The Dog Days of Summer

Ah, the Dog Days of summer.  Someone used the term the other day to describe a particularly stifling day, and there might even have been a dog present.  As some of you will know, the term originally had more to do with astronomy (and tangentially with dogs) than the hot, lazy days of summer, but it always worked for me. At least at the writing of this newsletter (a week ago), it is indeed the dog days of summer in our northern hemisphere – that period that generally runs from early July to early August. Many of us have hopefully enjoyed some needed holiday time with family, friends, and perhaps a new family dog (a COVID thing, it seems). For me, the time always represents that juncture of summer winding down and fall thinking ramping up.    

As is evident from the last few newsletters, there is considerable planning underway for what will prove to be a unique fall for the Office of Advancement and Queen’s. Embracing the necessities of COVID, we will all strive to deliver meaningful and compelling programming for our constituents. On many fronts, it will be a fall of firsts, and Advancement Services is pleased to partner with our colleagues across Advancement on a broad slate of refreshed initiatives and ongoing programming.

While there are too many to mention effectively in this space, I would also like to share a few of the key initiatives we in Services have begun and will continue to refine through the fall. 

Gift Services: The team will continue to explore a number of timely projects such as refining the way we identify and recognize donors that donate through Donor Advised Funds, the continued evolution of our external-facing documentation to ensure ease of use and clarity, and the move to an increasingly paperless office. A key project for the team (with ITM) will involve updating interfaces with the university’s new payment vendor system (not announced as of this writing) and the new events module.     

ITM: The continued development of the iModules initiative will remain a consistent theme and focus for the team over the fall and beyond, as will the refinement and growth of our data and analytics environments. Our colleagues in ITM will also play key roles in major Queen’s initiatives such as the Cybersecurity Action Plan 2019-21 and the development of business needs for a new enterprise CRM for the institution.  

Research: This group will focus on the continued development and consolidation of enhanced self-service products for front-line officers including the Automated Profile Report, Pipeline Builder, and Briefcase visualizations. In addition, the team will review our existing clearance processes in light of the Forward, Together recommendations, explore philanthropic opportunities emerging from the Marts & Lundy survey, and continue to refine and expand support for the LAG, MG, and Principal Giving programs.

CASE-CCAE support of education survey

The CASE-CCAE Support of Education Survey, Canada is conducted by CASE in partnership with CCAE.  In its second year, Queen’s once again participated as one of 45 Canadian colleges, institutes, and universities.

Shortly, we will partner with CASE to receive an enhanced made-to-order report presenting data for our institution and a group of 5-10 peers from within the survey population. The highly interactive HTML file presents data on 15 variables, and enables users to change chart views, review underlying chart data, and download charts for use in presentations. Made-to-order reports include a 30-minute call to preview data and a one-hour "review call" in which an AMAtlas staff member walks the client and their team through the full report, identifying strategic questions and insights for discussion.

LiveAlumni update!

Have you checked out LiveAlumni lately? Our LiveAlumni partners regularly implement system enhancements that help us stay connected with our alumni's current employment information. Be sure to login and check out the most recent updates, including Quick Mapping, a visual display of relationships between alumni based upon their current employment data from LinkedIn. Once logged in, click on the People tab to learn more!

Your colleagues have now matched 13,000 profiles in LiveAlumni to Advance. With this influx of information, more than 57,000 profiles are linked to records in Advance. We will be populating missing LinkedIn URL's to records in Advance in mid-September. Thank you to all of our matchers for your hard work!  

Advancement Services will soon commence an initiative to use the information in LiveAlumni to find lost alumni, identify new prospects, and enhance our matching gift program. We hope to share more on our progress in the fall.

We would love to hear how you are making use of this tool in your role, please share your stories and insights with Corrine.

Jobs with Advancement

We need your recruitment help. Know great talent that would be a good addition to our team? If so, please promote the vacancy below with your networks and let’s find some amazing new team members.

Applications (including a cover letter and resume) must be submitted through CareerQ. For additional information on this posting, please reach out to either Katelyn, Carla, or the hiring manager for the position you are interested in.

Available Position:

Fun fact

Biosciences Phytotron 

The Department of Biology maintains a large T-shaped greenhouse on the roof of the BioSciences Complex, also known as the Phytotron. The facility, which dates from the construction of Earl Hall in 1966, contains hundreds of varieties of plants from all over the world. 

The greenhouse has three main sections: the largest of its rooms contains specimens used for teaching, another room holds research specimens and, in the stem of the "T," there are numerous "growth chambers" (containers, ranging from the size of a refrigerator to the size of a small room, to allow researchers to grow specimens in highly controlled conditions). There are also several growth chambers in the basement of the BioSciences Complex.