VMI Alumni Agencies equip gift officers
with innovative fundraising tools

Founded in 1839, Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is the oldest state-supported
military college in the United States. With only 25% of VMI’s operating
budget coming from private support, the VMI Alumni Agencies—which
include the Alumni Association, Foundation, and Keydet Club—are critical
to the institute’s success.

The VMI Alumni Agencies turned to Blackbaud Fundraiser Performance
Management to set their fundraisers up for success. “We selected Fundraiser
Performance Management to have a more structured management system
for gift officers,” said Andrew Deal, chief operating officer, VMI Keydet Club.
“From the custom predictive models for prospecting to talent management
tools, it’s an all-in-one solution that is easy to use.”

Both leaders and gift officers can leverage the solution’s built-out
dashboards to help conduct reviews, prioritize portfolios, or identify new
focus areas. “It’s great having goals right in front of you during quarterly
reviews or the ability to create operational reports to give to our board,”
Deal said. “What used to require running a query and waiting can now
be achieved with the click of a button.” Additionally, leaders can look at
real-time reports on their team and see where gift officers are excelling
and where they are not.

VMI Alumni Agencies also rely on Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT for gift
management. By having these solutions integrated, the team always
has access to real-time, actionable donor data. “We appreciate how
the integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT makes it simple to build lists,
generate reports, or leverage the dashboards in Fundraiser Performance
Management,” Deal said. “And because they are both cloud-based, I can
easily toggle between the two solutions. It takes no time to switch from
one to the other.”

Prospecting with Data-Driven Decisions

The VMI Alumni Agencies realize the importance of having fundraising
software that includes custom predictive models to identify its top
prospects. “Because of Fundraiser Performance Management, our gift
officers have stronger, qualified leads as well as the data that tells them
which contacts have a higher capacity to give to make smarter asks,”
Deal said.

Upon complete implementation of Fundraiser Performance Management,
VMI Alumni Agencies saw a 97% increase in commitments and an 11%
increase in donors within the first four months of the new year, compared
to the previous year. Additionally, they are up nearly 12% in cash dollars and
13.2% in cash donors.

Deal explained that with gift officers traveling again, having targeted
lists allowed him to optimize their activities and ultimately boost overall
fundraising effectiveness. Fundraiser Performance Management has helped
gift officers determine which donors should be visited versus cold calling.
“And we’re no longer calling on people that don’t have a capacity identified,”
Deal added.

Improving Fundraising Performance with
Strategic Guidance from Dedicated Consultants

Blackbaud’s strategic consultants partner with organizations to review their
strategic goals, identify areas of improvement, and provide recommendations
to enhance overall fundraising performance. VMI Alumni Agencies meet
regularly with their dedicated Blackbaud consultant and have been able to
establish successful new strategies and tactics. “It can be easy to get stuck in
the way you’ve historically done things, so it’s been great having a consultant
help us think outside the box,” Deal said.

Having a partner who brings a fresh point of view can have a big impact.
Most recently, the VMI Alumni Agencies have been working with their
consultant to rethink how they can build their pipeline. “Our consultant
helped me realize I needed to completely redefine all our major gift officer
policies to build consistency with data,” said Deal. “We want the data to be
useful and accurate, and because of our consultant, we’re one step closer to
accomplishing just that.”

While VMI Alumni Agencies are already experiencing the benefits that
come with Fundraiser Performance Management, Deal and his team have
only just begun. “Being able to utilize technology for our advantage will be
instrumental in achieving our long-term goals and vision,” Deal said. “I look
forward to all that Fundraiser Performance Management has to offer us as
well as continuing our partnership with Blackbaud.”