Oxford To Manage £1.25 billion Campaign with CRM

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 12/11/08

The University of Oxford has selected Blackbaud Enterprise CRM from Blackbaud Europe to support its global fundraising operations. In May the university, which has 38 independent colleges and six permanent private halls, launched what has been called the biggest fundraising campaign in European history, aiming to raise a minimum of £1.25 billion.

To assist with the successful delivery of The Campaign for the University of Oxford, the university has agreed to a detailed set of specifications due to the large scope of the project. All facets of Oxford will be working together to improve fundraising messaging, alumni relations, targeted marketing, data sharing, and reporting.

"We selected Blackbaud as our partner and Enterprise CRM as the database system, after a thorough international tendering process, because it provides us with a robust and functionally-rich solution for users across the collegiate university," said Sue Cunningham, director of development. "We were in particular need of a database that could deal with the key requirements of securing and coordinating data, a system large enough to facilitate the needs of our collegiate structure, and a strong Web presence for alumni and friends."

The Blackbaud deployment will enable all of the divisions of the university to gain a centralized view of constituents in real-time and from remote locations. Configurable security settings will address Oxford's need for role-based security parameters. Reporting and analysis tools will allow staff to access information in order to make better informed decisions, personalize interactions, and build stronger relationships with the university's 180,000 alumni and friends.

The vendor's software has also been used by Piedmont Baptist College and Graduate School in Winston-Salem, NC, The University of Arizona Foundation in Tucson, and the West Virginia University Foundation in Morgantown.