Apra Greater Houston Annual Conference
Friday, May 30, 2025 United Way of Houston Community Resource Center50 Waugh Dr., Houston, TX 77007
Adventures in Verification
After your organization has a wealth screening done, whether it's the entire database, or just a few hundred folks, what do you do next? How much confidence should you have in the initial results? How much time should you spend on additional research? This session will talk about the next steps for verifying giving capacity, with multiple case studies reviewed, including a large healthcare organization (within a screening database), as well as small to mid-sized cause-based and higher education organizations which perform the verifications externally. We will also discuss what level of detail to complete, along with methodology, and everything else that comes with the joy of verifications!
Presented By:
Sarah Price
Sarah Price is the managing director of research services at BWF and has over 20 years of experience working in fundraising. She leads a team of researchers who partner with clients on projects including prospect verification, prospect identification, and in-depth profiles. Before joining BWF, Sarah worked as a prospect research manager at organizations in Minneapolis/St. Paul, including Augsburg University, St. Olaf College, and the Minnesota Children’s Museum. Sarah is a former board member of Apra-MN, and has presented at Apra International, Apra Chapters (DC, Midwest, MN, NEDRA, CARA), and AFP conferences. Sarah earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth. When she is not researching, she can be found baking, knitting, reading, and hanging out on various patios around town.
Lead from Every Level: How to Support, Align and Influence
Leadership isn’t just for those at the top. It’s a mindset and a skill set that professionals at any level can practice. Lead from Every Level explores how you can build stronger partnerships with your managers, fundraisers, and other team members by focusing on three core practices: understanding and supporting their leader’s goals, aligning their efforts with broader priorities, and influencing outcomes through trust, initiative, and clear communication. This session provides practical strategies to increase your impact, reduce friction, and contribute to a more collaborative, results-driven workplace — no matter your title.
Kristen Elnicky
Kristen’s experience and expertise centers on operational management in the nonprofit sector and developing strategic plans and fundraising programs and processes that create measurable and sustainable results. She has managed all aspects of nonprofit operations for several large healthcare and research organizations.
Kristen serves as the Senior Executive Director of Philanthropic Operations at Baylor College of Medicine overseeing research and prospect management, database administration and analytics, gift operations, and donor relations. Prior to joining Baylor, she served as a fundraising consultant. In her role, she worked with a wide variety of clients to help them increase their fundraising through grateful patient programs, comprehensive campaigns, and growing their operational expertise.
With over 20 years of philanthropic operations experience, Kristen has worked and consulted with various nonprofit healthcare and education organizations to build successful and efficient relationship and database management systems. Kristen has a broad range of experience in fundraising, prospect development, database management, grateful patient programs, donor relations, board development, gift administration and processing, data analytics, data visualization, and strategic and campaign planning. Previously, Kristen held a variety of with St. Joseph’s Hospital and Barrow Neurological Institute, the Translational Genomics Research Institute, and Banner Health in Phoenix, Arizona.
Kristen received her bachelor’s degree from a small private college in Tempe, Arizona, and her MBA from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Leveraging BI to increase proactivity through self-service opportunities
Have you ever heard a fundraiser ask Prospect Development for a list of names or use the phrases, "I need more prospects", or “I’m traveling to XYZ and would like a list of prospects in this area”? Anticipating and planning for this request is possible and can create multiple benefits. This includes redirecting Prospect Development resources to more proactive activities, instilling a greater sense of ownership of one's portfolio that they built from the pool, and a continued emphasis on the importance of having a data-driven culture and utilizing the CRM.
This session will focus on providing self-service lead/prospect identification tools for fundraisers. We will address the overall concept of how to approach and build a self-service prospect pool using BI tools (such as Power BI or Tableau), how teams can contribute to the process, the data points that could support self-service, and outcomes after implementation that may assist with forecasting, estimating total potential opportunity in the CRM, building out new portfolios, initiating donor-upgrade programs, and more.
Jordan Dupuis
Jordan Dupuis is a Senior Database Analyst at Texas Children’s Hospital. With a strong background in healthcare and nonprofits, Jordan has held key roles at MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine, where he developed and implemented data driven strategies to support decision-making. Jordan has also held significant roles in development and fundraising at DiverseWorks and Asia Society. He holds an MBA from Texas Woman’s University and a BFA in New Media/Sculpture/3D Design from the University of North Texas.
Leveraging Data for Portfolio Optimization in Prospect Management
During a major CRM transition to Salesforce, Prospect Management played a critical role in using data-drive strategies to optimize portfolios and support gift officers. This session will explore how Prospect Management regularly collaborates with fundraisers to analyze key metrics, align portfolios with institutional goals, and refine prospect strategies. Attendees will gain insight into how data informs decision-making, enhances engagement, and ensures a seamless transition in the evolving philanthropic landscape.
Tamara Carter
Tamara Carter serves as the Senior Associate Director of Prospect Development at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she leads the Prospect Management team. With over 14 years of experience in Development, Tamara has partnered closely with major and principal gi leadership, grateful pa ent programs, and frontline fundraising efforts. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English – Linguistics from the University of Houston and an MBA from Texas Woman’s University. Tamara has also actively contributed to professional organizations, serving on numerous committees within Apra and the Association of Advancement Services Professionals (AASP).
Sponsored By
