My conversation this week was with Chris Cannon, one of higher ed’s real experts on the the machinery of advancement. From the St. Louis Science Center and Zoo to big CRM implementations to founding his own firm, the Generosity Collaborative, Chris has spent his career on data and operations. He even wrote the book on it. And his whole argument is that this back-office work is anything but.
Watch the full-length version on YouTube (60 minutes)
The moment I keep thinking about is from early in his career. A few weeks into a data job at the Science Center, he watched a school bus unload a crowd of kids into the free museum, and something clicked. One of them might catch a spark that day, go to college, change the whole arc of their life, and philanthropy is the engine that lets places like that exist. He still gets the chills. That is the person telling me “data is a big part of the relationship,” and he means it literally. Knowing a donor’s grandkid’s name years later is either instant rapport or instant deflation.
So why do we still treat the engagement side of the shop as an afterthought sometimes, with no one owning the analytics? And as AI absorbs the low-value work, will we spend the time it gives back on what matters? Chris is pragmatic to the core, but underneath it is something tender: getting one small detail right is how we honor a relationship over a lifetime.
Big Themes This Week
Data and operations are not back-office plumbing, they are part of the relationship itself.
Good data equals good relationship. Getting one detail right, like a grandkid’s name, is either instant rapport or instant deflation.
With AI, automate the high-volume, low-value work, but start with governance so you never expose your donor data.
Team Discussion Questions
Who actually owns engagement analytics on our team, and what happens if the answer is no one?
Are we using our current systems to their fullest before we go shopping for new ones?
What low-value work could we automate to free up time for the human moments?
Register for our Next Agora
Topic: Talent Development
Title: Starting With Yourself: Set Mini-Boundaries to Preserve Your Capacity
Date & Time: Thursday, July 16 from 12-1 pm ET.
Event Type: TED-style presentation plus small-group networking and discussion
Speaker: Ellen Whitlock Baker - Executive Coach and Leadership Consultant
