Wednesday and Thursday, July 21–22, 2010

Program highlights:

• Networking opportunities to exchange ideas and share experiences with peers and colleagues
• Best practices for leading results-oriented data mining and analytical projects
• Understanding how to navigate the changing economic environment from data analytic perspective
• Data mining applications interpreted in context of today’s fundraising environment
• Practical applications of concepts of analytical perspectives to development challenges in the current economy
• Resources, services and publications
• Two educational tracks: fundamental and intermediate/advanced

Symposium tracks:

Fundamental 
Understand the life-cycle of data analytics from start to finish. The fundamental track is perfect for professionals new to data mining and analytics, looking to build a more robust program, or to learn the ropes from peers. Gain a solid grounding in the goals, methods and approaches to data mining in an accessible format. Learn how to ask penetrating questions to guide critical data review, and understand how it can be applied to prospecting databases and operational goals.

Intermediate/Advanced 
Spur innovation and drive strategy! The intermediate/advanced track will present sessions designed to inspire new ways of thinking and elevate your role within fundraising. In-depth case studies of effective applications of data analytics, such as statistical methods for prospect identification, management and modeling, will be presented. Practical applications of these methods will be showcased.

Note: The Data Analytics Symposium runs through Thursday, July 22. Attending this symposium will not allow you to attend Thursday’s Conference; the Data Analytics education track will not begin sessions until Friday, July 23. See the Conference registration form for fees. Lunch will not be provided on Wednesday. Attendees are encouraged to participate in the Roundtable Networking Luncheon on Thursday.

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Wednesday, July 21

	Fundamental	Intermediate/Advanced
9:30am – 10:15am	Strategy. Collaboration. Results: An Analytics Odyssey
10:30am – 11:45am	Introduction to Data Analytics for Fundraising: It Is What It Is	Lifetime Value: Quantifying Expectations Using the Past
11:45am – 1:30pm	Lunch (on your own)
1:30pm – 2:45pm	Homegrown Predictive Modeling: It's Not As Bad As You Think	Understanding Movement: Techniques for Estimating Upcoming Prospects
3:00pm – 4:15pm	All About Data: Understanding and Preparing Your Data for Mining Success	Increasing Revenue While Decreasing Cost: Keys to Implementing Predictive Analytics

Strategy. Collaboration. Results: An Analytics Odyssey 
Rob Scott, Executive Director of Development, Massachussetts Institute of Technology
How far have we come, and how far do we have to go? What are the proven approaches, novel questions and far-out conjectures that analysts are engaging to push the envelope in support of philanthropic endeavors? How do we, adrift amid oceans of data, remain faithful to our institutional goals and not end up distracted by attractive tangents or shipwrecked on treacherous shoals? Join a community of fellow researchers and analysts as they tackle these issues and more, and kick off the third annual APRA Data Analytics Symposium.

Introduction to Data Analytics for Fundraising: It Is What It Is
Deborah Reindardt Youmans, Director, Advancement Research, LeMoyne College 
Lean resources have led many non-profits to increase the roles and responsibilities of those in prospect research, advancement services, and information technology into hybrid positions that demand new and immediate results. If your organization now looks to you to provide information that includes prospect segmentation, awareness of the best potential prospects, predictive behavior of loyal donors, and the identification of annual, major gift and planned giving individuals for immediate engagement and pipeline entry for development portfolios, this session has been developed with you in mind.
This introductory session will cover the basic principles, terminology and concepts related to data mining and data analytics to prepare you for active participation and learning in the following introductory Symposium sessions, to prepare you with examples of how to immediately apply these concepts to infuse your organization with necessary information, and to prepare you to return to your organization positioned as a true asset and partner in fundraising strategies.

Lifetime Value: Quantifying Expectations Using the Past 
Michelle Paladino, Senior Data Analyst, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center 
Lifetime value is a common technique used by many industries to quantify a customer’s expected future value to an organization based on past behavior of similar people. These values can be used to compare segments based on acquisition source, age, geography and other factors. Estimating how much today's donor will be worth in the future is a helpful tool for guiding fundraising priorities and determining appropriate amounts to invest in acquiring different groups. The presenter will outline how Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center used relatively simple Excel calculations and basic giving data such as retention rates, average amounts, and planned and major gift likelihoods, to determine expected future values for donors.

Homegrown Predictive Modeling 101: It’s Not as Bad as You Think
David Robertson, Director of Operations Research, Office of Institutional Advancement, Syracuse University
How would you like to be able to turn on (literary) a predictive modeling and forecasting tool hidden deep within the recesses of Microsoft Excel? This session examines the basic analytical functions and formula already available to you in Microsoft Excel that drives all predictive and forecasting models. Attendees will walk away with a groundwork of basic linear and multiple regression theory and methodology. You will come to understand that predictive modeling is NOT rocket science and walk away armed with the tools to begin predictive modeling Monday morning, I guarantee it!

Understanding Movement: Techniques for Estimating Upcoming Prospects 
Marianne Pelletier Director, Advancement Research and Data Support, Cornell University
Join this session with Marianne Pelletier to explore indicators of movement from snapshot data. Learn indexing gift dates, estimating timelines, and finding characteristics of future major gift donors. Different data mining tools will be demonstrated.

All About Data: Understanding and Preparing Your Data for Mining Success 
Elizabeth Crabtree, Director of Prospect Development, Brown University
Marianne Pelletier Director, Advancement Research and Data Support, Cornell University
When starting a data mining study, we often get frustrated by a lack of data in our database or figuring out how best to use what is available right now and how to improve upon it for the future. In this session, we explore different ways of looking at and calculating data commonly available, how to set the groundwork for improving internal data collection, and what types of external data is available from both free and paid sources that can be appended to your file. Real world case studies and examples will be shared that illustrate how enriched data can be manipulated and expanded over time to support powerful data mining capabilities that produce successful outcomes in fundraising programs.

Increasing Revenue while Decreasing Cost: Keys to Implementing Predictive Analytics 
John Blackwell, Partner and Co-Founder, Gordian Analytics
Tracy DeCanio, Partner and Co-Founder, Gordian Analytics
An analysis of the benefits of predictive modeling in direct marketing and major gift fundraising as well as a review of the dangers associated with common data mining mistakes. The presentation will detail examples of how to make sure that your predictive modeling efforts are successful, specifically:

• Why some models do not work
• What makes a model successful
• How to measure success

Most fundraising organizations have used predictive analytics, some have done so successfully, others not - this presentation will help you to avoid the mistakes of the latter and emulate the success of the former.  Even in the current economic climate all organizations can benefit from successfully implementing predictive analytics.

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Thursday, July 22

	Fundamental	Intermediate/Advanced
9:00am – 9:30am	Finding Hidden Wealth Through Analytics
9:30am – 10:45am	Prospect Identification: Evolving From Building Blocks to Automation
11:00m – 12:15pm	Model Implementation and Evaluation	Using Survey Data in Your Models
12:30pm – 2:00pm	Networking Activity and Lunch
2:15pm – 3:30pm	Visualization Techniques for Data Exploration and Communication	Prospecting in Exotic Data
3:45pm – 4:30pm	Closing Discussion

Finding Hidden Wealth Through Analytics 
Tony Glowacki, CEO, WealthEngine
Sameer Kasargod, Head of Analytics, WealthEngine 
Sure, Los Angeles is “home to the stars”, but did you know that Los Angeles is the largest manufacturing center in the U.S.? How about the concentration of private business owners in Texas? Did you know that people in Richmond, Virginia are highly philanthropic? Or, that since World War II, the Washington DC metropolitan area has consistently had the highest level of hidden wealth? Join WealthEngine’s CEO, Tony Glowacki, and Head of Analytics, Sameer Kasargod, to learn how mining economic, business and other types of data can help you uncover hidden wealth inside and outside of your prospect database.

Prospect Identification: Evolving from Building Blocks to Automation 
Kate Chamberlain, Director, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center 
Prospect identification is the bread and butter of any analytics program. It is a measurable test of the use of predictive modeling to generate fundraising results, and is often the first project attempted to test the idea. Using Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's major gift prospect identification process as a case study, the presenter will trace its evolution from the building of their first major gift model to the highly-automated system currently in place. This will demonstrate how much can be achieved with simple tools and imperfect data, and follow the path of progress toward higher complexity, cleaner data and increased automation. Along the way, the presenter will show how these processes are built out of deeply collaborative relationships between analysts, prospect researchers and IT.

Model Implementation and Evaluation
Josh Birkholz, Principal, Bentz Whaley Flessner
So you’ve built a new model or purchased scores from a provider, what do you do now? This session will describe practical steps for implementing predictive modeling results. Gain insights for prospect development strategy, approaches for segmentation and techniques for evaluating model impact.

Using Survey Data in Your Models 
Kevin MacDonell, Annual Giving Officer, Dalhousie University
This session explores the powerful predictive value inherent in survey data gathered by institutions, usually to serve purposes other than data mining. The primary focus is on one Canadian university's participation in a national benchmarking study of alumni engagement. Points covered include survey design, survey delivery and using the resulting data in regression analysis, including some specific examples of predictors and simple approaches for dealing with missing data.

Visualization Techniques for Data Exploration and Communication
Kate Chamberlain, Campaign Strategic Research, Director, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Any analytics professional will tell you that not all data mining is statistics. A large component of every data mining project is exploratory and preparatory — knowing and manipulating your data to produce the best file for predictive modeling. The speaker will discuss data visualization, a range of techniques that Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center uses daily to explore its database and engage managers in productive conversations about project results and implications for development strategy.

Prospecting in Exotic Data 
Chuck McClenon, Fundraising Scientist, The University of Texas at Austin 
Since 2002, the University of Texas development operation has built, bought, begged and borrowed data representing the gamut of human behavior in the academy, the home and the marketplace. The analytics team and prospect research team work in partnership. While the researchers pride themselves on quality, the analytics team lives with quantity, churning millions of observations in search of predictors for philanthropic behavior. There are markers to be found in airplane and pet ownership, aerobic exercise, e-mail click thrus, job titles, neighborhood demographics, keywords in contact reports, election contributions, and, of course, gift history. The session will be a tour of data sources, statistical techniques for wringing meaning out of them, and a few surprising conclusions. Yes, runners give more than walkers; cat owners give more to the arts, while dog owners favor athletics.

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Program faculty:

Josh Birkholz
Joshua M. Birkholz is a principal at Bentz Whaley Flessner, where he oversees consulting services in development operations and the analytics division, DonorCast. He has built data mining programs and ushered organizational change for leading non-profits in higher education, healthcare, the arts, advocacy, and social service sectors throughout the United States and beyond. His thought leadership in creative, data-driven strategies for fundraising is evident in his many speaking engagements and published work, most notably, in his sought-after book, Fundraising Analytics. Birkholz earned his Bachelor of Arts from Concordia University-St. Paul and his Master of Arts in arts administration from St. Mary's University of Minnesota.

John Blackwell
John Blackwell is the Associate Director of Business Analytics at The Nature Conservancy, where he works to increase the efficiency of their direct marketing programs through predictive analytics and by increasing the availability of critical and actionable business information to decision-makers. Blackwell has extensive experience in data warehouse design, data mining and SAS business intelligence products. Blackwell has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia and an Masters in Information Systems Technology from George Washington University.

Elizabeth Crabtree
Elizabeth Crabtree is the Director of Prospect Development at Brown University, where she manages a team of professionals who provide advice, counsel and analytical support to several areas critical to Brown’s fundraising effort, including campaign planning and management, prospect identification and research, data mining, modeling and market research, relationship management and volunteer engagement. Previously, Crabtree held senior development positions with Northern Illinois University, Benedictine University, College of DuPage and the Digital Schoolhouse Foundation. Before her work in the nonprofit sector, she spent eight years working as a marketing director and senior analyst in the consumer products and manufacturing industries and six years in arts management as a talent/music agent. Her expertise spans the areas of corporate, foundation and government relations, marketing and business development, communications, and program and volunteer management.

Crabtree is a member of AFP, CASE and NEDRA as well as a frequent, nationally recognized speaker, and philanthropy and nonprofit research consultant. She was chair of the 2005 and 2006 APRA International Conferences in San Diego and Orlando. Crabtree is a graduate of Berklee College of Music and is an Executive M.A. candidate in the philanthropic studies program at Indiana University.

Kate Chamberlin
Kate Chamberlin leads a small analytics group at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. She came to Sloan- Kettering in fall 2006 from Columbia University, where she was a research analyst and writer for the university’s corporate and foundation relations office. Chamberlin has also served as an events manager for Columbia’s principal gifts group, and a grant writer at Arts Horizons, a small arts education agency. She holds a bachelor’s degree in theater directing and design from Dartmouth College, and an MBA focusing on economics and strategy from Columbia Business School.

Kevin MacDonell
Kevin MacDonell has been a prospect researcher at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia since 2005. For several years he has been learning data mining and predictive modeling techniques while at the same time promoting their use to researchers at other universities. He has been an APRA-Canada board member since January 2007, serving as treasurer. He is the author of a blog called CoolData, a resource for non-technical discussions of data and data mining topics in university advancement settings.

Chuck McClenon
Chuck McClenon arrived at the University of Texas at Austin in 1975 and earned a PhD in linguistics, dabbling in the nascent technology of pattern recognition. After a year teaching in english in China, he returned to UT to work in administrative information management, searching for patterns and meaning in data ranging from student course registrations to library book titles to the bit-paths of room keys. He joined the advancement operation as an IT manager in 1996 at the start of UT’s first comprehensive capital campaign. After a brief tour of duty managing the gift processing and donor records operation, he retired to a cave and immersed himself in phonathon results and gift officer contact reports. He has been acquiring, constructing, managing and analyzing data representing the full spectrum of advancement activity. Since 2006, he has held the official title of Fundraising Scientist.

Michelle Paladino
Michelle Paladino is part of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s growing analytics group. She develops predictive models and applies other advanced techniques to analyze donor behavior and measure program performance. Previously, Paladino was one of the one of the Center’s fundraising officers. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public policy from New York University.

Marianne Pelletier
Marianne Pelletier has been in the fundraising field since 1988. She has served as a researcher for Harvard and Lesley Universities, as a data management and implementation consultant for the Datatel Corporation, as a Director of Annual Giving and Development Services for Southern New Hampshire University, and as a Director of Advancement Research for both Carnegie Mellon University and Cornell University. Pelletier is president of the Upstate New York chapter of APRA International, and is also newsletter editor of her local handspinning guild. She has a bachelor's degree from Rockford College and an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University.

David Robertson
David Robertson is Director of Operations Research at Syracuse University. He has been at SU for 7 years. His area of expertise is in data mining with a strong interest in forecasting and predictive modeling. He continues to present statistical methods and modeling at APRA and CASE conferences throughout the US. Robertson has a BS and MBA from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY where he teaches statistics and business management strategy as an adjunct professor in the Business Department. He is currently a doctoral student in the Social Science Ph.D. Program within the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. His research examines the unrecognized and informal charitable contributions of the underrepresented; focusing on the philanthropic activities of disenfranchised or marginalized members of society. Currently his doctoral research investigates New York State migrant farmworkers and their charitable contributions within their temporary micro-communities as well as their charitable contributions offered to their ancestral homeland. He utilizes both qualitative and quantitative approaches as well as visual ethnography.

Deborah Reinhardt Youmans
Deborah Reinhardt Youmans, CFRE, director for advancement research, has worked in academics and fundraising for over 20 years. A current APRA Board Member, serving on the Education and Professional Development Committee, she is former president of the APRA-Upstate New York Chapter and former board member for the New England Development Research Association. Serving in numerous capacities in the research community, she is a member of the National Association for Fund Raising Professionals, CNY Association for Fund Raising Professionals, National Committee on Planned Giving, and the Planned Giving Council of UNY. Deborah has presented at numerous local, regional and national conferences for APRA, AFP, JAA, NEDRA and CASE, earning her repeated faculty stars from participant evaluations. She teaches “Philanthropic Perspectives and Generational Differences” as a college-level elective and offers pro-bono services for select non-profit agencies. Reinhardt Youmans has an MBA from Le Moyne College, a BS in business adminstration and BA in psychology from Columbia College.

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