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Happy Monday, As Advancement at Dalhousie seeks to develop and strengthen partnerships across the institution at every level, there is an increasing need for access to data from other administrative offices in order to set common goals and track progress against those goals, measure return on engagement, and understand the true impact of philanthropy in order to communicate it to donors. There is a great willingness among university leaders for this sharing to take place. (Think of partnerships with Admissions, Career Services, Awards Office, Research, Finance, etc. etc.) Turning this into a reality has been challenging, however. Some offices we would seek to work with are not as well-resourced with reporting and analytics staff as Advancement is, so there's a capacity issue. But more fundamentally, I think we could work better under a more robust data governance model than what we have now. Currently, every data-sharing partnership starts from scratch on issues of confidentiality, appropriate use, standards, etc., and can take years to bring about. It feels very ad hoc and is always at risk due to things such as staff turnover. So my first questions are for those universities who excel at this. What office in your institution is responsible for data governance across the institution? Does it have dedicated staff? How did your data governance model come to be? Was it built top-down by university leadership or (less likely, to my mind), from the bottom up? And how is it working? I also think data governance (policy) is only a shell if it does not include an institutional BI strategy (technology/infrastructure) to support it. Well-resourced or not, Advancement is probably not the office that should be federating raw data from all over the place. So my next question is: Do you have an office that acts like a data broker, working with various partners who need to share data and insights? Something like an analytics office that operates independently of the regular administrative offices? We have all the elements, but a better framework could really help us reconfigure to pursue common goals and show philanthropic impact. I'm keen to find models I can point to. Bonus if there's documentation on the public web! Kevin MacDonell, Executive Director Advancement Operations Office of Advancement, Dalhousie University Mail: PO Box 15000, Halifax NS, B3H 4R2 Courier: 6389 Coburg Road, Halifax NS, B3H 2A5 902.494.7602

Hi Kevin, We started our Data Governance program within the Advancement Office about 6-7 years ago. Our program is managed from its own unit, Data Governance & Business Intelligence, which reports directly to the Managing Director of Advancement Services. Since then the university has started its own institutional data governance program which is slowly building up and that we're trying to create synergies with. It lives under the Chief Information Officer (i.e. IT). Here's a high level overview of the framework, objectives, guiding principles, etc.: https://cio.ubc.ca/data-governance/data-governance-program If you're interested, I also publish a lot of practical content in this domain as it's one of my knowledge areas and passions. You can find the content (definitions, templates, guidelines, etc.) at www.lightsondata.com<http://www.lightsondata.com> I hope this is helpful. Sincerely, George George Firican Director, Data Governance & Business Intelligence | Development and Alumni Engagement The University of British Columbia | David Strangway Building 500-5950 University Boulevard | Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3 Office: 604 822 6595 | george.firican@ubc.ca<mailto:george.firican@ubc.ca> Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/ubcalumni> | Twitter <https://twitter.com/alumniubc> | YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/user/supportubc> | LinkedIn<https://www.linkedin.com/edu/the-university-of-british-columbia-10802> [cid:image001.png@01D470F7.9562CC20]<https://support.ubc.ca/> -- The information contained in this e-mail message and any attachments (collectively "message") is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient (or recipients) named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, use, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail, and delete the original message. From: Advancement Services Discussion List <FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG> On Behalf Of Kevin MacDonell Sent: Monday, February 11, 2019 10:19 AM To: FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG Subject: [FUNDSVCS] institutional data governance Happy Monday, As Advancement at Dalhousie seeks to develop and strengthen partnerships across the institution at every level, there is an increasing need for access to data from other administrative offices in order to set common goals and track progress against those goals, measure return on engagement, and understand the true impact of philanthropy in order to communicate it to donors. There is a great willingness among university leaders for this sharing to take place. (Think of partnerships with Admissions, Career Services, Awards Office, Research, Finance, etc. etc.) Turning this into a reality has been challenging, however. Some offices we would seek to work with are not as well-resourced with reporting and analytics staff as Advancement is, so there's a capacity issue. But more fundamentally, I think we could work better under a more robust data governance model than what we have now. Currently, every data-sharing partnership starts from scratch on issues of confidentiality, appropriate use, standards, etc., and can take years to bring about. It feels very ad hoc and is always at risk due to things such as staff turnover. So my first questions are for those universities who excel at this. What office in your institution is responsible for data governance across the institution? Does it have dedicated staff? How did your data governance model come to be? Was it built top-down by university leadership or (less likely, to my mind), from the bottom up? And how is it working? I also think data governance (policy) is only a shell if it does not include an institutional BI strategy (technology/infrastructure) to support it. Well-resourced or not, Advancement is probably not the office that should be federating raw data from all over the place. So my next question is: Do you have an office that acts like a data broker, working with various partners who need to share data and insights? Something like an analytics office that operates independently of the regular administrative offices? We have all the elements, but a better framework could really help us reconfigure to pursue common goals and show philanthropic impact. I'm keen to find models I can point to. Bonus if there's documentation on the public web! Kevin MacDonell, Executive Director Advancement Operations Office of Advancement, Dalhousie University Mail: PO Box 15000, Halifax NS, B3H 4R2 Courier: 6389 Coburg Road, Halifax NS, B3H 2A5 902.494.7602