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Development

You and your colleagues in the development office understand the concept of “return on investment.” With Eduventures, you can maximize your return on investment.

As part of our Development Knowledge Community, your efforts will be driven by new ideas, investment decisions, smart allocation of resources, and effective professional development opportunities. Watch your productivity soar as you gain access to our research, data, expertise, and clear recommendations for success.

The Development Knowledge Community will empower you with the support, resources, and backing that you need to accomplish key goals:

  • Engage board members and institutional leaders: Make the case for staff and budget resources, increase philanthropic involvement of volunteers, deans, and faculty, and define campaign priorities and goals.
  • Shape management practices: Set gift officer performance goals, define and track key operational metrics, and address training, job design, and staff retention issues.
  • Cultivate and solicit more effectively, especially among young alumni: Develop an effective young alumni strategy aligned with preferences of the next generation while maintaining strong connections with all alumni.
  • Educate staff and generate new ideas: Stimulate discussion about innovative practices, pressure-test ideas before investing in new programming or organizational changes, and train development staff on best ways to partner with deans.

The analysts and experts in our Development Knowledge Community regularly publish research, reports, and data-driven findings, including:

  • Annual State of Philanthropy in Higher Education
  • Alumni Pulse: Drivers of Alumni Giving and Engagement
  • Managing Returns on Advancement Investments: Key Performance Indicators
  • Donor Stewardship Survey
  • Non-Donor Survey
  • Compensation Benchmarks
  • Gift Officer Goal-Setting Tool
  • Employee Engagement Survey

Insights Agenda


Here's what we'll explore in 2013 »

Meet Our Principal Analyst


Cara A. Quackenbush
Principal Analyst, Development

  • An advancement professional with more than a decade of fundraising, accounting, management, and marketing experience at institutions of higher education.

  • Experience spans annual giving, major giving, volunteer management, alumni engagement, parent fundraising, and planned giving.

  • A frequent presenter at industry conferences and events, including CASE, and her work has been published in CASE Currents.

  • Prior to joining Eduventures, Cara was the Associate Director of Gift Planning at Boston College, where she helped launch the university’s $1.5 billion capital campaign as well as its first-ever legacy gift campaign.

  • Cara also worked in both the annual fund and the office of planned giving at her alma matter, Santa Clara University, where she earned her B.A. in journalism. Cara holds an MBA and an MS in accounting from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.
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