ST. PAUL, MINN. (April 27, 2012) — For Advancement Vice Presidents and Annual Fund Directors, the reasons behind what’s driving results for annual giving are often murky at best. While a glimpse of participation rate, donors and dollars isn’t hard to find, reasons for progress or decline can be hidden. Large gifts, shifts in participation and the inherent challenges in an institution’s ability to acquire new annual fund donors obscure understanding of what’s really driving changes in results. The paradox is that this understanding of improvement drivers is critical to sustained success for annual fund.

The new Annual Fund Operating Report feature in the web-based Reeher Platform has been created to fill this gap. This new tab in the Annual Fund Dashboard gives annual fund leaders an immediate picture of results in key areas of their program, such as summaries by Retained Donor Migration, Giving Level, Channel, Relationship Type, among others. These indicators are presented in dynamic tables and can be compared to previous years to reflect shifts in results and progress based on changing tactics.

The focus on these key performance indicators is based on Reeher’s close relationships with colleges and universities striving to achieve better annual fund results. Elements of the Annual Fund Operating Report first appeared in the Reeher Vista Fundraising Scorecard, the custom in-depth report delivered each year to Platform customers. The Annual Fund Operating Report demonstrates the continued value of being part of the Platform’s shared system for fundraising management. As Reeher’s customer base shares best practices and new features are built into the Platform, all subscribers benefit. This shared management system means that Platform customers are part of a unique community network using analytics, technology and process change to produce breakthrough results.

As with all dashboards and tools in the web-based Platform, data is pulled from the institution’s donor database via a secure nightly feed. This means the insight in the Platform is timely and relevant for steering The Web-based Annual Fund Operating Report features an easy-to-use interface and gives leaders the ability to drill into year-over-year trends in donors, cash giving, giving levels, donor type and much more.

As with all dashboards and tools in the web-based Platform, data is pulled from the institution’s donor database via a secure nightly feed. This means the insight in the Platform is timely and relevant for steering tactics to achieve better fundraising results. The Annual Fund Operating Report is uniquely designed using tables to provide a user-friendly way to see progress and a way for users to drill into results to see the story behind the numbers.

Jeff Bush, Senior Associate Vice President of Constituency Programs at Tulane University commented, “Reeher asked what we needed, and they developed this Annual Fund Operating Report. Before we used the Reeher Platform, we had to manually break out information for the annual fund and create a presentation for staff and board meetings. Now, this tool is the pulse of the annual fund. I start my day using it.”

The Annual Fund Operating Report helps Bush’s team by providing insight in three distinct ways: the ability to segment by donor type, views for annual fund officers to see their progress in visual analytics every day, and easy creation of an annual fund report for the schools within Tulane University. He also reports that projecting the Annual Fund Operating Report in staff and board meetings is a great tool for ongoing education about his department’s efforts and key metrics.

“While working closely with fundraising leaders at universities and colleges across the country, we learned that they had a specific need for reporting annual fund performance to their budget offices in a specific way that in the past had taken them weeks to cobble together on their own and still didn’t provide the exact information they needed,” said Andy Reeher, CEO and founder of Reeher LLC. “The beauty of the community aspect of the Reeher Platform’s shared fundraising management system is that any new tool developed at the request of several universities benefits everyone using the Reeher Platform. Like every tool available in the Reeher Platform, the Annual Fund Operating Report and Dashboard were designed to make the improvement process better, faster and cheaper for advancement leaders.”

ABOUT THE REEHER PLATFORM
Through its custom predictive models, management tools and Reeher Community Network, the Reeher Platform puts fundraising on the fast track, helping colleges and universities find up to 40 percent of new best prospect donors they didn’t know existed and uncover nearly 30 percent of wasted fundraising time, money and energy. With the Reeher Expected Value Index, universities and colleges can identify new donors, as well as see which donors to contact, predict the best major gift prospects and annual fund donors, and make more confident decisions about future strategies, appeals and goals.

The Reeher Platform provides information immediately, without having to wait for updated reports. It’s a SaaS-based platform, allowing advancement teams to quickly access the information they need from anywhere at any time, spending more time making contact with prospects and less time searching. The Platform also provides the opportunity to learn from peers, with instant access to best practices, as well as global updates and upgrades that benefit everyone using the Reeher Platform.

ABOUT REEHER
Reeher is a leading developer of cutting-edge software services to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of higher education fundraising efforts. Their signature Reeher Platform provides university development leaders at institutions of all sizes with tools to track and measure effectiveness, discover new opportunities, engage constituents and improve ROI. Based in St. Paul, Minn., Reeher works with leading universities across the country and internationally, including Johns Hopkins University, the University of Kentucky, Drexel University, Duke University and more. For more information, please visit www.reeher.net, call 651-789-1700, or email info@reeher.net.