Best of CASE District II Award
 

Institution: University of Ottawa

Title of entry: Prime Unit Instead of Prime Faculty

About this entry: For decades uOttawa and other universities have relied on Prime Faculty to help segment alumni not only for alumni relations, but for solicitation as well. This model has numerous drawbacks: it fails to recognize the true philanthropic tendencies of the donor, it fails to show these tendencies as nuanced and multifaceted, it enforces territorial sentiments among faculty fundraisers toward their grads, and as a result raises fewer dollars because potential donors are not properly matched to their interests and the right fundraisers. But using a Prime Unit algorithm that refreshes all constituents every 24 hours, our BI system is able to more accurately present the philanthropic tendencies of each constituent based on the fund unit that they support or are likely to support. The algorithm presents the top 3 unit affinities – levels 1 (highest), 2, and 3. If there is a tie at one of the levels, more than one unit is displayed for that level. The attached document provides a high-level overview of how the algorithm determines philanthropic unit affinities.