Franklin College’s Senior Director of Advancement Services and Analytics Adam Dunigan was named one of Almabase’s “50 Under 50,” recently. Almabase is an alumni management and fundraising platform that empowers alumni teams across schools, colleges and universities to increase their alumni engagement without growing their resources. The recognition celebrates an exclusive group of advancement professionals at educational institutions across the United States, and how their work has created value-driven relationships with alumni.
Dunigan, a 2009 graduate of Franklin College, was nominated by a colleague for the honor due to his invaluable contributions to enrich the college’s alumni database, his expertise in creating remarkable custom data reports/dashboards, his creativity in finding innovative ways to measure alumni engagement beyond the conventional metrics such as email open rates and event participation, and his strategic creation of automated processes which have helped the entire team replace manual efforts, saving time and money for the college.
“Adam is most deserving of this award, and his colleagues here at Franklin College – myself included – could not be prouder of this most recent accomplishment,” said Dana S. Cummings, CFRE, vice president of institutional advancement. “Adam’s contributions to the Institutional Advancement team at the college are significant, but his presence is felt across campus, as well. The work Adam does as senior director of advancement services and analytics is foundational for the rest of the team, contributing strategy, data management, and reporting that helps guide decision-making at the highest levels. In addition, he is a team player across campus, regularly serving on committees and project teams that are advancing some of the college’s most significant initiatives. At Franklin College, we have long known about and appreciated Adam’s many and varied talents, but it’s wonderful to see him recognized within our industry, as well.”
In addition to the individual accolade, Franklin College announced it has been awarded two bronze 2023 Circle of Excellence Awards by The Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the national organization for advancement professionals.
The first award, in the category of Marketing/Advertising (online), was in recognition of the college’s Spotify advertising campaign, which ran from Nov. 17 to Dec. 15, 2022. In an effort to create brand awareness and increase the college’s presence in nearby markets, the digital audio advertisement was created utilizing the campus recording studio and in-house talent for ad production.
The judges were impressed with the creative and resourceful approach, commenting, “The campaign demonstrated a strategic use of digital audio advertising to enhance brand awareness and expand their presence in target markets. By leveraging Spotify’s reach and utilizing their own resources, they created a warm and engaging ad with a testimonial from a current student. The impressive reach, high percentage of listeners completing the ad, and above-average click-through rate showcased the campaign’s success. Franklin College’s innovative approach, utilization of limited resources, and the tangible impact on campus visits, applications and enrollments made it stand out among the nominations.”
The second award, in the category of Advancement Services/Data and Analytics, recognized the college’s “Creating Advanced Fundraising Analytics with Power BI” submission. This creative and resourceful approach allows the Institutional Advancement team to access its own unique and custom metrics, including accounting for soft credits, tracking GOLD (graduates of the last decade) participation, major giving analytics, giving society progress and more nuanced data on acquisition, retention and recapture metrics.
The judges were captivated with the results, remarking, “Excellent method for ensuring correctness by comparing results with NXT and, when that wasn’t possible, downloading results to Excel and computing them that way. Display provides simple statistics. AMAZING analysis of the giving band! Also the fun phone access! We love the Siri application, and phone access is wonderful. The offered solutions are well thought out and will benefit other organizations; numerous significant data-driven judgments are underlined in the screen pictures. Stunning dashboard. It possesses all of the necessary components to quickly become the Viz of the Day.”
