For university advancement teams looking to attract investment and accelerate fundraising, benchmarking performance and aligning resources are key. According to Peter Fardy, former head of advancement at Dalhousie University, undertaking a data-driven approach to setting fundraising goals and making a case for support can have significant impact.
At Dalhousie, Fardy spent over a decade gathering data on the university’s own historic fundraising performance as well as benchmarking against peer institutions. By analyzing two decades of the university’s fundraising results and expenditures, Fardy found a clear correlation between investing in the advancement operation and securing more philanthropic commitments. On average, for every dollar spent, the university raised six dollars in new donations.
Benchmarking against seven other competitor universities provided further insights. Fardy found Dalhousie’s alumni engagement and fundraising costs were higher than average while the budget for communications and marketing was lower. Using this data, the advancement team set a plan to strategically grow areas that would have the highest ROI, specifically the fundraising operation. They made a data-driven case to university leadership to invest more in the overall advancement budget, especially the development team.
Within 12 years, Fardy and his team were able to triple the advancement budget and fundraising results through this approach. But undertaking a benchmarking project requires significant investment of time and resources. Fardy advises focusing 80 to 90 percent of your efforts on analyzing your own institution’s data first before tackling intensive benchmarking.
Start by looking at the correlation between your advancement costs and fundraising results over the past 3 to 5 years. Then determine how to improve your performance and make a case for aligning resources and investing in opportunity.
Benchmarking and setting data-informed goals are not an “algorithm for success” but rather a way to equip yourself to make better judgment calls, according to Fardy. When it comes to securing investment in advancement, facts and evidence can be the difference between growth and stagnation. Overall, the university advancement teams that know their own performance and capacity for opportunity will be best positioned to surpass expectations.
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