Client Presentation: University of Notre Dame
At Nousmedis, we have the privilege of collaborating with outstanding organizations in various sectors and countries, but working with the University of Notre Dame on an endowment fund reporting automation project has been an especially enriching experience for our team.
Founded in 1842, the University of Notre Dame is one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the United States. Recognized for its academic excellence, strong Catholic tradition, and global impact, it consistently ranks among the top 20 universities in the country. With over 150,000 alumni and an endowment of over $20 billion, Notre Dame’s commitment to excellence, community, and transparency is reflected in all aspects of its operation, including efforts to automate reporting.
When we decided to collaborate with the development team at the University of Notre Dame, it was to support a project that fit perfectly into our core business: helping organizations automate complex, repetitive, or manual processes involving data and document management. Thus began our experience in automating endowment fund reports, an experience that proved special in many ways.
On the one hand, the nature of the data used in the project (personal financial information of donors) required a high level of confidentiality and protection. To safeguard this data, both teams made a joint effort to simulate real test scenarios using anonymized or simulated data. This approach forced us to program virtually blindly, an experience that prompted us to explore new techniques and improve our practices. Ultimately, automating donation reports while maintaining security standards helped improve the team’s capabilities.
On the other hand, working with the Notre Dame development team was an exceptional experience. The professionalism, clarity, and rigor with which they guided us through their internal processes made all the difference, especially in automating their reports. They patiently explained each step of the reporting system until we fully understood how it worked, and the fact that they systematically tested and documented each deliverable allowed us to adjust and improve the solution with unprecedented precision. Their contribution not only helped us meet expectations, but also made the process fluid, well-structured, and highly collaborative.
With such a solid collaboration, we were prepared to face the challenges of automating the reporting process on the University of Notre Dame’s endowment.
The challenges: What problems needed to be solved?
Each year, the University of Notre Dame prepares thousands of personalized reports on the endowment for its donors. These documents explain how their donations have been invested, the financial growth over time, and the impact they have generated. There are different types of reports, depending on the characteristics of each fund, and their manual preparation was very costly and time-consuming, highlighting the need to automate this process.
The solutions: How we automated endowment reporting
We developed a unique modular template that could be dynamically adapted to the different types of endowment reports, activating or deactivating specific sections according to the data. This eliminated the need to duplicate templates or manage multiple versions of the same report structure. This solution became the basis for automating endowment reporting at the University of Notre Dame.
Our team designed and integrated the automated system with the university’s existing data sources. In this way, the document generation process was optimized: thousands of reports could be generated in a matter of seconds with a simple pagination operation. In addition, we automated the generation of endowment reports, allowing University of Notre Dame staff the flexibility to make manual adjustments when necessary, without disrupting the overall workflow.
Results: A scalable and consistent reporting process
The entire reporting process was standardized and automated, ensuring visual and structural consistency across all documents. Processing time and manual effort were drastically reduced, as only a small fraction of reports required post-generation corrections, even in large volumes. Automating donation reports allowed for greater scalability and consistency.
Notre Dame has experienced a remarkable improvement in its efficiency, a substantial improvement in the quality and consistency of its reports, and a modern, scalable system that does not generate a greater workload. For us at Nousmedis, this collaboration has meant invaluable growth, both technically and personally, thanks to the opportunity to work with such a competent and committed team. These results clearly demonstrate the impact of automating reporting for foundations in complex institutional environments.
It has been a great honor for us, and we sincerely hope that future projects will allow us to continue discovering more about this extraordinary university.
If this project fits the needs of your organization, please contact us. You can also check out other case studies on the Nousmedis blog to see how we help teams like yours transform document management-related problems into automated solutions.
