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"Millennium serves as our institutional memory. The software does the science, and lets the development team handle the art of fundraising."
-Bonnie Lightcap
Director of Advancement Services
Hood College
The blazers are a good name for Hood College's athletic teams, as the college has been blazing new trails in education for 113 years.
Hood College was founded in 1893 by the United Church of Christ to educated women below the Mason-Dixon line. Male students were admitted as commuters in 1971 and allowed to reside on campus in 2003, making the college fully coeducational. WOrking with their hearts and minds and hands, as the motto of the college enjoins them to do, Hood's 15,000+alumni have served their communities as scientists, teachters, lawyers, physicians and citizens.
Active Alumni
Hood has an especially active advancement services group, as alumni maintain strong ties to the college—and to one another. Their children and grandchildren return as students. Their donations keep Hood's heritage strong. A robust alumni and donor database is therefore essential.
"We used DOS-based software that had outlived its usefulness and had no relational database," says Bonnie Lightcap, director of advancement services. "A consultant pointed us to Millennium."
Making the Most of Millennium
Hood College uses Millennium to manage programs as diverse as alumni relations, giving, prospect recruitment and events. "Millennium serves as our institutional memory. It's our Number One tool. The software does the science, and lets the development team handle the art of fundraising," says Lightcap.
"All of our data is integrated in Millennium, providing us with in-depth profiles on constituents, no matter who logs into the system," she continues. "We can view contact information, giving history and even the names and ages of constituents' children. We know who visited with slumni, what they talked about, what direct mail literature they received, and whether they were contacted in the annual phonathon."
Easier Event Planning
Hood College relies heavily on Millennium for planning events. "Millennium tracks attendance for everything from small dinners with our president to large, multi-activity events like reunion weekends," says Lightcap. "The software monitors payments, records participants' arrival times, specifies seating at tables, plans lodging, and even logs meal choices made when people register."
Mailings for events and solicitations are much easier with the software. "Our mail house loves Millennium," explains Lightcap. "We simply send them a mailing list. If another office on campus needs labels, we can either ship them or send a file so they can run their own."
Reports for Blazers
"One of the things that attracted us the most to Millennium was the great number of supplied reports," says Lightcap. "These gave us a good jumping off point for creating our own reports. For example, we've created a weekly cross-tab report that details giving by sources such as alumni, parents, friends or corporation, each in a distinct column. Rows track the purposes of a gift-whether it's an unrestricted bequest, scholarship, or for a renovation or new athletic center."
Prospect managers also appreciate the software. "We create quick reports for prospect managers indicating who they need to see, the date of the last visit, amount given this year, and other management reports. This makes their jobs much easier," Lightcap says.
Creative Customization
Hood College has discovered several unique ways to use its software. "We track scholarships as constituents. Just like a donor, a scholarship has relationships with other elements in the system.
We use the Customer tool in Millennium to add fields to the relationship display, and indicate the amount awarded, who received the scholarship during various years, the market value of the award, and whether the student wrote a thank-you letter. It's a great stewardship tool," Lightcap notes.
It also tracks volunteers using an attributes table. "Each class has a fund agent, a volunteer responsible for soliciting classmates for the annual fund. THey might sign a letter, author an email, or send new donors a note of appreciation. We supply reports to volunteers telling them which classmates have not contributed and when they were last contacted, for more efficient efforts."
Cross-Campus Uses
Other departments frequently access records stored in Millennium. "Admissions staff uses our data to verify alumnae and alumni referrals. The Financial Aid staff access Millennium, since children and grandchildren of alumnae and alumni are eligible for a legacy scholarship. The career center, marketing and communications, the archives and the library find uses for our data as well," says Lightcap. "Millennium provides a service to the entire campus."
When budget tightening necessitated a reduction in staff for the Institutional Advancement division, the staff turned increasingly to Millennium. "Because Millennium made us so much more efficient, we were able to keep our gift income at stable levels, even with five fewer staff members," Light cap says.
Millennium has proved its worth at Hood College. "It's flexible and secure," Lightcap explains. "Frankly, I can't imaging running our department without it."
