Huron Consulting Group and GG+A’s Advancement Leadership Forum (ALF) is a cohort of higher-education development and fundraising groups made up of some of UT’s most important and closely related peers, including Michigan, Berkeley, North Carolina, and others.

On an annual basis, each member of this cohort submits a survey detailing fundraising, staffing, and related data and information for benchmarking purposes. Huron and GG+A then compile this information and present their findings to leaders of each of these groups so that each university can have a detailed understanding of where they stack up against their peers.

To complete this survey, Texas Development’s RAD team oversees corralling, compiling, and synthesizing all the relevant data to submit to the cohort. The survey includes three main parts:

1. Fundraising – Funds received in the new fiscal year, as well as new funds committed, and new pledges made. This information is broken out in a variety of ways and primarily relies on fundraising data being accurately entered into VIP.

2. Staffing – Texas Development must report on all the relevant FTE’s it employed to reach its development goals over the past fiscal year, then categorize each employee’s time and responsibilities according to a set of provided definitions. RAD relies on both CDO’s and UDO’s Senior Leaders to assist with inputting and verifying this information.

3. Expenditures – Both personnel expenditures (salary and benefits paid) and non-personnel expenditures incurred by each CSU’s development employees and offices over the course of the fiscal year. RAD relies on CDO’s to provide an accurate reflection of their non-personnel expenditures as part of this process.