From his office on the ninth floor of Wolverine Tower, Jerry May, the University’s vice president for development, commands the fundraisers who bring in hundreds of millions of dollars to the University each year.

Over the past eight years, the office has raised more than $3.2 billion through its Michigan Difference Campaign. The wildly successful effort — which exceeded its $2.5 billion goal by nearly 30 percent — set a national record for the most money raised in the United States by a public university during a single capital campaign.

However, with the campaign now finished and a new campaign not yet started, the question arises — what are development office employees doing with all their time?

According to May, his staff isn’t sitting around waiting for the next campaign. They’re busy planning for how they can better relate to donors and how the office can operate more efficiently.

THE BRAINS OF THE OPERATION

One of those major initiatives is the creation and implementation of a brand new, multi-million dollar electronic brain for the University’s fundraising activities. It’s a highly-personalized database that will serve to store and collate the most specific of details for the University’s donors — which totaled nearly 375,000 over the last eight years — from the basics to the most acute detail regarding their interests. (“Some day we’ll be able to know all the people who collect antique maps,” May said, only half joking.)

The University’s current donor database system — known as Development/Alumni Constituency System or DAC — is nearly 20 years old and is vastly outdated.

May said the system was evaluated prior to the Michigan Difference Campaign, and a decision was made to bandage it for the campaign. Major reconstruction or replacement of the system was tabled until after the capital campaign.

Once the Michigan Difference Campaign finished last December, efforts to select a firm to design a new system were kicked into high gear.

After evaluating several options, staff serving on committees and representing units throughout the office decided to use Blackbaud Enterprise CRM and Target Analytics to replace the existing system.

Though purchasing and implementing the new donor database will cost “several million dollars,” May said the new functions of the system will be well worth the cost.

“It’s not cheap,” May said. “On the other hand, if you keep track of people and you get a few million dollar gifts in the short period, you’re going to pay for it in no time.”

May also said the new system could help eliminate duplicate “shadow systems” that exist at several units across campus and hinder the office’s ability to get all their donor information into one centralized location.

“With all those shadow databases, then you have inaccuracy of the central records everybody depends on,” May said. “By spending several millions of dollars, we’re going to try to save the base long term,” May said.

The new system will provide greater flexibility to development officers by allowing them to do things the current system does not — including simple customization like donor title preferences and more advanced functions that will track donor interest areas.

May said that by having more complete and up-to-date donor records, development officers will be able to target donors who may have particular interests in certain projects. For instance, donor records could track certain departments and organizations that alumni were members of in an effort to help raise money for those units.

“We’re trying to personalize our fundraising, and the best way we know to do that is to have a system where we can sort people by interests,” May said, adding that virtually any interest could be tracked in the new system.

With the current system, May said the Office of Development is only able to create highly personalized relationships with a small fraction of donors.