Discovery Sessions
Process
Stakeholders
- Development Staff
- Alumni, Donors and Friends that serve on UT Committees
Committees are formal groups of alumni, donors, and friends that support UT’s academic, social, strategic, or fundraising initiatives. Committee participation is recorded in ANDI to track an individual’s engagement with the university. Campuses and colleges/units are responsible for the creation and management of committees in ANDI.
When a committee is created, the responsible unit must request a committee code be created in ANDI by Central Advancement Services. After the committee code is created, designated staff members can then add and update committee membership. There is special ANDI access required to make these changes, and access is provided based on job responsibilities or upon request.
Committee membership can be added to an entity record from the Committee screen in the Alumni Engagement menu. A committee code, membership status, and a start date are required. Once a membership row with the status of “current” is added, the committee membership will display on the right side of the entity overview and the entity will show up on the member list on the committee overview. When the committee member’s term ends, the responsible staff member must update the committee row with a “former” status and a stop date. There is no automation in committee membership, meaning status and start/stop dates must be updated manually.
ANDI users can pull a list of committee members from the lookup screen. UTFI Business Intelligence has also created a committee dashboard to measure committee membership, member giving participation, and other metrics. Committee membership currently affects alumni engagement scores, as well.
Committee management in ANDI presents several challenges. There is no simple way to see a list of active members. Membership updates must be made record by record. There is no way to attach ownership or responsibility to a committee, making it difficult to determine sometimes what unit or staff member is working with the committee and members. The most holistic view of committees is on the dashboard, but updates cannot be made directly from the dashboard. Additionally, any updates made in ANDI won’t reflect on the dashboard until the next day. There is also very little information about the committee in ANDI. There is no ability to denote the purpose or responsibility of the committee (alumni board, donor board, academic advisory board, special interest board, etc.). There are no details listed about the criteria for the board – who is eligible, how members join, term lengths, etc.
Opportunities
Holistic Management: Create a committee overview that allows Central Services to assign a dedicated staff member to manage a committee. Once assigned, development staff can view active committee members, former committee members, and relevant details for the committee. Allow authorized staff to update active membership from the committee overview, pull a list of information on committee members, and add relevant details about the committee. Allow development staff to be assigned to committees for which they are responsible. Allow the ability to create committee meetings and mark which members attended.
Expand Description and Key Data Fields: Make it easier to include important information about a committee on the committee overview page. This includes the general purpose of the committee, membership conditions, meeting schedules, associated allocations, and other relevant data.
Expand Participation Coding: Add additional coding to denote different types of committee participants. Some members participate as an individual, but membership also includes UT faculty/staff and industry representatives. Clarifying participation types will allow users to track all committee participants. This can also be beneficial when calculating giving participation totals, especially for boards with industry representatives.