aasp 2024: From Beignets to Breakthroughs

What an amazing week in New Orleans for Liz Murray, Sarah Cronin and me. We are back in the office and ready to share some insights from the Association of Advancement Services Professionals (aasp) annual conference.

Our week at aasp was full of yummy food (including all the beignets you could eat), great educational sessions, joyful connections with past and present clients, bracelet making with new friends and, of course, puppy cuddling. (3 Cheers for “Paws for a Break” with a local rescue organization)

If we could sum up this conference in a one-word takeaway, it would be “change.” From an opening keynote on understanding change as leaders to multiple sessions on implementation, it seemed like the unofficial theme for the year was surviving transformative change. We talked to so many of you who were working through your own big changes from upgrading your gift processing practices to implementing new CRM systems to tackling challenges with new team members.

Along with client Molly McColgan, Director of Gift Operations for Baylor College of Medicine, JCA shared our own experiences with navigating long-term change during Baylor’s 4-year switch to Blackbaud CRM.

If you missed our “Navigating your Horizon” session, no worries! Here’s a quick recap where we shared 5 survival strategies for balancing short-term wins with long term vision during a major transformation process. You can also view a copy of the slides here.

1. Understand where you are today and where you want to go.  Before plowing forward into change, it’s often best to step back and reaffirm strategic goals, assess what’s working and what’s not, and determine what’s in your control to change and what’s not. Spoiler alert – you may be the problem, not your technology. Knowing your gaps and issues helps prepare your team to approach change.
2. Prioritize and create a roadmap.  Determine your most urgent needs versus ones that can wait awhile. Start identifying what resources you have and what you may need. Molly’s advice – if you lack the staffing capacity to tackle change effectively, then start the hiring process immediately, because growing a team takes time. In the meantime, it’s OK to leverage external resources or consultants to help move your project along.
3. Invest in data quality.  A systems change is a great catalyst for getting data in tip top shape. This can be a long process with its own roadmap and backlog list. Also, know that data conversion and new system design will uncover other pesky little data cleanup projects you may not have anticipated. Baylor’s data cleansing effort started in 2021 before they selected a new system. It’s still ongoing.
4. Plan to iterate and (strategically) embrace stopgap solutions.  On the journey of major change, we can’t always wait until we’re in our new system to solve problems. Sometimes we’ve got to put stop-gap solutions in place that help us meet short-term goals – like having useful reporting. Baylor used temporary solutions to facilitate prospect management and event management. They may not have been perfect, but they got the job done. They also doubled down on formalizing processes around gift-entry. Tackling that in the current system ahead of their switch gave them a significant head start in being prepared for the new system.
5. Accept that even the best laid plans will change.  Even when you have plenty of time to plan and prepare for a system change, stuff happens. Staff members leave, deadlines aren’t always met, and team members change their minds. It’s all part of the process, and you can be prepare by making sure you have a detailed scope of work with each vendor and a clearly defined minimum viable product plan.

We hope our tips help you in your process of change. And if you feel like your ship may be sinking, we are here to help! Bon voyage and best wishes as you navigate to your horizon. We can’t wait to see you next year at Reno!