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Session Rules of Etiquette

Please turn off or silence your cell phone

If you must leave the session early, please do so discreetly as possible

Please avoid side conversations during the session

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Introduction

LBCC Foundation advancement and donor relationship goals and how Banner/Raiser’s Edge is essential to alumni donor acquisition.

• The Foundation utilizes Banner to import alumni into Raiser’s Edge.

• What works seamlessly between Banner/Raiser’s Edge imports.

• Issues with import when alum has more than one degree/certificate.

• The Foundation’s workarounds to import incompatibility.

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Session Agenda1. Introduction

2. Topic #1 – Overview of LBCC Foundation and how we utilize alumni imports

3. Topic #2 – Raiser’s Edge by Blackbaud

4. Topic #3 – Banner/Raiser’s Edge Imports

1. Topic #4 – Workarounds to duplicate issues.

2. Conclusion

3. Question & Answers

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Topic #1 ~ Overview of LBCC Foundation

With over 45 years of supporting students’ career goals, college programs and services, the LBCC Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that solicits, accepts, manages, invests and distributes contributions for the betterment of the college and its students. LBCC Foundation has its own Board of Trustees and is a legally separate entity from the college.

Annually, LBCC Foundation provides more than 200 scholarship awards to students that total about $250,000. Our Scholarship information and database can be found here: http://linnbenton.edu/current-students/money-matters/scholarships.

For over 28 years the LBCC Foundation’s Annual Golf Tournament has raised more than $600,000 for support to LBCC students, programs and college needs. The Foundation hosts Grand Openings, Distinguished Alumni/Honor Reception, Pre-concert desserts, offers Planned Giving consultations and much more.

Prospect acquisition, donor relations and why the college need donors

• The Foundation’s development staff is continually reaching out to our community, businesses, organizations, and alumni/non-alumni potential donors.

• Creating new records and adding additional up-to-date information is essential for development staff prior to conversations, either verbal or written, in order to create a positive relationship with our prospective donors.

• In order for the college to continue to offer programs that provide students with up-to-date, and cutting edge learning tools, the Foundation provides a pathway and connection to major donors who may provide financial and/or gift-in-kind support for our students so they may excel in their career paths.

• Education costs continue to rise every year. The cost of tuition, books, living expenses, lab fees, etc., often times create a barrier for students to attend, or to complete, their certification or degree program.

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Topic #2 ~ Raiser’s Edge by BlackbaudRaiser’s Edge by Blackbaud is the World's Best and largest Fundraising & Constituent Relationship Management System.

Built on 30 years of experience and in partnership with more than 28,000 active clients, Blackbaud’s complete suite of fundraising solutions helps nonprofit organizations build lifelong support and raise more money.

Raiser’s Edge is a rich database that allows organizations to import, export, and create reports on our constituents. Building queries inside of Raiser’s Edge allows additional flexibility to filter data.

Currently, the Foundation has over 48,000 constituent records with additional graduate records imported yearly from Banner. Constituent records consist of alumni records and records created from donors who are not LBCC graduates.

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Raiser’s Edge and why we use this product• Raiser’s Edge is a donor database that is very rich in its capacity to enter and then

export constituent information base on criteria we choose within a query.

• Raiser’s Edge is expandable by installing additional modules. Other modules include:

• Tribute (IMO/IHO), Alumni, Planned Giving, Event Management, Volunteer Management, and more.

• The type of constituent information we enter into Raiser’s Edge are: gifts, pledges, media, relationships, organizations, contacts, notes, letters, appeals, campaigns, solicit codes, solicitors, email, phone, website information, education, banking, constituent codes, and more.

• Raiser’s Edge provides the ability to generate letters, envelopes, pledge reminders, invoices, fund information, as well as a large number of reports including Crystal Reports.

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Topic #3 ~ Banner/Raiser’s Edge Import

• Via SWARPS alumni records are downloaded from Banner as a CSV file to a file folder on a computer or to a shared college drive.

• From the Banner download, the CSV file can be mapped and then imported into Raiser’s Edge.

• Both Raiser’s Edge and Banner reads records left to right until it is told to “carriage return” to the next record.

• A record specific import ID is needed in order to import new records into Raiser’s Edge or to update existing records in our database.

• New record import information must be contained in one row and connected to the new records unique import ID.

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The issue• If alumni have more than one degree or certificate, Banner treats the student’s

additional information as a new record and generates a new, unique, import ID for the additional information.

• EXAMPLE: John Smith, who has five separate degrees and/or certificates, is imported into Raiser’s Edge as five unique John Smith records.

• Each John Smith record contains only one of the degrees/certificates the student has.

• Therefore, five records belonging to one individual is created via import into Raiser’s Edge.

Topic #3 ~ Banner/Raiser’s Edge continued

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Topic #4 ~ Workarounds to duplicate issues

• Import into Raiser’s Edge Suppressing duplicates• An exception report is created for each additional record that contains the same name,

address, phone number and email address as the first record imported. • Exception report constituent record(s) import ID must be manually changed in excel to the

original imported records unique import ID prior to updating the original record.

• Work directly in the downloaded CSV file, manually creating additional columns for each additional degree/certificate for the duplicate records. Duplicates are then deleted before importing.

• Import everything, then manually merge duplicate records after they are in Raiser’s Edge.

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Topic #4 ~ Workarounds to duplicate issues continued

• Purchase ImportOmatic, LLC software that works with Raiser’s Edge to solve duplicate import issue. • Thousands of additional dollars annually for add-on software in addition to Raiser’s

Edge Annual fees.

• Staff works many hours on each import to manually manipulate data prior to importing.• Additional work hours neither time nor cost effective.• Manually shifting data around in the CSV file can lead to user error.

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Session Summary

• Raiser’s Edge is the primary software used by most college and university foundations around the world.

• Banner/Raiser’s Edge is compatible, unless the student record has more than one degree/certificate.

• Suppressing duplicate records caused during import is staff intensive.• Manually fixing data in CSV files is staff intensive and may lead to user error.

• Purchasing additional software can be cost prohibitive to small foundations with limited budgets.

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Questions? Answers?

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Thank you!Donna Mainord – Foundation Systems CoordinatorEmail: mainord@linnbenton.edu

Andrew Wynings – Foundation Development OfficerEmail: wyninga@linnbenton.edu