The functions and features most commonly offered by advancement, alumni and fundraising systems (Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, Ellucian Advance, Salesforce Education Cloud Advancement and Anthology Encompass), and the HERM business capability each one supports. The system covers the alumni and donor relationship from graduation or first gift onward: the constituent record and the alumni feed from the SIS, prospect and moves management, gifts, pledges and receipting, planned giving, campaigns and designations, events, alumni engagement and volunteers, stewardship and communications, giving analytics, and integration, security and operations. The SIS remains the system of record for the student and the ERP for the general ledger. Wealth screening and payment processors appear only as integrations.
Shows which parts of the institution the advancement system supports, where it overlaps other systems, and where it stops.
A function's main HERM home vs others it touches. Features narrow to one capability.
34 HERM capabilities touched, centred on fundraising, relationship management and communications. Almost every feature sits in Enabling capabilities.
Wheel to explore, tree to scan every mapping, CSV or JSON to reuse it.
How this was compiled: three AI assistants (Claude, Perplexity and Grok) were each asked to identify the core functions and features of the major higher education advancement, alumni and fundraising platforms. Their lists were reconciled into this single set, using the Claude draft’s structure; source letters on each feature show which drafts named it. Treat it as a starting point, not a vendor-verified specification.
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The full hierarchy: areas, functional areas, functions and features, each with its HERM mapping and definition. Select any HERM capability or feature to see its full definition.
Advancement is rarely one system. Here the same functions and features are mapped to the applications a fictional Example State University actually runs: a vendor core, add-on modules, third-party products, homegrown tools and spreadsheets. Each link records how well the application covers the feature and its role. HERM coverage is then calculated from those links, not mapped by hand.
Also see this ecosystem as a capability × application matrix or a HERM-to-application flow.
Inner rings: area and functional area. Outer ring: one slice per feature, split into bands when more than one application provides it. Marks outside the ring flag gaps (red) and competing systems of record (violet).
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The executive view. Each bar is the capability’s features, coloured by the best coverage any application gives them. Select a capability for its HERM definition, or an application to see its footprint.
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