FundSvcs Community

Good afternoon, Stephanie - 

Intriguing question. One for which I don't believe there is a clear (as in scientifically supportable) response.

NOTE: Anyone reading this might want to take a pause for a deep breath before reading on as I dive off the deep end here...

I have found that our gifts and records pros tend to fall into two extreme categories. There might be some middle set of outliers, but these colleagues are a small set often either trying to get a foot in the door by taking on an entry level gifts or records position (tending to stay 2ish or fewer years) or - much more commonly found - are likely to stay in their gifts/records position for 5-8, 10-15 and even 20 or more years. 

On the one hand, I might see potential for enabling database-specific certification trainings if the organization is likely to stay with the same 'software' tool provider for all time. There are plenty of organizations which opt to stay clients of our larger database tool providers given the homegrown understanding that grows of the same basic infrastructure from fields and tables to reporting tools, et al.

On the other hand, how many organizations in the past 1-2 decades have chosen to convert to an entirely different tool for whatever reasons they believed the current tool wasn't meeting their needs? There are so many strong information management options now and I have to believe that the trend to just "stick with what we know/where we already have licensing" isn't going to continue to be supported indefinitely. Changes in leadership and staffing overall will force some issues of redirecting thought processes when it comes to information management. And, IMHO, any reasonably successful conversion process should certainly carve a great deal of time to ensure that those who provide the services which create and support the very base of the data pyramid (on which any level of success depends) to ensure real expertise across the breadth of all fields and tables with which they will routinely engage. 

Finally, and sadly, from what I've both seen and also heard the financial support offered for training our gifts and records pros tends to be at the very bottom of the training funds barrel. I would love to hear that our gifts and records colleagues had any number of institutionally funded training options readily available for their professional development needs. Those funds tend to be focused first on executives and fundraisers and any leftover training dollars that might trickle down to the AS/DevOps area often are directed toward prospect management and/or donor relations. And please, before anybody jumps down my throat, I am in NO way saying these areas do not deserve to have professional development opportunities available to those colleagues. What I am saying, again my own opinion here, is a perception that professional development isn't something necessary for those who are 'just' processing gifts or creating and updating records. 

I believe that a much more substantive approach to professional development for our gifts and records pros doesn't get tied to the tool they are currently using. Training for records colleagues should encompass research strategies for records pros to affirm the best tools and tactics for confirming areas they cover (among other things) address changes and death notifications as well as marriage/divorce notices, et al. Dealing with duplicate records plus ensuring QA around correct titles, genders, name preferences (among so many other details I could list) are everyday fields of potential landmines for our records pros. Then there is the broad spectrum of IRS regulations, intuitional information management preferences, financial reconciliation concerns, soft crediting options and critical questions like "who gets the hard credit for this contribution (let along whether or not the transaction is even charitable support)" which our gifts pros must sort. Plus, they are commonly expected to have much of the records knowledge for when they need to create or update constituent records. 

Bottom line, to me, is that database specific training falls more into the category of 'nice to have' if the institution is willing to financially support that kind of training. There is so much more that our gifts and records pros need to know in order to support the best information infrastructure for our respective institutions that database training alone doesn't tend to cover. 

OK, stepping down from the soapbox now. Sorry I couldn't provide a substantively direct response to your inquiry. But again, as I noted at the start, I am unaware of any currently valid metrics to develop a substantiated answer. 

Good luck and best regards - Amy

amy.j.phillips@hotmail.com

Founding, Charter and Active member of AASP!