RAISE Podcast: Caroline Chang, UC Innovation

Laura
05/17/2021

On this episode of the RAISE podcast, Brent talks to a long-time innovator, friend, and Advancement Services Great, Caroline Chang. After a varied career during which she “took the cookies as they were passed” (she’ll explain what that means), Caroline landed as the Vice President of Community and Product Engagement at UC Innovation. Caroline has worked extensively as an internal and external partner with almost every CRM system in the advancement space, so she knows the ecosystem of traditional alumni databases and what each of them can and can’t provide to fundraisers. Caroline was an early believer that if we can connect the digital engagement signals that alumni give us on social media with all the rich data that lives deep within alumni databases, we’ll have the recipe for fundraising success in a modern advancement shop. Besides being a techie, innovator, and expert integrator, Caroline is also a cat-lover, a knitter, a breast cancer survivor, the chair of the CASE Summer Institute for Advancement Services, and a larger-than-life friend with so much personal and professional wisdom to share. Thank you, Caroline, for being a star guest on the RAISE podcast.

Here are some highlights from the episode…

Nerds, unite! Caroline is a self-proclaimed nerd who has always been fascinated by technology.

Caroline started her advancement career on the Advancement Services team at her alma mater, Stanford. Because she was tasked with onboarding and training staff in the alumni database, she got to know her colleagues really well. (Now, her professional network is huge. There aren’t many people in advancement that don’t know, or at least know of, Caroline.)

Advancement Services folks are able to do a lot of things and solve a lot of problems that other advancement colleagues cannot. So, the VP of Stanford had Caroline on speed dial, and vice-versa. It made for great exposure to leadership early on in Caroline’s career.

Caroline loves sports. Like, really loves them. She loves that you can scream like a crazy person at a sports game and no one really thinks anything of it. She has only been kicked out of one sports game for an altercation with the ref. (Caroline, we believe you that he must have made a really bad call.)

Caroline retired from Stanford. Then, she came back to oversee prospect management and research, donor relations, facilities, budget, and human resources for the advancement team at Santa Clara University. What a re-entry to the work world.

Caroline met Brent at a BBCON conference. She greeted him not with a handshake or a “Hello,” but with a very direct “What do you do?” She heard him out, turned on her heel, and abruptly walked away. A few hours later, Brent was giving an in-depth EverTrue demo to Caroline and her colleagues. That was the beginning of a mutual mentorship and friendship that is many years in the works (and counting!).

Caroline is a jack of many trades. In her spare time, she runs The Catz Meow, a 100% volunteer-run leg-to-leg transport service for the safe relocation of cats and kittens in the continental United States

After so many years in the stable, slower-moving world of higher ed advancement services, Caroline took a risk to join UC Innovation, a woman-owned startup software company. Now, she gets to build a native, innovative product that integrates with the best niche software solutions to empower every aspect of advancement work. Needless to say, she doesn’t regret her choice.

Want to connect with Caroline? You can find her on LinkedIn. Or, reach out to Brent and he’ll connect you.

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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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