How WFAA Manages Data

The What and Why of WFAA’s Data

To effectively advance the university and its affiliated organizations (such as UW Health), WFAA requires rich data regarding alumni, donors, and supporters. This data includes sensitive information about our constituents such as contact information, financial information, and sometimes personal health information provided to WFAA consistent with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). WFAA ensures that this data is safeguarded and confidential, only to be used for legitimate WFAA and UW business.

WFAA uses this data to help achieve the following goals:

• Get to know our constituents better and offer a more personalized experience
• Encourage our constituents to interact with us, the university, and our affiliates in more meaningful ways
• Identify new friends and supporters as well as expand our support networks
• To say, “thank you,” to alumni, donors, friends, and more who help make WFAA’s mission a reality

Best Practices

WFAA takes information security and privacy very seriously. We deploy industry best practices and policies to ensure data is safe and used only for its intended purpose. For example:

• WFAA trains staff regularly on many aspects of information security like Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards and HIPAA compliance.
• WFAA requires employees and any other person with direct access to WFAA information—including university employees—to annually review and acknowledge our data disclosure and confidentiality policies.
• WFAA utilizes third–party assessments and phishing campaigns to keep us on our toes.
• In case there is a security breach, WFAA has established and practiced incident response procedures to help the organization respond quickly and effectively.

How You Can Help

To ensure these best practices are followed, WFAA needs your help, as campus partners, when dealing with confidential data. Here are some practices you should adopt:

• Read and comprehend our data disclosure and confidentiality policies. This will instruct you on what policies to follow when utilizing WFAA data.
• Be respectful of WFAA data. The information the organization holds is confidential, so limit the data accessed, saved, and distributed to only the minimum required when it is in your possession.
• When you are done with a particular set of data, make sure it has been destroyed or deleted from any location where it was stored.  If similar data is needed later, request an update through the appropriate channels.

Data Policies with UW–Madison

WFAA’s unique partnership with the university allows us to share specific types of data to achieve mutual goals. One way we share data is through 4WARD, our Constituent Relationship Management system (CRM), and our reporting tools. Each campus unit has an identified Campus Unit Administrator (CUA). This individual is responsible for requesting access to these systems at the appropriate security levels for their staff members. CUAs are also responsible for monitoring appropriate use, and adherence to guidelines and password policies.

If UW employees want access to WFAA data, they must be approved by WFAA and their Campus Unit Administrator as well as complete training on the systems needed to access this information.

In addition, university employees may request WFAA data via our List/Report Request form. Such information requests will only be fulfilled for legitimate WFAA and UW business purposes and the information provided may not be shared with third parties without WFAA approval.

View our privacy policy for more information.

Lastly, Your Updates Matter!

We must all work together to keep WFAA’s data accurate and relevant. Please help WFAA help you by ensuring that we have the most up-to-date and relevant information. If you see information that is outdated or inaccurate, please let us know. Higher quality data will ensure greater advancement successes and, ultimately, a better university.