Need Data? The Fund Can Help
If you did not already know, the Michigan Tech Fund does a lot more for the University than solicit and collect charitable contributions. One of these important tasks is to manage the data that we collect on our 100,000 alumni, friends and supporters. The data entry and information services staff here at the Fund are in charge of this data, and it is no simple task to keep it organized and useful.
There is a laundry list of services available to University staff through the Michigan Tech Fund's Information Services Department. We can produce a list of constituents based on virtually any criteria. Want to contact all of the ME alumni who graduated before 1990 living within a 50-mile radius of Grand Rapids? No problem! How about a list of former Tech athletes living in the Midwest that you can use for invitations to a reunion? We can do that too!
All of these things sound great, but they are not possible without your help. While we have some information on all of our constituents, some of our data is outdated, and for some constituents we don't even know which state they currently live in. In order to provide you with the best data services, we need to have accurate information coming in. We strongly encourage everyone on campus to notify the Michigan Tech Fund whenever you have contact with alumni or friends.
If you produce a mailing, let us know who you contact so we can keep track of who has been contacted by whom. This will prevent sending multiple pieces of similar mail to the same person, making both the constituent and the University happy. It also lets you easily see who you have contacted. This will allow you to see how effective your mailings are, and make follow-up contacts to the same group very easy. After you contact constituents, let us know of returned mail or updated addresses and phone numbers so we can update the database. This will save you money on returned mail for future contacts and allow you to reach more constituents.
One of the most important benefits of the Michigan Tech Fund's Information Services department is that they take the burden of data management away from the individual departments. We can keep track of contact information and mailing preferences so you don't have to. With one group of people keeping track of the data, it allows us to make sure that everyone gets what they need accurately and quickly. If everyone continues to work together, we can utilize our data to its fullest potential.
To report updates, get mailing lists, or for more information on how the Michigan Tech Fund can work for your department, contact Mary Jane Lowney, director of information services, at mjlowney@mtu.edu or 487-2312.