How the University of Notre Dame uses hierarchies for prospecting

Highlights

• Reduced manual account matching and hierarchy building that slowed down fundraising and engagement.
• Created a connected view of corporate and alumni relationships directly in Salesforce.
• Enabled faster, more accurate donor and partner outreach by eliminating data silos.

Overview

The University of Notre Dame is one of the world’s most recognized academic institutions, combining tradition with forward-thinking innovation. Supporting its mission requires not only academic excellence but also strong alumni, donor, and partner relationships. To scale those efforts, Notre Dame’s team needed a smarter way to manage its Salesforce data.

The Challenge

Complex relationships and disconnected data made it hard to see the full picture

Notre Dame’s teams were juggling thousands of alumni, donor, and corporate partner records. But with fragmented account hierarchies and no connected view, it was nearly impossible to see when subsidiaries tied back to a larger corporate donor — leaving gaps in understanding and strategy.

Duplicate and messy data slowed down Salesforce migration

As Notre Dame migrated from Advance Web to Salesforce, dirty account data became a major roadblock. Duplicate records and inconsistent formatting complicated the process, forcing the University’s Data Integrity team to spend hours manually identifying and reconciling records.

Opportunities tied to duplicates created data loss risks

Merging accounts wasn’t straightforward.

Many duplicate records had donations (opportunities) attached, which made consolidation risky. The team needed a solution that could safely merge records without losing critical donor history or compromising future fundraising potential.

Migrating corporate donations (opportunities) and merging account records was going to be a tremendously complicated process for our Data Integrity team.

Dean Ernzen, Program Director, Business Optimization at the University of Notre Dame

Solution

Reduced manual effort with automated corporate linking

Complete Hierarchies transformed how Notre Dame handled corporate relationships in Salesforce.

Using DUNS numbers, Complete Hierarchies automatically linked accounts within their legal corporate family trees. This eliminated manual research and gave the university’s Data Integrity team immediate visibility into how subsidiaries connected to parent organizations.

Improved fundraising visibility with lifetime giving insights

Instead of piecing together information across scattered records, Complete Hierarchies displayed all related contacts and opportunities in a single hierarchy view. This visibility made it easy to see past giving activity — from sponsorships and grants to pledges and named gifts — and use that context to strengthen future outreach.

Advancement and engagement teams could now see the full scope of an organization’s relationship with the university, making it easier to prioritize outreach.

Protected donor history with safe deduplication

Duplicate accounts had long been a risk, especially when opportunities were tied to them. Complete Hierarchies helped Notre Dame identify duplicates and merge them directly in Salesforce without losing donor history, which allowed the Data Integrity team to clean records confidently and at scale.

Data-driven engagement with hierarchy roll-up reporting

With roll-up summaries at the hierarchy level, Notre Dame gained a true understanding of how each organization engaged with the university. Leadership could now track overall fundraising value, spot patterns in engagement, and strengthen partnerships with their most strategic accounts.

The Final Word

What began as a data integrity project has grown into a campus-wide advantage. Today, Complete Hierarchies not only supports the Data Integrity team but also empowers Corporate Relations and the Career Center to uncover new opportunities.

• The Corporate Relations team can now map deeper into organizations, using career placement and alumni data to open doors to new influencers.
• The Career Center can highlight companies actively hiring Notre Dame graduates, giving visibility into alumni networks across industries.

Together, both teams can collaborate using shared data, creating a more connected strategy for engaging donors, partners, and employers.