Aparna Krishnan
Wollongong,NSW
Summary
Versatile Senior Manager specializing in Advancement Services and skilled at planning, implementing and overseeing key improvements to drive business growth and efficiency. History of cultivating an open culture with free exchange of information. Pursuing new professional challenges with a growth-oriented company.
Overview
7
7
years of professional experience
Work History
Advancement Services Specialist
James Cook University
Townsville , QLD
2022.06 - Current
- Lead the Advancement Services team and its activities, under the direction of the Manager, Advancement and the Director, Advancement, in line with sector best practices and University strategy to enhance coordinated relationship management with donors, alumni, and stakeholders.
- Manage the effectiveness, integrity, and accuracy of the data in Raiser's Edge, and implement all data imports, data cleaning, data improvements, and the addition of new information and identifiers in constituent records.
- Manage the technical aspects of the Raiser's Edge database, this includes implementation of new enhancements as well as managing and improving current processes for donations, campaigns/appeals, and data collection to proactively support Advancement activities.
- Manage gift processing activities, including accurate and timely information input into Raiser's Edge and ensuring that donors receive appropriate acknowledgments, thank you messages, and tax receipts.
- Manage constituent research to provide additional background on alumni, friends, and potential donors to JCU to Advancement staff.
- Prepare briefs and reports extracted from information contained in Raiser's Edge including donation reports, historical donation data and trends, fundraising progress and donation pipeline, portfolio management, and generating lists of constituents for a variety of reasons (including event attendance, prospect research, etc.) based on provided criteria.
- Coordinate the daily banking reconciliation effort, including reporting to Financial and Business Services staff and issuing receipts to donors and event attendees in accordance with JCU policies and procedures.
- Serve as subject matter expert in advancement services nationally and internationally for JCU, to include best practices and emerging opportunities, and lead compliance for the use of CRM functionality to minimize risk and meet audit requirements, and annual reporting standards, with a strong focus on sound financial management.
Senior Manager, Advancement Operations
University Of Wollongong
Wollongong , NSW
2021.02 - 2022.05
- Provide active leadership to the Advancement Services team
- Provide leadership, management, and coaching to encourage and foster collaboration, and build successful working relationships and a common purpose.
- Ensure Advancement Systems are protected from security and data losses and implement disaster recovery procedures
- Encourage staff to contribute to and seek development opportunities to ensure ongoing growth and learning.
- Responsible for providing reporting to the Advancement Leadership Group on fundraising income and key performance indicators across the Division.
- Oversee reporting as part of ad hoc and annual UOW reporting and budget processes
- Measure performance against plans and targets.
- Actively lead and support the provision of research profiles and information for decision-making, strategy implementation, and engagement.
- Overall management of the development and improvement of Advancement Division data and information management policies, processes, and procedures
- Overall management of compliance with data, privacy and information management, charitable and fundraising, gift acceptance, recording, and receipting, regulations, and legislative requirements.
- Provided constructive feedback to workers, which improved morale and boosted efficiency.
- Managed large-scale projects and introduced new systems, tools, and processes to achieve thestrategic Priorities of the University.
Database and Finance Coordinator
University Of Wollongong
Wollongong , NSW
2019.02 - 2021.02
- Formulate and implement appropriate database, financial and information management policies, processes and procedures to support the achievement of Advancement Division goals.
- Formulate and implement procedures in consultation with other staff that ensure the highest integrity of alumni and community constituent data and philanthropic gift records.
- Monitor, analyse and evaluate the performance of Advancement systems, with recommendations for improvements.
- Establish and maintain a working relationship with external system providers including Blackbaud.
- Collaborate with key UOW Divisions and offshore campuses to facilitate the development and management of Advancement systems.
- Ensure that philanthropic gifts are attributed to the donors' intended recipient fund, through the approval of Banking Deposit Batches or through the request of a Journal Transfer where issues are detected.
- Ensure compliance with ATO requirements relating to accepting, recording and receipting gifts and compliance with data, privacy and information management legislative requirements.
- Allocate, schedule and track Advancement Services tasks in consultation with managers and staff
- Coordinate collaborative activities and projects amongst Advancement Services team members and across the Advancement Division
- Assist new and existing staff in introductory training in key advancement systems
- Provide reports to the Advancement Leadership Group on fundraising income and other key performance indicators
Course Administration Officer/COSMOS Project Officer
University Of Wollongong
Wollongong , NSW
2016.06 - 2019.02
- Project scoping, writing detailed business requirements under the broad direction of Manager Course Portfolio.
- Contributing to unit operational plans, quality assurance processes and regular reporting.
- Maintaining a high standard Web presence, both public and intranet.
- Writing and executing test cases, as required by the project and system upgrades.
- Recording, reporting and developing business rules for system issues and workarounds.
- Providing training, access and support for Course Handbook, COSMOS and EQUELLA.
- Facilitating good governance through the provision of support for committees, subcommittees or working parties.
- System project scoping, development and implementation.
- Monitored deadlines and milestones to keep team on track with project schedule.
- Gathered and organised supporting materials for meetings and project updates.
- Evaluated and solved technical problems affecting project deliverables.
- Developed and deepened relationships with key stakeholders across the institution and with vendors.
- Communicated with individuals of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds on a daily basis.
- Coordinated with systems partners to finalize designs and confirm requirements.
- Resolved issues and escalated problems with knowledgeable support and quality service.
- Maintenance of Course database and Course Management Web pages
- Providing committee support as required
- Publication of annual Course Handbook
Advancement IT Officer - Secondment
University of Wollongong
Wollongong , NSW
2017.05 - 2017.12
- Co-ordinate the security and access controls of all Advancement Information Systems.
- Verify and validate the function of Advancement Information Systems through analysis of transactions and systems logs available through hosted platforms.
- Maintain the availability and reliability of the Advancement Information Systems through negotiated IT Service Level Agreements with relevant service providers.
- Monitor and evaluate existing emerging technologies and provide advice on suitability to the priorities and needs of the Advancement Division.
- Co-ordinate upgrades and improvements to hosted platforms that support Advancement data and information.
- Co-ordinate Advancement Information Systems to integrate with other University information systems.
- Provide systems training and technical support to Advancement staff.
- Maintain the security, availability and reliability of the Raiser's Edge system to maximise the output of data.
- Implement appropriate scheduling of Raiser's Edge system updates, including bulk changes and actions.
- Analyse data from Raiser's Edge and make recommendations to inform the development and implementation of strategy to support Advancement activities and projects.
- Develop policies and procedures that meet the requirements of Advancement functions.
- Monthly processing of gifts and processing of philanthropic gifts by deposit batches or journal transfers
- Perform reconciliations of funds and scholarships using financial policies , procedures and systems to ensure accuracy
- Perform queries and respond to data requests from all areas of the Advancement Division.
- Implement processes and procedures for the running of queries and data requests across the Advancement Division.
- Take a leading role in supporting the Advancement team to implement new technology based projects and activities.
- Provide advice and recommendations to Managers and Directors on data and information reporting requirements.
Project Officer
University of Wollongong
Wollongong , NSW
2015.11 - 2016.06
- Designing and developing a front-end interface for document management.
- Strong understanding of UI, cross-browser compatibility, general web functions, and standards.
- UOW branding and the web development policy.
- Liaising with the project team (Information and Communication Technology Services, EQUELLA Developer and Business Analysts from the Course Management Team).
- Using web applications and programming languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, API's and web application framework for the JVM - Groovy (Grails), REST/SOAP.
- Security principles and LDAP.
- User Access Testing (UAT) for AQS, stakeholders and the project team.
- Experience in using UOW systems including, CMS, EQUELLA, Intranet, and Web Kiosk.
- Designed, implemented and monitored web pages and sites for continuous improvement in a fast-paced environment.
- Represented the team at meetings with executives and discussed project goals and milestones.
Education
Masters of Computer Science - Software Engineering & Project Management
University Of Wollongong
Wollongong06.2015
Certificate IV in Business, - Business
Navitas Professional - Careers And Internship
Sydney10.2016
Bachelor of Technology - Computer Science
SCMS School Of Engineering And Technology
Kerala, India04.2012
Red Hat Certificate for Linux Administration -
Red Hat
Kochi01.2010
Skills
- MS Office Suite
- Relational database management
- Staff Management
- Database design
- Systems administration
- Project documentation
- Troubleshooting
- Website optimization
- Java/C/C++
- Quality assurance
- Data analysis
- Agile project management methodology
- System upgrades
- Testing plans
- Computer programming
- SQL and databases
- Relational database design and development
- Interpersonal Communication
- Critical thinking
- Leadership
- Computer programming
- SQL and databases
- Relational database design and development
- Interpersonal Communication
- Critical thinking
- Leadership
- Computer programming
- SQL and databases
- Relational database design and development
- Interpersonal Communication
- Critical thinking
- Leadership
References
- Monique Harper-Richardson - Director of Development (Arts and Culture), University of Sydney
- Dr Melissa Thompson - Director, Graduate Research School, University of Wollongong
Timeline
Advancement Services Specialist
James Cook University
2022.06 - Current
Senior Manager, Advancement Operations
University Of Wollongong
2021.02 - 2022.05
Database and Finance Coordinator
University Of Wollongong
2019.02 - 2021.02
Advancement IT Officer - Secondment
University of Wollongong
2017.05 - 2017.12
Course Administration Officer/COSMOS Project Officer
University Of Wollongong
2016.06 - 2019.02
Project Officer
University of Wollongong
2015.11 - 2016.06
Masters of Computer Science - Software Engineering & Project Management
University Of Wollongong
Certificate IV in Business, - Business
Navitas Professional - Careers And Internship
Bachelor of Technology - Computer Science
SCMS School Of Engineering And Technology
Red Hat Certificate for Linux Administration -
Red Hat
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