Oregon State University Foundation

Results

• On day one of using CRM Advance, the institution processed a $50 million gift
• Greater efficiency and insight through reporting and integration
• Processing complex gifts is simpler with a system designed specifically for higher education philanthropy

Summary

Advancement, in general, is going through a real change. There's a divestment from state and local governments for higher ed, and enrollment is dropping with the millennials now graduating. We now are having to search more for the next generation, and the next generation is not as big. So, we need to think about, “How do we leverage technology to make ourselves more efficient?”

We chose Ellucian CRM Advance because we were looking for technology that was built today, that had a future tomorrow. By pushing your data and infrastructure out to the cloud, you save a lot of time and resources, and taking advantage of a vendor like Ellucian to be able to provide us that support, really takes my staff and allows me to use them in far more strategic areas.

The first day that we went live, we were able to process a $50 million gift. A $50 million gift is not as simple as a simple transaction, so there was four or five different parts to the gift. Some of the gift was direct cash, some of the gift was planned giving vehicles. It actually is a testament to the new software to take a very complicated gift and to be able to book that on day one, was a real testament to the flexibility of the product.

Now that Ellucian CRM Advance is live, we have a lot of opportunities that we've never been able to think of, or consider, before. Some of the most exciting things that we're looking to work on are predictive and prescriptive analytics, embedding that into our system to where, if a certain activity occurs, then we can automate a process to make something else happen.

For colleagues that are looking for a new CRM solution, I really do encourage them to think about not only were they want to be but wherever they would like to go. To paraphrase the old Wayne Gretzky quote about not skating to where the puck is, but to skate to where you believe the puck is going to be. That is one thing that I believe Ellucian CRM Advance solution provides, an opportunity for the future, not just thinking about what you need today, but what you need tomorrow.