I have been using the US News donor count standards across two separate institutions, meaning married alumni couples where one is a donor are counted as 2 donors. No other donors are treated this way.
We have hired a number of new advancement personnel in the past 6 months, and today I was told that we need to start counting parents and other donor types (friends, trustees, etc.) where there are 2 married members in the household as 2 donors. We are preparing for a possible comprehensive campaign and increased donor counts will be a primary metric.
I can understand moving to a different model, but our system has been designed for the US News standards. For instance, we only create one parent record and the other parent 'hangs' off the primary record in name only (we are a Banner shop). Same for friends and other donors. Alumni by nature each have their own records and can be counted as 2 when one of the married couple makes a gift. I am told that the rationale for adopting the new method is that CASE allows for the counting of any married couple in the database as 2 donors.
I would like to know if anyone has any ideas on how to bridge the business processes of old with the new direction. Or is there a possible counter-argument for continuing with this method. Comparing historical data will be a challenge, no? We are a small shop and I can't imagine how we would quickly implement this new strategy.
As always, thank you for the collective wisdom that has bailed me out over the years!!
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Anne Dexter
Marist College
anne.dexter@marist.edu------------------------------