Blog
April 10, 2024
Attain Partners welcomes technology and Advancement expert Chris Campbell to share his expertise on transforming institutions through fundraising and alumni engagement
Chris Campbell joined Attain Partners on April 1 as Principal, Advancement Advisory Lead to provide Advancement and fundraising strategy services and technology implementation expertise to our higher education clients. With almost two decades building and leading Advancement teams at Oklahoma State University Foundation (OSUF), Chris leveraged his Advancement expertise to successfully lead the CRM implementation at OSU.
“Chris is a game-changer for our team. His extensive and groundbreaking experiences at the OSU Foundation enable him to be a tremendous advisor to our clients,” said Doug Barrow, Managing Director and Higher Education Market Lead. “I first met Chris several years ago during the CRM evaluation at OSUF. Since then, I’ve been continuously impressed by Chris’s Advancement industry knowledge, his willingness to be an innovator, and his natural desire to help others. I’m elated to welcome him to Team Attain joining his peer from the early Salesforce Advancement implementation cohort, Jason Hunter. I’m excited to see the transformative impact both will have on our higher education clients.”
Please join us in celebrating our newest team member, Chris Campbell, as he shares his expertise and why he is passionate about Advancement.
Attain Partners (AP): How did you get into Higher Education Technology and Advancement?
Chris Campbell (CC): Early in my career, I was working in the private sector for an IT company in Dallas and really wanted to get back home to Oklahoma. When my alma mater, OSU, reached out about a fundraising job with the OSU Foundation supporting the athletic department, I took a chance and made the leap. It was a pay cut but I thought if there was ever a time to do a job for the fun of it, this was the time.
Originally, I thought I would do it for a few years, but ended up building my career at OSUF during my 18-year tenure. Though I was at the OSU Foundation the entire time, my focus shifted from athletics to Advancement for OSU’s Spears School of Business. As a fundraiser, I fell in love with the work we do in Advancement to connect our most passionate supporters to the incredible work our universities are doing. There are fewer things than higher education that can change the course of someone’s life and the future generations following them. I really value the role we can play in Advancement helping institutions meet and exceed their missions.
AP: What did you do before joining Attain Partners?
CC: The bulk of my career has been spent at OSUF, and in my last role I served as Senior AVP of Information Strategy leading all of our digital teams. We did an implementation of ascend and I led it from start to finish. It was at this time that I met Doug Barrow, as OSU was one of the earliest shops to implement ascend and Salesforce for our Advancement solution. The OSU implementation was a complete platform transformation that included our CRM, a donor portal, and integrated our Tableau and Salesforce Marketing Cloud solutions. And just for fun, we also implemented a cloud-based data warehousing solution and a new Document Management Solution. I had so much fun working with Doug as a partner that I knew I wanted to work with him again in the future.
As I started to meet the people of Attain, I knew that the company valued great work, had an inclusive culture, and a genuine support for its team members’ lives outside of work. It was a blessing to help my alma mater, OSU, transform its digital capabilities in order to better serve its supporters and stakeholders. I am eager to help other schools do the same thing.
AP: Which of our seven core values speak to you the most?
CC: It’s hard to pass up on Have Absolute Integrity, but I really like Be Bold. I come from a growing organization. Of all the most progressive organizations in Advancement, I don’t know if you would expect to hear OSU, but we had a tremendously talented team and were leading the way in many areas of Advancement. I approach a lot of things in my life with the question, “Why not?”
Why not us? Why shouldn’t we do that? We had some fearlessness within my team at OSU and I approach life with that attitude, figuring out a way to accomplish our goals.
AP: What do you like most about the work you do?
CC: I really like the people—in Advancement, people are genuinely passionate about the institutions they serve. I also love enabling greater success at higher education institutions so that they can accomplish their missions. It is a very collaborative community. Everyone in higher education is very open to sharing the way they’re operating. At OSU, we had so many calls from other institutions sharing best practices, there’s a great collegiality amongst institutions. We were always willing to share our secret sauce with our peers because we all know we’re trying to do a greater good.
AP: What are the biggest ways you’ve seen Advancement efforts impact organizations?
CC: It’s incredibly motivating to see how Advancement enables and enhances an institution’s ability to achieve its goals. From a tech perspective, higher education Advancement teams have generally been using outdated tools. The market in Advancement technology tends to lag 10-15 years. At OSU, we were on Raiser’s Edge for nine years when we made the transition to Salesforce—which is actually pretty short. Some organizations have been on systems for 25+ years (and tech years are like dog years!).
I worked with a team of very high performers. At OSU, we knew that we had Ferrari talent and we needed Ferrari tools so that they could work to their fullest potential. When we moved to Salesforce then my team could enact what they wanted to. Even just having functionality to schedule our emails in Marketing Cloud was huge for us and saved enormous amounts of time that could have been spent on other initiatives. Giving a talented team the first-class tools is a really great way to inspire them to do great things.
AP: What do you enjoy outside of work?
CC: I have a rockstar wife and love spending time with her and our two boys, Hayes and Knox. Both boys play baseball and basketball so most of our time is dedicated to watching and coaching their teams. We all enjoy attending Oklahoma State University athletic events and have season tickets for football. In my spare time, I enjoy golfing and playing guitar.
Attain Partners – Salesforce Experts
No matter if your organization is beginning its Salesforce journey or 10+ years into development, Attain Partners is here to help you achieve your goals. Contact our team today to learn how we can help you advance your mission by harnessing the power of Salesforce.
To learn more, check out our Salesforce Innovation services, read case studies about our transformative work, and explore blog posts from our Salesforce experts. Read our latest advancement insights here.
Learn more – Chris Campbell
Chris Campbell has been in Advancement for nearly two decades. He started with the Oklahoma State University Foundation in December 2004 and served in several capacities during his tenure including helping secure private funds for the football stadium’s $300 million Next Level Campaign, overseeing the Prospect Development Team during OSU’s comprehensive campaign, Branding Success which exceeded its $1 billion campaign goal eighteen months ahead of schedule, serving as the Senior Associate Vice President for the Information Strategy Business Unit, and leading the successful implementation of a Salesforce-based advancement CRM solution. Prior to Attain Partners, Chris served as Digital Consulting Director with Huron Consulting Group, where he partnered with clients in the Higher Ed Advancement space through transformational technology leadership. Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2002 from the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University, majoring in Management Information Systems with a minor in Marketing.
Interested in speaking directly with Chris? Fill out this form to be connected!
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