Aspire Award Winners 2026

Aspire Awards recognize and acknowledge the contributions to and achievements of advancement services professionals and teams who are trailblazing in search of solutions that will resolve some of the most complex challenges facing the advancement services industry.

Winners were announced and recognized at the 2026 Summit Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on September 23, 2026.

Categories & Award Winners

TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

Program or project must demonstrate an innovative solution utilizing today's technology to answer the profession's most complex problems.

Sapphire Awards:

Georgia Tech Foundation - Georgia Tech Foundation Donor Portal

The Georgia Tech Foundation Donor Portal, launched September 2024, gives donors secure self-service access to giving history, Roll Call status, athletic points, and impact reports through Georgia Tech's SSO. Built in-house on existing Blackbaud, Power BI, and Microsoft Fabric infrastructure by eight IT staff over 1,123 hours, the React-based platform launched within six months via phased beta testing with board members and major donors. Since launch, 8,770 unique users have logged in, support tickets have declined, and Roll Call engagement has driven renewed contributions. The portal has expanded to support Scheller alumni updates and Class Reunion Surveys, demonstrating scalable, replicable impact.

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University of Nebraska Foundation - PIM Copilot: Scaling Prospect Intelligence with Responsible Generative AI

PIM Copilot is a generative AI–assisted workflow developed by the University of Nebraska Foundation, with its trusted partner Esgenio, to help Prospect Information Managers (PIMs) scale contact report review while preserving data stewardship and professional judgment. Integrated directly into Blackbaud CRM, the solution drafts summaries, identifies potential follow‑up actions, and highlights report quality improvements while requiring human review and approval for all outputs. Designed with a human‑in‑the‑loop governance model, PIM Copilot improves consistency, reduces cognitive load, and reallocates time toward higher value analysis. The project demonstrates how advancement organizations can adopt AI responsibly to enhance operations without compromising trust, accountability, or data integrity.

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Diamond Award:

Pomona College - SageList, an AI Solution for List Requests

SageList is an AI-powered query platform that transforms how Advancement Services staff access donor and fundraising data. Instead of submitting requests and waiting days, staff ask questions in plain English and receive validated, executable queries in seconds. A proprietary dual-layer architecture ensures security: AI interprets user intent against live database metadata while a deterministic SQL engine guarantees the AI never generates unsafe queries. The platform supports constituent lists, gift analysis, fund exploration, segmented donor prioritization, and data enrichment workflows with FERPA-compliant audit trails, role-based access, and CSV export supporting 50,000 records. Built entirely in-house, SageList has democratized institutional data access.

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ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Program or project conceived of and implemented for a specific need, problem or challenge, and/or initiated to help meet institutional fundraising or campaign goals.

Sapphire Award:

Indiana University Foundation - ARLO: Transforming Advancement Support Through Centralized Service and Strategic Partnership

The Indiana University Foundation implemented ARLO to address inefficiencies in a decentralized advancement support structure. Serving more than 1,700 advancement staff and campus partners, ARLO provides a centralized service model integrating multi-channel intake, embedded expertise, knowledge management, and real-time inquiry tracking and analysis. The model standardizes support, improves consistency, and reduces reliance on informal communication pathways, allowing staff to focus more on donor engagement and strategic priorities. Through real-time inquiry analysis, ARLO has also informed onboarding and training improvements across IU Advancement. Since launch, ARLO has managed 2,000+ inquiries with a 4.9-star satisfaction rating and full organizational adoption.

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Diamond Award:

UC Berkeley - The URSA (University Resource System for Advancement) Expo

To address "new system phobia" surrounding UC Berkeley’s massive URSA (University Resource System for Advancement) data upgrade, we held a ‘URSA Expo’. Moving beyond static presentations, this high-energy "Open House" empowered project leads as "Station Owners" to showcase tangible progress over a year before launch. Using a gamified "Passport" system and five interactive zones—including a live Sandbox and "Ask an Analyst" station—we engaged over 300 stakeholders. Results were transformative: 95% of attendees explored every technical area, significantly reducing stakeholder anxiety. This low-cost, high-impact model turned a daunting technical transition into a shared community journey, fostering trust and excitement for the future.

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PROSPECT DEVELOPMENT

Program or project conceived of and implemented for a specific need, problem, or challenge.

Sapphire Award:

California Institute of Technology - "Welcome, Neighbor" Greeting Card Campaign

In 2025, Prospect Development and staff from the Caltech Associates (a philanthropic membership group) partnered to creatively expand membership recruitment. The “Welcome, Neighbor” campaign was conceived to invite recent homebuyers in the local affluent areas surrounding Caltech to consider membership by receiving a greeting card welcoming them to the community and introducing them to the Associates. By combining our in-house prospect research and marketing strategy expertise, we unlocked a new prospect discovery pool and identified a perpetually renewable source of prospective major and principal giving donors for the Associates. Return on investment for this campaign so far is approximately 1700%.

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Diamond Award

University of British Columbia - Connecting the Dots: Relationship Intelligence at Scale

The UBC Network Satellite (UBCNS) transforms the relationship intelligence behind UBC’s prospecting and fundraising strategy. Built entirely in-house, this interactive tool illuminates hidden connections across 500,000+ constituents by encoding relationship data from shared academic programs, board affiliations, Greek life, athletics, and giving history. The results speak for themselves: 9 million relationship pairs mapped (a 1,527% increase), 82% less time spent uncovering links, and zero incremental spend. With rich network intelligence at their fingertips, researchers can now surface prospects and unlock warm pathways within minutes, making the UBCNS a cornerstone of UBC’s prospecting and cultivation workflow.

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GIFT ADMINISTRATION & DATA SERVICES

Program or project conceived of and implemented for a specific need, problem, or challenge.

Sapphire Award:

California Institute of Technology – Webbster: Driving Excellence in Data Management

Webbster is an enterprise documentation and data governance platform developed by Caltech’s Data and Business Intelligence (DBI) unit to centralize business rules, procedures, and project documentation across Advancement Services. Previously, documentation was fragmented across manuals, shared drives, and institutional knowledge, creating risks in version control, business rule inconsistency, and onboarding difficulties. Built on MediaWiki, Webbster replaces static documentation with a dynamic, collaborative platform that embeds governance through structured review and approval processes. The result is a scalable, searchable system that improves team efficiency, strengthens data management operations, and supports consistent application of business rules across reporting and database operations.

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DONOR RELATIONS & STEWARDSHIP

Program or project conceived of and implemented for a specific need, problem, or challenge.

Sapphire Awards:

Emory University – Reimagining Key Stewardship Partnerships Through Intelligent Automation

Following a CRM conversion, Emory University identified a stewardship gap: highly engaged faculty partners no longer had timely visibility into giving activity tied to their areas. Advancement Systems partnered with Donor Relations to design and implement a fully automated Salesforce Marketing Engagement solution delivering privacy-protected daily gift and pledge notifications without expanding CRM access or licensing costs. The initiative modernized a previously manual process into a scalable, trackable stewardship model that strengthened donor engagement, improved collaboration between Advancement and faculty partners, and enabled measurable participation tracking. Built entirely with existing tools and governance safeguards, the program established a sustainable framework for stewardship at scale.

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Occidental College - A Model for Multi-Channel Automated Donor Journeys: The First-Time Donor Use Case

Occidental College created a multi-channel automated donor journey to engage first-time donors who previously received little outreach after their initial gift. It contains four touchpoints over eleven months: a presidential welcome letter, a student impact email, a handwritten student postcard, and a student-produced video. Built collaboratively across multiple campus offices using Salesforce automation, the program removes manual tracking and scales easily as a blueprint for other segmented donor journeys.

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PARTNERSHIP

Program or project conceived of and implemented by partnering with an external entity in an exemplary way to advance your organization’s mission.

Sapphire Awards:

Rollins College - Building a Custom Volunteer Management Portal for Rollins College

At Rollins College, we had a big problem: volunteer management was happening across the college through a myriad of forms and processes with no central entry point for alumni. Volunteer managers in different divisions were working in silos. Due to budget constraints, we couldn’t purchase a volunteer management product from the market. Instead, by partnering with other campus divisions, Institutional Advancement led a coalition that built a single interactive signup form along with a custom volunteer management portal in Slate Advancement.

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Award Determination 

Determination for the Sapphire Award is made based on Jury selection using criteria evaluating achievement and/or excellence of the program/project submitted as well as contributions to the profession.

Determination for the Diamond Award is made based on Jury selection using criteria evaluating the program or project submitted that exhibited the highest level of excellence.