Learn How Social Donor Management Can Help Your Research at MARC

Brent Grinna
05/27/2014

“Nonprofit leaders can no longer rely on instinct or intuition to develop the sophisticated development operations necessary today.” – APRA

“Paradigm shift.”

That is an expression heard around our office frequently these days. Customers and prospective customers have repeatedly described Social Donor Management as a massive shift in the way they approach the Advancement business. For over 100 years, Advancement professionals have endeavored to collect and analyze donor data. In the last three years, a vast majority of donor information has shifted to the cloud by way of networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Advancement Services professionals sit at the nexus of this paradigm shift. We’re excited about catching up with many of you at the upcoming APRA Mid-Atlantic Researchers Conference, where my colleague Mike Palladino and I will be discussing three key Advancement Services trends:

Better Data. The typical higher education institution has inaccurate or incomplete career data for over 90% of constituents. In general, top-of-the-pyramid donors and prospects have very complete donor profiles. But middle- and bottom-of-the-pyramid constituent profiles typically lack crucial information.

Relevant Insights. Having high quality donor data supports advanced querying of your donor database. But in a dynamic, real-time world, even great data isn’t enough. We’ll describe ways that Advancement Services professionals are turning social insights into actionable data across the giving pyramid.

At Your Fingertips. Historically, fundraisers and Advancement Services professionals alike have had limited ability to access, analyze, and take action with data unless they were sitting at their computer. We’ll share ways that the same technology harnessed by Zillow and Yelp is powering the shift to Social Donor Management.

We’ll be speaking this Thursday at 11:25am and will share examples of how Brown University, Cornell University, Amherst College, and other leading institutions are turning social insights into a clear ROI. We’ll also provide a Social Donor Management framework with key questions your institution should start exploring.

If you’ll be at the MARC conference and would like to learn more about Social Donor Management, please email Jessie Small at jessie.small@evertrue.com to RSVP and schedule a conversation.

Endowment Spending & Growth Calculator

Enter your fund's current value and adjust the return, spending, and inflation sliders to see how its value in today's dollars changes over time.

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Expected investment return 6.0%

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Spending rate 4.0%

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Inflation rate 3.0%

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4. Continue to Steward Donors

Your relationship with the donors who give to your endowment doesn’t end when you secure their gifts. Because your endowment exists to make a difference in the long term, your supporters will want you to keep in touch about its progress. Ongoing stewardship means keeping donors updated about your endowment’s performance and impact. A report that strengthens your relationship with donors should cover:

The fund’s balance at the start and end of the year
Spending amounts and allocations
How the fund’s returns compare to your investment targets
A short narrative detailing the specific impacts the endowment achieved

Create a report for each endowment rather than sending an identical document to everyone. A donor who endowed a scholarship wants to hear about the students it supported, while a donor who endowed a building fund wants updates on construction projects.

5. Upgrade Your Endowment Management Tools

Your endowment management tools should make applying your spending policy across every fund easy. Investing in dedicated software is especially useful as your endowment grows. Handling unitization in spreadsheets might work for a few funds, but as you begin to manage dozens or hundreds of gifts, dedicated software can save your team time spent manually calculating gains and losses for each one.

Why Nonprofits Need Dedicated Endowment Management Software

Dedicated endowment software brings accuracy and consistency to every part of the management process, from tracking individual funds to improving security. See how these solutions compare to a spreadsheet-based approach:

nfographic table outlining the information below.

How These Methods Compare:

In managing your endowment with traditional spreadsheets, you may see:

High administrative burden: Manual entry across disconnected systems
Limited security and audit footprints: Reduced version control and audit trail visibility
Difficulty with donor transparency: Spreadsheets provide only static data that is difficult to turn into custom results.

By using dedicated software, you are likely to find the following improvements:

Lower administrative burden: Automated fund tracking and calculated allocations
Enhanced security and audit footprint: Audit-ready reconciliation with clear tracking
Greater donor transparency: Connects with reporting platforms

Dedicated endowment management software keeps your organization compliant while freeing up the time your team once spent manually managing spreadsheets.

Secure Your Endowment with Balance by EverTrue

Effective endowment management begins with excellent accounting. Balance by EverTrue handles unitization, applies spending rules, and produces audit-ready reports, so your team can spend more time on the donor relationships that built the fund in the first place.

Turn your data into a clear picture of long-term impact. Combine accurate fund accounting with donor reporting that showcases impact.
Connect with the tools you already use. Pair Balance with Impact by EverTrue and ODDER by EverTrue to create and deliver compelling digital endowment reports that you can send to donors with ease.
Know where every fund stands in real time. Check market values, gift history, and available spending for any fund. Then, share view-only versions with your team, so everyone stays informed.

With Balance, your team can stop spending all your time on manual management and instead add balance to your endowment workflow.

Additional Resources

To learn more about managing your endowment and other ways that technology can help your organization, check out these additional resources:

Webinar: Building a Seamless Relationship Between Endowment Finance and Advancement. In this webinar, we cover the keys to un-complicating your institution’s financial endowment reporting process. Explore how building a connection between your finance and advancement teams can lead to happier donors and happier staff.
The Best Alumni Management Software Solutions in 2026. Alumni management software allows your university to maintain an active community that supports your school in a number of ways. Review top software solutions.
Donor Segmentation: How Organizing Donors Boosts Retention. What is donor segmentation, and how can you use it to boost retention? Learn the need-to-know information in this guide from EverTrue’s fundraising experts.

Less stress, higher endowment funds. Discover how Balance provides the organization, security, and accuracy your endowment needs. Request a demo.

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