Advancement Services White Papers, Articles, & Concepts

To view any of the papers and articles, click on the link below. To download the following papers, you may "right-click" on the links below and then select Save Link as... (Netscape) or Save Target as... (MS Internet Explorer) from the pop-up window to download the papers. Most are in .PDF format which can be read in Adobe Acrobat; a couple are Word documents.

	Beyond the Affinity Portal: The Future of Advancement Online by Jolanne Stanton. Jolanne, formerly of Princeton, offered this white paper to her prospects and clients considering how to more effectively use their Alumni Relations and Advancement web site. Offered here with the author's permission.
	Gift Counting Made Easy? by John Taylor. This article about gift counting and reporting standards was previously published in CASE Currents. This is timely as CASE looks to update the standards. Offered here with the author's permission.
	A Statistical Analysis of the UNC Phonathon by Charlie Hunsaker. This paper was done as part of my masters degree program at Penn State. As I had assisted my alma mater (UNC) in selecting a phonathon system, they were pleased to have me do this analysis of their phonathon program. Bare with the technical statistics terms, but it does show how the use of stats can help you better plan and target your Annual Fund efforts.
	Managing a Consultant - from the TechSoup web site. I have put the article at my site just in case it "goes away" from theirs.
	A "Positioning" Primer - A non-technical guide to improving your web site's "position" in Search Engine rankings. Provided and made available by author, Jaime Serrat of the Music of Puerto Rico Foundation. Thanks!
	Data Integrity Points - a QA checklist of questions to use to help in maintaining the quality and integrity of the data in your Development database. Includes input from John Taylor at Duke & Jerry Wright at Miami of Ohio. Thanks.
	Web Job Roles - by Tim Brown of Myxa Corporation. In developing and maintaining your Web Site, there are many roles that need to be played to do this effectively. Tim has done a great job of defining and documenting these roles. Offered here with the author's permission.

As I hear of presentations that might be of value to you and can get authority for making them accessible at this site, I set them up for viewing here.

	Facing the Perfect Storm - Nonprofits are presently facing a "perfect storm" of challenges in the economy, giving, and world tensions. Kurt Aschermann, Chief Marketing Officer and Managing Director, Corporate Opportunities Group for Boys & Girls Clubs of America, used this concept to present the challenges that nonprofits are now facing. I heard it in his keynote speech at the April 2003 AFP Franklin Forum in Philadelphia, PA. With his OK, I turned my notes from his speech into this presentation.
	IRS is Finally Making Sense - Or, at least, John Taylor of CASE helps us understand it. This 2003 PowerPoint presentation is offered with John's OK. You may also wish to check out my page with Gift and Acknowledgment Guidelines and Links to IRS Publications.
	A/S Best Practices - A summarization of "best practices" collected by Jennifer Warwick of Loyola Marymount University in LA in February 2002. This provides some good oversights on the types of services offered by Advancement Services offices. Jennifer has included a number of web pages to demonstrate the services of different schools.

If you would like copies of these presentations, please contact me at: Charlie Hunsaker

	Three Legged Stool Analogy This is a system perspective that I have used with clients over the years. It is particularly relevant, given current literature on the lack of productivity gains compared to our spending on technology. I have recently updated the analogy to focus on the importance of Leadership in holding the whole thing together!
	Core Technology Competencies What are the key systems and technology competencies required in Advancement operations? This is an outline of competencies that I've developed with some clients and other consultants. Please provide feedback if you have any suggestions to update this page.
	90-10 Rule of Fund-Raising - The world is familiar with the so-called "80-20 Rule". Here's a view of how it applies in the Advancement world.
	Hype Cycle of Technology Changes - The Gartner Group, technology gurus for information technologies, describe the differences between the hype and reality associated with technology changes.

Application Service Providers have come onto the scene recently (1999-2000 in the nonprofit world.) They allow users to access and use applications via the Internet without some of the costs and responsibilities of maintaining certain operations in house. There is no general "right answer" about using ASP's for nonprofits; only "it depends" on the organization's specific circumstances. Following are some commentaries on the issue:

	Campagne Associates presents the pros and cons from a package vendor. Thanks to Heidi Kelly for this article.
	Buyers Guide to ASP's comes from the trade association for ASP's.
	ASP's - The Future or the Present or Perhaps the Past Reincarnated? gives a perspective from the President of one of the leading ASP vendors. Thanks to Jay Love for this article.
	Tips from Experts at the eTapestry site presently has a description of the ASP model and a (fairly) unbiased description of the pros and cons from an ASP vendor.

Updated June 2003