools, and said the transition has
been well worth it. She anticipates most donors will embrace the online
setup, and after the first year, she had only heard favorable reactions as
donors and the scholarship recipients they support are more connected
than ever before. “I think the donor portal is a really great way for donors
to see the impact they’re making.”
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