Empowering Philanthropy Through Tech

Challenge

As the philanthropic arm of a state-funded university, The Campanile Foundation plays a critical role in supporting institutional priorities, bridging state budget cycles, and driving long-term financial sustainability at San Diego State.

With hundreds of thousands of alumni, the foundation’s mission to engage and inspire donors at scale presented both an opportunity and a challenge. Limited staffing capacity and manual fundraising processes made it difficult to reach all potential supporters effectively.

“The role of philanthropy is really taking a bigger and bigger role on campus helping smooth over the cycles through state budgeting,” said David H. Fuhriman, CFO of The Campanile Foundation at San Diego State University. “We have 500,000 living alumni, and we can customize outreach and fundraising to them. The question is, how do we do as much as we can with the limited capacity we have?”

Solution

To meet these growing demands, The Campanile Foundation turned to Ellucian CRM Advance to modernize its advancement operations, streamline data management, and enhance donor engagement.

By integrating data, eliminating manual processes, and creating a single source of truth for alumni and donor relationships, the team is now better positioned to focus on high-impact engagement strategies rather than administrative tasks.

“It comes down to how we can leverage technology, CRM systems, and our internal processes,” Fuhriman said. “We want to push and integrate everything back to the CRM and eliminate manual processes because we just have too much to do.”

Through close collaboration with Ellucian’s product and advancement services teams, the foundation is also helping shape future innovations in the CRM platform—ensuring that its evolving needs as a fundraising organization are understood and addressed.

“The product team is listening to us and seeing our data management folks as the customer,” Fuhriman said. “They’re delivering on innovations that our development team is asking for, and that’s been really important for us.”

Results

The Campanile Foundation’s partnership with Ellucian has transformed how it approaches philanthropy, creating a more agile, human-centered advancement operation.

Key outcomes include:

• Streamlined Operations: Reduced manual processes and improved data integration through Ellucian CRM.
• Enhanced Donor Engagement: Personalized outreach to a network of over 500,000 alumni.
• Scalable Fundraising: Ability to do more with limited resources by leveraging automation and analytics.
• Collaborative Innovation: Direct input into Ellucian product development and service enhancements.
• Human Connection Through Technology: Freed from technical constraints, teams can now focus on building authentic relationships with donors.

“The future is letting go of the technical work and embracing that we’re really just humans,” Fuhriman said. “We can have real human connections with each other in a way we’ve never been able to before.”

Looking Ahead

The Campanile Foundation continues to deepen its collaboration with Ellucian—partnering to shape innovative CRM tools and data-driven fundraising strategies that align with the university’s mission and long-term vision.

With Ellucian as a trusted partner, The Campanile Foundation at San Diego State University is redefining what’s possible in university philanthropy—combining technology, data, and human connection to advance education for generations to come.