The Student Outreach Tracker is a custom-built tool within Boston University’s donor database (Blackbaud CRM) that automates the process of requesting and tracking submissions of thank you letters from students receiving donor-funded scholarships. Building on past projects between BU’s stewardship and donor relations team and development and alumni relations applications team, the tool uses filters, smart fields, and variable language options to pull information about donor-established scholarships, the donors themselves, and the student recipients to send customized emails requesting thank you notes. It also allows the SDR team to prioritize outreach by donor rating, track student submissions, and identify funds that have not yet been awarded.
From the Judges
Institutions that are experiencing success in securing scholarship support are challenged to communicate personally with a growing number of scholarship donors. The committee appreciated that Boston University built this solution using its own internal resources. The end product could be replicated at other organizations to accomplish outreach that is typically very time consuming and challenging to manage. The ability to personalize emails and make the entire process more robust for the students being contacted was also particularly noteworthy.
