Campaign reporting transformation at Boise State University Foundation

For higher education foundations managing major fundraising campaigns, timely data can mean the difference between reactive and proactive decision-making. The Boise State University Foundation transformed quarterly Microsoft Excel reports into real-time dashboards using Amazon QuickSight, a 780-fold improvement that fundamentally changed how leadership makes decisions. It extracts actionable insights from a decades-old legacy system while supporting a major comprehensive fundraising campaign.

The challenge: Scaling campaign reporting for “Unbridled”

Boise State University is a public research university in Boise, Idaho, serving 27,500 students across more than 200 majors. In addition to its academics, the university is known for its iconic blue turf football field, the first non-green artificial turf in college football.

Established in 1964, the Boise State University Foundation is a 501(c)3 with a mission to “inspire, generate, and prudently manage private support for Boise State University.” In 2023, the foundation publicly launched Unbridled: The Campaign for Boise State University, with the goal of raising $500 million by 2028 for student access and support, faculty innovation, and athletics.

At that time, the data team supervisor delivered a sobering message to the team: “Get ready. This is going to take a lot of reporting.”

The heart of the challenge was in the foundation’s Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge database, a legacy system with data locked behind Citrix sessions. The team relied on an “Excel guru” to extract gigabytes of data quarterly and perform complex formula manipulations to generate reports.

Kelci Lucier, executive director of communications and marketing, described the impact: “It could sometimes take days or weeks of manual work to compile data for board presentations and press releases. We could not always quickly access the data points we needed for storytelling.” Official reporting happened only four times per year, leaving leadership without timely insights.

Multiple stakeholder groups needed different views. Development directors talking to donors required different information than those engaging with alumni. The foundation needed a single source of truth that could serve everyone while maintaining data integrity.

The journey: Investing in cloud expertise

Leadership recognized that better reporting tools were essential for campaign success. In September 2023, the foundation hired Mathias Morache, a former Amazon Web Services (AWS) engineer with cloud architecture expertise. His vision was clear: “I see AWS as the wave of the future, and we have a unique opportunity to invest in that architecture.”

Mathias worked closely with Randy Staton, an AWS solutions architect, to design the right solution while balancing budget constraints. The answer was serverless architecture using AWS Lambda and AWS Step Functions, which was lightweight, scalable, and cost-effective.

Transparency was critical. “We wanted to avoid black box solutions,” explained Chelli Kluchesky, director of advancement systems and technology. “The transparency of how data is used and stored in AWS is important. We know exactly what goes into the recipe.”

Leadership recognized that investing in someone with Mathias’s specialized skills was a force multiplier. One person with the right expertise could transform capabilities across the entire organization.

The solution: Modern architecture meets legacy data

The goal was to take what the Excel guru was doing manually and make it dynamic, scalable, and accessible. Mathias built an event-driven modular pipeline using AWS Lambda, AWS Step Functions, and Amazon EventBridge to extract, transform, and load data from the legacy system.

After processing, the system uses a table with predefined datatype mappings stored in Amazon DynamoDB to generate schemas for the AWS Glue Data Catalog, making data queryable through Amazon Athena. Datasets then flow into Amazon QuickSight, powering dashboards that refresh automatically each day. The system is comprehensively monitored using Amazon CloudWatch metrics and Amazon EventBridge rules.

The impact: Transforming decision-making

The results have been transformative. Reporting that happened quarterly now updates every 15 minutes. But the real impact goes deeper.

Kelci describes the change: “My team and I were able to get trusted numbers quickly and reliably. This helped with media work, board presentations, and reporting to leadership. It reduced our workload—no more chasing things down. We could analyze data by demographic and access information we were not even aware of before. It helped us tell our story in a more compelling way.”

The solution started with campaign reporting but quickly expanded. Mathias developed specialized dashboards for alumni engagement and college-level reporting. Each stakeholder group—development directors, alumni teams, leadership, and accounting—now has tailored views.

The dashboard is also always on display on a TV screen in the executive suite of the foundation offices, and the CEO checks it every morning using the app on her phone.

Beyond operational efficiency, the system is fostering a data-driven culture. “As word got out about the new dashboards, we could get our data in front of people right away,” Chelli says. “We were better able to serve foundation partners across the institution.”

The impact has rippled beyond the foundation. The project strengthened ties with campus IT, which is planning a university-wide data lake. Mathias now provides expertise to other departments, with “seedlings popping up across the landscape” as Amazon QuickSight capabilities spread.

The paradigm shift is evident in a question that has become common: “Is this something we could do with AWS?” The team is exploring machine learning projects progressing from static reporting to predictive modeling. As Mathias put it, “Dashboards are just the beginning.”

Lessons learned and what’s next

The foundation’s journey offers valuable lessons for institutions considering similar transformations.

• Start small and build incrementally – “It’s okay to start small,” Chelli advises. “Think about what you need to do and start pulling the pieces together.” The foundation initially restricted dashboard access to executive-level leadership to confirm data accuracy before broader rollout.
• Invest in the right skills – Leadership’s decision to invest in specialized cloud expertise proved transformative. One person with the right skills became a force multiplier, enabling innovation across the organization.
• Embrace pay-as-you-go economics – The serverless model made it possible to experiment without massive upfront capital investment, which is particularly valuable for institutions with limited budgets.

Looking ahead, the foundation continues evolving its data architecture with plans for infrastructure-as-code using AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK), separate development and production environments, and expanded machine learning capabilities.

A model for higher education and philanthropic nonprofits

The Boise State University Foundation’s success demonstrates that modern cloud architecture is accessible to institutions and organizations of all sizes. The combination of serverless technologies, pay-as-you-go pricing, and modular design makes it possible for small teams to build enterprise-grade solutions.

The journey from legacy flat files to predictive dashboards proves that no system is too old to power modern decisions. What started as a campaign reporting challenge has become a foundation for data-driven decision-making and a model for other institutions facing similar challenges.

To learn more about modernizing legacy data systems with AWS, visit the AWS for Higher Education page or explore Amazon QuickSight.