Reeher Unveils Year-End Performance Report for Higher Education Fundraising

Press release (Nov. 29, 2011) — For leaders in higher education advancement, a standardized performance analysis is difficult to come by. Historically, colleges and universities have used different criteria to measure fundraising successes and shortcomings, making it difficult to achieve a clear picture of trends in giving and areas for improvement — especially when measuring an institution’s success relative to other institutions’ results.

Now, though, a new tool delivers standardized measurement of key success factors in higher education development. The Reeher Platform has introduced the Reeher Vista Fundraising Profile and Performance Scorecard, a revolutionary year-end performance report that helps advancement leaders identify areas of success and opportunities for improvement. The Vista Scorecard examines a development department’s performance versus what its performance should be, given the factors unique to each organization.

By uniquely applying predictive models, the Vista Scorecard revolutionizes how the industry can view performance, providing institutions with the first-ever analysis of how they should be performing using the same yardstick across institutions. The report, which was unveiled during an exclusive customer-wide webinar in October, provides detailed insight into three areas — constituent potential, annual fund trends and major giving performance — delivering an unprecedented understanding of how alumni give, major gift officer performance and missed opportunities.

While each Vista Scorecard report is unique to the subscriber’s institution, the standardized metrics allow for comparison across universities. This lays the groundwork for institutions to compare themselves to similar universities, giving senior-level advancement leaders a better picture of how their fundraising efforts measure up at a higher level. The Vista Scorecard is already helping three key networks of institutions including private research universities such as Johns Hopkins University, Duke University and Clemson University; large public universities such as the University of Cincinnati, University of Delaware, University of Kentucky and University of New Hampshire; and elite private liberal arts colleges such as Vassar College, Wellesley College, Haverford College, Emerson College, Hamline College and Hamilton College.

“The early feedback we’ve received on the Vista Scorecard is that it is giving institutions insight that they have never had before. By combining our alumni valuation criteria with their trend information they can see where to invest and where to improve,” said Andrew Reeher, CEO and founder of Reeher LLC. “This is an industry that wants to get better together.”

Reeher has found that performance is best measured by looking at three factors: the wealth of constituents, the likelihood of constituents to donate and how development staffs reach constituents. “The Vista Scorecard closes that third gap in understanding,” Reeher said. “Our commitment to organizations is to help them improve their results and accountability; it’s not just buying a benchmarking or performance report. The Vista Scorecard provides a framework to work together to improve performance.”

The Vista Scorecard features dozens of eye-opening charts and graphs that immediately highlight strengths and weaknesses in an advancement department. Depending on the institution’s subscription, the Vista Scorecard includes in-depth analyses of factors such as alumni participation by graduation year; potential of unassigned constituents based on affinity to donate; and individual officer performance.

“Knowing the trends and numbers at this detailed level is a powerful tool for advancement leaders,” Reeher said. “The new report will help leaders easily share data with their teams and give them the information to make important long-term decisions, such as to rebalance major gift officers’ portfolios so that their time can be spent on the constituents most likely to donate.”

The new Vista Scorecard report will be included in the Reeher Platform subscription at no extra cost. The report provides a powerful complement to Reeher’s continuing stream of successful tools designed to improve higher education fundraising, including the Reeher Community Network, Targeter and Alumni Affinity Clusters.

“Every tool in the Reeher Platform is designed to make the improvement process more rapid and less expensive for advancement leaders,” Reeher said. “We believe the new Vista Scorecard report will help leaders at the colleges and universities we work with continue to improve their results, become more agile in positive process change and produce breakthrough fundraising results.”