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COUNCIL FOR ADVANCEMENT AND SUPPORT OF EDUCATION
C U R R E N T SSEP
20
13
5 signs you need a consultant p. 41
Hashtags, handles & holy *%$@! p. 26
Do your volunteers feel valued? p. 32
How MOOCs can help advancement p. 6
Do graduates bring blind spots or benefits?
When Alumni Lead
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C U R R E N T SSEP
2013
VOLUME XXXIX NUMBER 7
COVEr: StEphEn wEbStEr for CASE; thiS pAgE, tOp: COurtESy Of thE SCrOll, hAmiltOn COllEgE; middlE: iStOCkphOtO/thinkStOCk; bOttOm: JuStinE bECkEtt for CASE
Cover: Alumni Presidents
18 A Different KinD of Homecoming From fundraising to admissions, alumni-turned-presidents pay dividends for their alma maters • By Lydia Lum
FeAtures
26 All in tHe HAmily The true story of what happens when a college stops being polite and protective of its campus’s quirks and starts getting real on social media: The Scroll • By JeSSica KrywoSa
32 time = treAsure Let’s pretend higher education fundraising is suddenly illegal. Do you still care about your alumni? • By ronaLd a. cohen
36 tAKing tHe lifelong View indiana university east smashed its silos, embraced student affairs, and made managing the engagement lifecycle a priority • By RoB Zinkan
41 neeD A consultAnt? Five fundraising scenarios that call for outside intervention • By LaureL Price JoneS
46 PeoPle wHo liKe to BuilD Tiny staffs, heavy workloads, and limited resources. why are so many development pros finding happiness at community colleges? • By eLeanor Lee yaTeS
C A S E C U R R E N T S 3
Columns
President’s PersPective 6 tHe moocs sHAll inHerit tHe eArtH That’s the fear, but online
classes could boost alumni relations and fundraising • By John LiPPincoTT
talking Points 13 rAnKleD By rAnKings? alternatives to U.S. News & World
Report exist if you know where to look • By EllEn HaZElkoRn
office sPace 15 insiDe tHe minDs of Donors understanding how your donors
learn can help you engage their passions and purpose for giving • By BREnDa Solomon
odds and ends 64 View mAster From ‘Gangnam Style’ to Tahrir Square,
youTube’s Kevin allocca analyzes the videos we share
dePArtments
4 AD inDex
5 reADer feeDBAcK
8 ADVAnce worK
53 in cAse
56 2013–2014 cAse BoArD of trustees
58 2013–2014 cAse District cHAirs
62 cAmPus Buyers guiDe
26
32
13
4 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Advertiser index
COUNCIL FOR ADVANCEMENT AND SUPPORT OF EDUCATION
Online www.case.org/currents
editOr in CHieF Ken Budd [email protected]
deputy editOr Toni Coleman [email protected]
SeniOr editOrS Kristin Simonetti [email protected]
Theresa Walker [email protected]
prOduCtiOn editOr Erin Piel [email protected]
Art direCtOr Angela Carpenter Gildner
deSigner Jennifer Royall Anderson
CASe www.case.org 1307 New York Ave. NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005-4701 Phone: +1-202-328-5900 Fax: +1-202-387-4973
CASe eurOpe www.case.org/europe 3rd Floor, Paxton House 30 Artillery Lane London E1 7LS United Kingdom Phone: +44 (0) 20 7448 9940 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7377 5944
CASe ASiA-pACiFiC www.case.org/asia-pacific Unit 05-03, Shaw Foundation Alumni House 11 Kent Ridge Drive Singapore 119244 Phone: +65 6778 3285 Fax: +65 6826 4064
CASe AmériCA lAtinA www.case.org/americalatina Av. Universidad Anáhuac No. 46Col. Lomas AnáhuacHuixquilucanEdo. De México, C.P. 52786 México Phone: +52 1 (55) 4081 30 16
preSident John Lippincott
FOunding editOr Virginia Carter Smith, 1932 –1995
SubSCriptiOnS And AddreSS CHAngeS CASE Member Services [email protected] Phone: +1-202-328-CASE
AdvertiSing Kevin McDonnell, The Townsend Group [email protected]: +1-301-215-6710, ext. 105
Volume 39, number 7
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Back issues are $10 each for CaSE members, $15 for nonmem-bers. Visit www.case.org/store.
opinions expressed in currenTS are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of caSe. no information con-tained in this issue of currenTS should be construed as legal or financial advice. The publication of any advertisement or article by currenTS does not constitute an endorsement of that prod-uct, service, or position. currenTS reserves the right to refuse any article or advertisement. only the publication of an article or advertisement shall constitute final acceptance.
currenTS (iSSn 0748-478X) is published monthly except may/June, July/august, and november/december, by the council for advancement and Support of education, 1307 new york ave. nw, Suite 1000, washington, dc 20005-4701. Periodical postage paid at washington, dc, and additional mailing offices. PoSTmaSTer: Send address changes to currenTS, 1307 new york ave. nw, Suite 1000, washington, dc 20005-4701; fax +1-202-387-4973. $20 from the membership fee pays for a yearly subscription to currenTS. nonmember subscriptions are avail-
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C A S E C U R R E N T S 5
r e a d e r f e e d b a c k
ROI (and JELL-O) REsOnatE wIth REadERs i was so excited to get the [July/august]
issue of currenTS. i am having lunch
with my boss in an hour (i just got my
magazine this morning), and we were
planning to discuss measurements
and how we might cover this at our
upcoming retreat. i’ve already read
the whole thing. [The communications
and marketing] articles are particularly
interesting, timely, and useful. Great
job, as always, and thanks again for
anticipating our needs.
Lori A. Croydirector of web Communicationsuniversity of missouri–Columbia
That was a very funny analogy on the
cover. Kudos to whoever came up
with that one!
Ron GossenSenior Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief marketing Officeruniversity of missouri–St. louis
currenTS magazine is always so
timely and spot on. JuL/auG 2013
issue on roi is no exception.
Luke Fleer (@lukefleer)regional development OfficerOakland universityrochester, mich.
nOw tREndIngarticle [about caSe’s commu-
nications and marketing trends
survey] in currenTS summa-
rizes @CASEAdvance research on
#highered mktg/comms. Fact that
78% of @CASEAdvance mktg/comms
survey respondents focus on pros-
pects, more than alums or donors,
sign of times in #highered.
Michael Stoner (@mStonerblog)president mStonerwoodstock, Vt.
dOLLaRs and sEnsEIn late July, CURRENTS Senior Editors
Kristin Simonetti (@KMSeditor) and
Theresa Walker (@editorwalker)
co-moderated a CASE Social Media
and Community (#casesmc) Twitter
chat that included this question:
“ ’I gave you money to go to school.
Why should I give you more?’ What’s
the best response to this, either
online or strategically?” Among the
top answers:
Participation, participation, participa-
tion! $5 shows foundations and other
institutions that our alumni value their
experience. remember that young
alumni more than ever want to be
inVoLVed but do not like to give to
institutions. involve them in a cause.
Allie Morse (@allieemorse)department Coordinator Alumni and university relationsbrandeis universitywaltham, mass.
This is why we have to provide value
to alumni aFTer they leave campus.
They have bad/no job, debt and then
we put our hand out?
Keith Hannon (@KeithHannon)Assistant director of Social media StrategyAlumni AffairsCornell universityithaca, n.y.
The hourlong Twitter chats begin at
2 p.m. ET on the second and fourth
Tuesdays of each month. Check the
schedule at bit.ly/casesmc-chatsched.
Read recaps of previous chats at bit.ly/
casesmc-chatrecap.
I’m using “It’s like trying to nail
JELL-O to a wall.” Thanks for that,
@CASEAdvance. Great headline.
Matt Hollowell (@MattH1120)digital media Strategistwichita State university Alumni Associationwichita, kan.
Tell us what you think! each issue, currenTS will run letters and comments on topics that intrigue you, excite you, or just plain tick you off. Send feedback to ken Budd, editor in chief, at [email protected]. you can also tweet us at @CASEAdvance or comment at facebook.com/caseadvance. C
6 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
P R E S I D E N T ’ S P E R S P E C T I V E
John Lippincott is the president of CASE.
w ith some reluctance i’m focus-ing this column on moocs (massive open online courses).
First of all, you’re reading this Perspective at least two months after i wrote it—and the rapidly evolving moocs movement has probably experienced at least two major transformations in that time. moreover, too much has already been written on the topic (and we know too little about it).
yet much of the moocs discussion within the education community has been too narrowly focused. The conversations often center on academic credits, traditional stu-dents, and financial returns. These are top-ics worthy of serious consideration, but they tend to emphasize impediments rather than opportunities and create resistance rather than excitement among faculty and other key players.
our response to moocs is really no different than it is to other technological advances. we apply the new capabilities to existing problems, setting up inevitable comparisons and conflicts with existing solutions. The debate then is framed by questions such as, “are moocs better or worse than the traditional classroom experience?” and “will moocs replace full-time faculty?”
The much more interesting question is, “what can moocs do that existing solu-tions can’t?” and i think some intriguing answers can be found in the advancement arena, most notably alumni relations.
a tOOL fOR LIfELOng LEaRnIngone of the fundamental promises colleges and universities make to their alumni is the opportunity for lifelong learning, a pledge that dates back to 1874 when wheaton college in massachusetts offered the first continuing education courses aimed at graduates (see caSe’s alumni relations
timeline at bit.ly/AR_history). yet during the intervening 139 years, institutions have struggled to fulfill that promise.
with moocs, colleges and universities (and, yes, even schools) now have a power-ful tool for re-engaging alumni in the intel-lectual life of the institution. while many institutions have sought ways to integrate the classroom experience into reunions and other traditional alumni activities, these efforts are often more about nostalgia than learning, more about recapturing the past than preparing for the future.
encouraging alumni participation in moocs or, even better, tailoring moocs for alumni audiences has the potential to develop new forms and levels of engage-ment. and this potential cuts across the generations.
For recent graduates, moocs may help them hone existing skills or develop new ones to increase their options in a chal-lenging employment marketplace. For midcareer graduates, moocs can be the delivery mechanism for continuing educa-tion units, whether required or desired. and for those approaching retirement, moocs offer the chance to explore new areas of interest and to reconnect with the life of the mind. For baby boomers entering their sixties, moocs could not be coming at a better time.
MORE EngagEMEnt, MORE gIvIngdespite this great potential for moocs to serve the alumni body, alumni engage-ment was one of the least cited reasons for interest in moocs in a member survey conducted by educauSe, an association dedicated to advancing higher education through information technology. in that same survey, however, a significant num-ber of respondents suggested that moocs were important for branding and visibility.
indeed, moocs have great potential from a communications and marketing perspec-tive, well beyond enhanced name recogni-tion. moocs allow prospective students to participate in the learning process with faculty members and let accepted students become part of the community—and get a head start on their academic careers even before they arrive on campus. Just as moocs offer alumni a much deeper expe-rience than they get from a seminar at a reunion, they offer prospective students far greater insight than a classroom “pop in” during a campus tour.
do moocs also hold potential for fund-raising? most certainly, for the simple reason that donor engagement correlates highly with propensity to give. Prospective donors—alumni, other benefactors, even corporate and foundation executives—who take advantage of moocs will likely develop a greater appreciation for the institution and its faculty and, therefore, a greater willingness to provide philanthropic support. offering major donors access to moocs on subjects of particular interest to them would represent a quantum leap from a faculty member giving a 30-minute talk at a campaign dinner.
it is too early to tell if moocs can play a significant role in institutional advancement. But it is also too early to dismiss, overlook, or limit that potential. Fortunately, educa-tional institutions are places that value experimentation; the very existence of moocs is clear evidence of that. So let’s broaden our thinking about moocs to include advancement and let the experi-ments begin. C
The MOOCs Shall Inherit the EarthThat’s the fear, but online classes could boost alumni relations and fundraisingBy John LippincoTT
Janice Dore Alumna. BS, Chemistry, 2002. Email: Mail.app for iOS; Open Rate: 65%; Clickthrough: 5%. Print recipient. Most responsive to student phone contact. Avg. annual contrib: $240. Est. capacity: $500.
Eileen SmitheeParent of Adam Smithee, Class of 1988. Partner: Mitchell (d). Most responsive to postal contact. Member: Founder’s Circle. Avg. annual contrib: $12,000. Est. capacity: $51,000. Legacy.
C.F. FrostInstitutional Donor. VP, Cascadian Financial. Partner: Sam. Most responsive to: VIP solicit. Print recipient. Member: Alama Mater Society, The President’s Club. Trustee: the Cascadian Scholarship. Avg. annual contrib: $180K Est. capacity: $180K.
Know more. Do more. Achieve more.Because it’s not just who you know. It’s what you know about who you know.
Blackbaud CRM
Learn more at blackbaud.com/knowledge
At the end of the day, it’s not about what you know, but how you use that knowledge. Use it to give everyone in your institution easy access to the information they need to build and maintain alumni and supporter relationships that stand the test of time. Use it to make data-driven decisions. Use it to keep your supporters invested and engaged in your mission. Use it to be the welcome call rather than the last straw. Knowledge reveals opportunities.
advance work
PublicService
Tv
Home Is Where the Goal Posts AreThe stadium dorm is long gone, but Ohio State alumni keep the tradition alive for today’s students
Live in a college football stadium? For more than 60 years, hundreds of students at pigskin-crazy The Ohio State Univer-sity had that privilege, thanks to a dorm attached to Ohio Stadium, which is nick-named the Horseshoe for its unique design.
“We’d go on the field late at night to play games under the lights, and we could sneak into games through the fire escape doors before they put alarms on them,” says Paula Santa, a 1993 OSU graduate and 1988–90 ’Shoe resident.
The dorm dates back to 1933, when a dean created the Stadium Scholarship Program to help young male students in need of financial assistance. SSP recipients received a discount on room and board in exchange for six hours of work per week—including chores around the dorm. Women joined the program in 1975. By the 1990s the dorm accommo-dated more than 350 students, but it was razed following major renovations to Ohio Stadium in 1999.
The scholarship lives on, thanks to contributions from the Stadium Scholarship Alumni Society. Santa, the society’s president, estimates the group provides $10,000 per year in scholarships and sup-port for service trips and other student activities. Alumni also provide exam-week care packages for the residents of Scholars East and West, where current scholarship recipients reside.
Although today’s SSP recipients can’t live at the stadium, they still enjoy exclusive access to
the ’Shoe. Alumni and current students gather at the beginning of each academic year for a welcome event in the stadium. The scholarship program’s annual spring formal, Escapade, takes place in a meeting room overlooking the football field.
Says Santa of her group, which has been recognized more than 10 times as an Ohio State Alumni Association Outstanding Alumni Society: “We want to give back for the benefits we received, It means so much for us to perpetuate that experience.”—Kristin Simonetti
No place like ... Former residents of the old Stadium dorm (lower) gather annually for what else? An OSU football game.
TV That’s Actually … GoodCable network helps nonprofits highlight their works
If you’re channel-surfing in the coming months, in between reality shows about alligator wranglers and quick-tempered chefs, you might find a show about real-life efforts to eradicate homelessness.
Or a program about celebrities’ charitable causes. Or a broadcast about the medical breakthroughs made
by researchers at your institution. Welcome to The Public Service Cable Television
Network, a channel where nonprofits provide free pro-gramming to promote their causes, raise money, and recruit volunteers.
With the help of a startup grant, the nonprofit media consultancy Prosperity Media is launching the channel this fall for Washington, D.C., basic cable subscribers and plans to expand nationally. The network will run an eight-hour block of programming that will repeat.
Founder Cheryl Hawkins says many charitable enti-ties already have content on their websites or YouTube channels but lack the resources to get their message on air. A network that educates and invites viewers to participate in the problem-solving work of these organi-zations could “change how we see the world and think
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8 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Are Men More Generous than Women?
Unconventional WisdomSusan Kubik’s speech on fundraising spurred a presidential revolt but proved prescient
These days community college presidents are deeply involved in their institutions’
fundraising efforts. But in the early 1980s, when Susan Kubik told a community
college convention that presidents should take a larger role in fundraising, some
attendees were so troubled they walked out.
Kubik retired in 2012 after 37 years in institutional advancement at Northamp-
ton Community College in Pennsylvania. CURRENTS asked the trailblazer about
the evolution of community college advancement.
What were the circumstances surrounding your infamous presentation?
It was early in my career so I was thrilled to present at the American Associa-
tion of Community Colleges’ national convention with my president, Robert
Kopecek. It never occurred to me that what we were doing with alumni pro-
gramming at Northampton could be viewed any way but positively. So when
presidents walked out, I was shocked. It was only later that I came to appreci-
ate just what a visionary president I was working with. He had the solution
before others even identified the problem.
How can practitioners make their presidents alumni relations allies?
Advancement professionals [should] familiarize their leaders with best prac-
tices. For example, community college alumni identify with their academic
program. So rather than stage reunions around graduation years, invite alumni
back to campus for academic program reunions. The data now exist, so believ-
ing in the value of an alumni relations program at the community college level
no longer requires a leap of faith.
Was there a moment when you realized that
alumni engagement can pay dividends for com-
munity colleges?
The volunteer co-chairman of a campaign
we ran in 2002 was an alumnus and the
CEO of a local company. A very generous
supporter of the institution, he also was
a passionate, articulate spokesman for
the life-changing impact the college had
on him. That’s when I internalized the
value of affinity and the fact that, no
matter how hard you try, you can’t recre-
ate that level of passion and commitment
in someone who isn’t an alumnus. That
campaign raised over $14 million, and
over 20 percent of the total came from
alumni.—David Moltz
YES, according to a recent study published in the American Economic
Review. In an experiment, women who were warned about door-to-door
solicitations and given the chance to opt out gave less than men. The
theory: Women are more susceptible to social pressures to give.
Source: “the importance of Being marginal: Gender differences in Generosity,” American Economic Review, American economic Association, may 2013
©iStOcKphOtO.cOm/dny59/nicOlAS
about how we interact with each other,” she says. Who’s the audience? That depends on the show.
A rebroadcast of a recent disaster relief telethon, for example, might attract music lovers. “You have to target content to particular audiences,” similar to how AARP develops programs dealing with issues relevant to its audience of seniors, Hawkins says.
Special Olympics, Goodwill, and NeighborWorks America are among the organizations committed to providing content to the channel and for streaming on its web counterpart, Hawkins says. Prosperity Media also plans to offer grants to help nonprofits generate content. Want to spotlight your institution’s work on television? Visit www.publicservicecable.net.—Toni Coleman
About 3 percent of women and men gave during unannounced solicitations. When allowed to drop out, women’s giving fell
by about half.
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10 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
advance work
Those 71 staff members make up Williams
College’s entire advancement shop—alumni
relations; annual, major, and planned giving;
prospect research; and stewardship. And the
article doesn’t mention that the staff raised
more than $41 million this past fiscal year—at
a cost of 15 cents per dollar raised—to meet
100 percent of students’ financial aid needs
and support a 7-1 student-to-faculty ratio.
Massive inefficiencies? Uh, no.
The TruTh:
The GrADe:
”
“[M]any colleges employ a superabundance of
personnel who manage campus life and ideology but
contribute little to student learning. Tiny Williams
College [in Massachusetts], for instance, employs 71 people on its fundraising
staff full time.
PASS or FAIL?
The clAim:
—William Bennett and david Wilezol, listing one of the “massive inefficiencies”
jeopardizing higher education in a may 2013 cnBc column titled “colleges need
to eliminate inefficiencies to Survive”
Building Community Five Minutes at a TimeInformative TED-style talks show school’s personality
S omeone telling you to take off your shoes while eating lunch is not an everyday occurrence, especially not in a
theater. But when the middle school headmaster gave those instructions at Viewpoint School last September, no one found the request unusual. After all, that day was a 5Up day and the head-master was discussing the importance of mindful-ness during routine activities.
Two years ago the California independent school started Five Minutes Up, a series of lunch-time talks featuring speakers—students, alumni,
Some 5up faves:
A 2012 senior explains her experience with grapheme-color synesthesia, an involuntary overlapping of the senses in which her mind associates certain colors with specific letters, num-bers, and people. (bit.ly/5up-colors)
A 2013 senior discusses—and demonstrates—his newfound love of tap dancing and how it’s helped him grow beyond soci-etal stereotypes. (bit.ly/5up-tapdance)
the chair of the english department shares how discovering a rhyme in a German poem as a young girl changed her life. (bit.ly/5up-poetry)
faculty members, or other Viewpoint stakeholders—three to five times a year. Modeled after the popular “ideas worth spread-ing” concept of TED Talks, Viewpoint’s version challenges each speaker to talk about a life experience that will inform, ignite, and inspire the 100-person audience—all in about five minutes.
The talks, which are recorded and uploaded to the school’s YouTube channel (bit.ly/5up-playlist), provide an authentic window into the Viewpoint community. Admissions staff mem-bers email video links to prospective parents; new parents often say the videos helped them see the character of the school.
“You get a real sense of what we’re about and the culture, community, and values we reflect,” says Jennifer Rhodes, who as the senior advancement officer started the program in partnership with the school’s director of arts. “It’s a genuine way for people to get to know us better.”—Theresa Walker
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Youngstown State’s emails
get a 68% student open rate,
thousands of shares
in Facebook & Twitter, and
reach parents and influencers
...in the staff’s spare time.
Learn how Youngstown State and 500 other colleges turn student messaging into measurable marketing results to get the attention they deserve.
roi.meritpages.com/ysu
Just
ine
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ett
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cAse
Ellen Hazelkorn is the vice president for research and enterprise
and dean of the Graduate Research School at the Dublin Institute
of Technology. She is the author of Rankings and the Reshaping of
Higher Education and a co-author of Rankings and Accountability
in Higher Education.
Rankings alone
have never been a
fully reliable source
of information about
higher education
performance.
I f you think college and university rankings are a modern-day phenomenon, think again. In 1900 Englishman Alick Maclean published Where We
Get Our Best Men, a book that ranked institutions based on their number of prominent graduates. More than 100 years later, rankings not only are more plentiful—from 10 global college rankings to countless national, regional, and discipline-specific lists—but more controversial. The U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges ranking is still under scrutiny following revelations about its 2013 edition, in which five U.S. institutions acknowledged supplying incor-rect data about their incoming freshman classes.
Because self-reported information carries so much weight in rankings such as U.S. News, colleges and universities likely feel pressure to take controversial actions to keep pace in a global reputation arms race. The upside: As everyone from students to the media questions the reliability of rankings, some promising alternatives are gaining attention.
Why RankIngs MatteR— and Why that’s a PRobleMA widely cited 1999 study reported that when a selective private college or university improved in the U.S. News ranking—all other factors controlled—the institution received more applications, became more selective about the students it admitted, and enrolled a first-year class with better credentials. Improvements in those factors, in turn, boost an institution’s ranking. If an institution fell in the rank-ing, the reverse occurred.
Proponents of ranking systems say these mea-surements are the simplest way to compare higher education institutions. But critics argue that the rankings’ focus is too narrow and in some cases misplaced. Many lists, for example, equate the credentials of incoming students with an institu-tion’s performance and quality. The recent U.S. News dustup has focused attention on the universi-ties involved, but it hides a greater truth: Rankings
alone have never been a fully reliable source of information about higher education performance. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, rankings don’t measure what’s meaningful—they measure what’s easy.
The indicators used by different rankings, from U.S. News in the United States to Times Higher Education in the U.K., are based on the perspective of the ranking organization. There is no internation-ally agreed-upon definition of educational quality or tool to measure it. Higher education is complex; institutions reside within vastly different national contexts, value systems, customs, and demograph-ics. With so many variables at play, an objective ranking doesn’t exist.
Many indicators of institutional quality simply reflect socioeconomic advantages of incoming stu-dent cohorts or a university’s budget. Enrolling smart students and graduating them say very little about the educational experience. The faculty-to-student ratio, widely used as an indicator of teaching qual-ity, varies significantly based on the discipline or institution type. A college may have a great ratio, but what if its most prolific faculty members never teach? What if graduate teaching assistants lead many classes?
IntRIguIng oPtIons aboundDuring the past decade, governments and educational organizations have created a number of instruments to better compare institutions of higher learning. Here are a few examples.
Rankled by Rankings?Alternatives to U.S. News & World Report exist if you know where to lookBy EllEn HAzElkorn
C A S E C U R R E N T S 13
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Government-SponSored rankinGS• European Commission’s U-Multirank. U-Multirank (www.u-multirank.eu) will launch in 2014 with data from more than 600 colleges and universities across the continent. The web-based, user-driven tool will allow users to compare colleges and universities in categories such as teaching, research, knowledge transfer, international orientation, and regional engagement. U-Multirank will also compare institutions at the department level, allowing prospective students to identify specific academic pro-grams that fit their needs. • U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard. The scorecard (bit.ly/college_scorecard), which debuted earlier this year, lets users search colleges and universities by name, location, size, and campus set-ting. The tool lists institutions that meet the specifications a user selects. It pro-vides financial information such as total cost, average loan amounts for students and loan default rates, graduation rates, and types of jobs graduates obtain.
• Australian government’s MyUniversity. This tool (myuniversity.gov.au) gives users access to data including student-to-staff ratios, student and staff demographics, and the results of student satisfaction and grad-uate destination surveys as well as tuition information. MyUniversity users can search by institution or course of study.
SoCiAl iMpACt–BASED RAnkingS
• U21 Ranking of national Higher Education Systems. Rather than focus-ing on individual institutions, the U21 list (bit.ly/U21ranking) assesses how well a higher education system serves its coun-try. Developed by Universitas 21, a global network of research universities, the mea-surement ranks nations’ institutions based on four weighted categories: 1. Resources: government spending and
total expenditures of the institutions2. Environment: policies and regulations of
the institutions and the nation and gen-der balance among students and staff
3. Connectivity: robustness of the
institutions’ websites, international stu-dent enrollment, and the number of faculty members who publish research articles with international collaborators
4. Output: presence of world-class universi-ties, stock of researchers, and unemploy-ment rate among alumni.
• Washington Monthly College guide. Published since 2005, this U.S. ranking (bit.ly/washmonthly) focuses on three factors: social mobility (enrolling and graduating low-income students), research production, and commitment to public service. • Metroversities ranking. This list (bit.ly/MetroversitySurvey) measures how all col-leges and universities in a U.S. metropolitan region positively affect the quality of life for the area’s citizens. Regions are ranked by total educational expenditures; faculty and staff employees; research expenditures; and federal appropriations, grants, and contracts.
sloW Change exPeCtedFor all its flaws, the U.S. News ranking and its ilk maintain their appeal—and commer-cial value—because of their simplicity. In the future, social networking may enable users to bypass formal ranking systems. For example, a TripAdvisor-like site for higher education might provide a combination of statistical data about institutions and stu-dents as well as commentary from users.
Citizens worldwide require a system that helps them determine whether a college or university will provide students not only the skills and qualities they’ll need to thrive pro-fessionally but also the ability to be inde-pendent thinkers who can distinguish facts from opinion, present arguments, and serve their societies. That system doesn’t yet exist, but institutions can move toward that goal in meaningful ways. First, colleges and universities need to incorporate rankings into a comprehensive benchmarking sys-tem instead of using them as a definitive evaluation tool. Second, leaders should align institutional priorities with societal needs—not ranking categories—in mind. Finally, institutions must help prospective students, policymakers, and the media understand the limitations of rankings and encourage them to use a variety of sources when deciding whether to attend or sup-port a college or university. C
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Ruff aloCODY congratulates Kansas State University for recently winning the annual Generous U award for its K-State Proud campaign. The Generous U award was established in 2009 by the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at Brandeis University. This tremendous honor recognizes K-State students for leading student philanthropy eff orts nati onwide.
CELEBRATEso many reasons to
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Brenda Solomon is the vice president of development at
Marymount California University, formerly Marymount College.
W hen I was recruited to become a
development officer more than a decade ago, my instinctive response was: I can’t ask people for money. But then I realized I’d really be connecting with donors on an issue we both care about—education.
Initially, I simply told donors about the institu-tion’s needs. If they decided to support Oklahoma State University’s College of Edu-cation, where I earned a doctorate in occupational and adult continuing education, taught graduate-level courses, and worked on education outreach programs, that was great. If they didn’t, maybe they knew someone else who was interested in support-ing the college.
But I realized I wasn’t creating the deeper connec-tion with donors that would bring in larger gifts to the university. My educator instincts told me that donors wanted to learn more about and develop a deeper relationship with the institution. To help them do that, I needed to understand the best way to relate to donors and focus on their needs. As fundraisers, it is our responsibility to learn about donors’ concerns, interests, and goals. Only then can we connect their passions to institutional priorities.
FundRaIseRs aRe eduCatoRs tooAs education fundraisers, we work with a population that likes to learn. But before they give, donors need to know why they should give, and it’s our job as fundraisers to educate them.
We also need to understand how donors think and what motivates them to give. In my work as an adult educator, I frequently used an evaluation instrument called ATLAS, Assessing The Learning Strategies of AdultS (www.conti-creations.com/atlas.htm), which I have since added to my fundraising
tool kit. The ATLAS instru-ment encourages people to think about how they learn—a process known as metacognition—and quickly identifies their pre-ferred learning strategies based on their responses to a brief learning scenario. I use this same approach to identify how donors pro-cess information in real-life situations, which ultimately shapes their decision-making, including whether to give.
ATLAS divides learners into three categories: • navigators are planners who like to be efficient
and effective. They require order and structure. They’re logic-oriented, objective perfectionists, according to a 2009 Teaching and Teacher Educa-tion journal article. Navigators typically don’t enjoy working in groups, preferring to do the work them-selves. Their motto for learning: “Plan the work; work the plan.”
• problem solvers are open-minded, critical thinkers who revel in ideas and finding creative and alternative solutions. They often see traits from the other two ATLAS categories in themselves. (Who else but a problem solver would generate several alternatives?) They are prone to procrastination. Decision-making is not their strong suit, but story-telling is. Their motto: “Ask me what time it is, and I’ll build you a clock.”
• Engagers are driven by feelings and learn best when building relationships with others. Learning excites them, but they’re quickly bored when they don’t feel engaged in the process. They love to net-work and can find it difficult to separate themselves from their work. Their learning motto: “It is FUN!”
Using the ATLAS instrument to assess donors has helped me create clear donor-engagement strate-gies. At first I thought using ATLAS might distance me from the ask. Instead, it helped me personalize the fundraising process and keep everyone focused on the ultimate goal of a gift. Adapting the learner-centered approach I practiced as an adult educator
Identifying what’s
behind people’s
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Inside the Minds of DonorsUnderstanding how your donors learn can help you engage their passions and purpose for givingBy BrEndA Solomon
C A S E C U R R E N T S 15
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has made me more donor-centered and better able to identify donors’ passions and propensity to give.
With an understanding of how donors learn, my staff and I are better equipped for resolving donors’ questions, concerns, or objections. Problem solvers, for example, are energized by what we discuss in a meeting but often lose focus afterward. When I conclude meetings with problem solvers, I send an email with bullet points that highlight the main topics of our conver-sation. The follow-up message helps them stay on course, but it also lets them review the discussion and generate other ideas and connections. Meanwhile, I know that we’re on the same page about the meeting and goals.
You may be wondering how I determine which people fit which category. No, I don’t ask everyone to complete the ques-tionnaire. (I have spent a couple minutes answering the questions myself, an action I would recommend before assessing oth-ers with it.) When I do suggest that people
take it, I make it a fun, casual, and brief activity. By that point I not only feel com-fortable enough to make the request, but I often have a fairly good sense of whether a donor is an engager, a navigator, or a problem solver. Using ATLAS with a donor creates another bond and confirms that person’s preferred learning strategy, which is helpful when you are making the ask. It’s just a tool, but it’s one I’ve used effectively throughout my fundraising career.
ConFIRM PeoPle’s stRengths I used ATLAS with my staff last year when I started the newly created posi-tion of vice president of development at Marymount California University, which recently transitioned from a two-year college to a four-year institution. Once my staff members identified their learn-ing strategies, I better understood the makeup of the office and how each per-son approaches his or her work.
Sometimes peoples’ results surprise me. One of my major gift officers, who I thought
would be an engager, is actually a naviga-tor. She finds cold-calling difficult, enjoys exhaustive donor research, and prefers planning and monitoring donor meetings on her own to working in a group. She was performing well, but she wasn’t comfort-able doing her job. We agreed she should move into a role that’s better suited to her strengths—director of corporate and foun-dation relations.
Gauging my staff’s strengths has an addi-tional benefit: It helps me consider how new hires would balance the learning composi-tion of the office. As an avowed problem solver, I’ve also pursued professional devel-opment opportunities for staff members that would satisfy every type of learner, such as a recent visit to another university where each of my team members shad-owed their counterpart for the day.
At my first MCU board meeting, ATLAS was an effective icebreaker, especially for development committee members. I told them that I’m a textbook example of a problem solver, but I could easily be mis-taken for an engager because of some of my people-oriented personality traits. By identifying their own learning categories, board members felt free to tell me how they want to receive information and deal with gift solicitations. One told me that since she’s a navigator, she’d prefer that I skip the speeches, be direct, and tell her the amount to write on her check. As a board member, she doesn’t need me to explain why the institution needs her money.
In development, we’re often so busy looking for the next gift that we don’t or can’t find the time to reflect on our work. Evaluating our successes and failures can be a challenge, but it’s an important exer-cise. All donors are not alike, and they do not give for the same reasons. Understand-ing how a person responds to receiving information is another way to help fundrais-ers recognize the best way to connect with a donor for the good of the institution. C
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BELIEVEThe spirit of family runs deep at Kansas State University. That spirit drives the student-led K-State Proud campaign, which, over the last seven years, raised $650,000 for Student Opportunity Awards that provided fi nancial support to 300 fellow classmates.
so many reasons to
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‘DisturbeD’ No More: once a vocal critic who wrote columns challenging Morehouse College’s administration, John s. Wilson Jr. returned in January as—yes—his alma mater’s president.
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As a Morehouse College student in the 1970s, John Silvanus Wilson Jr. was a critic of the Georgia institution. Surprised by campuswide inefficiencies and annoyed by long lines at registra-tion, he wrote essays for the student newspaper challenging the administration and joined the student government so he could meet regularly with then-Morehouse President Hugh Gloster.
Earlier this year, that same firebrand whose commentaries were dubbed “Disturbed About Morehouse” became presi-dent of the historically black college. Wilson returned to his alma mater to help steer it through turbulent economic waters and to give back to the college where he enjoyed camaraderie and unconditional acceptance.
Wilson and his fellow alumni-in-chief often take their posts to preserve, improve, and expand the best aspects of their own undergraduate experiences for future generations. While memories of yesteryear shape only part of these presidents’ executive goals and actions, elements of their undergraduate days help them lead their institutions more effectively—in advancement and other areas.
By Lydia Lum
From fundraising to admissions, alumni-turned-presidents pay dividends for their alma maters
A Different Kind of Home coming
20 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
back to the Future: “It’s as if John started his job as an undergraduate and has returned here for his next chapter,” says Phillip howard, Morehouse vice president of advancement, about John s. Wilson Jr., left.
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geFUEl FoR FUNdRaiSiNgBeing an alumnus can be a “tip factor” for a presi-dent, particularly regarding development, says Judith Block McLaughlin, director of the higher education program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education in Massachusetts.
“These presidents are living logos of their institu-tions, and that holds appeal,” says McLaughlin, who as chair of the annual Harvard Seminar for New Presidents has advised about 1,000 executives.
Phillip Howard, Morehouse’s vice president of institutional advancement, has worked for alumni presidents throughout his 12-year tenure. Because graduates can share relevant aspects of their student experiences when cultivating donors for specific pur-poses, alumni presidents exude an authenticity that connects effectively with donors.
Howard witnessed such authenticity when he joined former Morehouse President Robert Franklin Jr. on a fundraising visit to New York City. The pair met with the CEO of a corporation who had known Franklin’s predecessor, Walter Massey. Also a Morehouse alum-nus, Massey had long ago explained to the CEO the college’s history and its tendency to hire graduates for important leadership positions. The executive, who started at the company in an entry-level position and had worked his way to the top, was struck by the simi-larities between their paths to leadership.
The connection led Franklin and the CEO to dis-cuss financial support for Morehouse, which resulted in a $3 million gift—the second largest the college received in 2009.
PRESidENT aS PoSTER ChildMexico’s CETYS University doesn’t hide the fact that its president, Fernando León García, is one of its graduates. León García’s identity as CETYS’ first alumnus president figures prominently in student recruiting materials and newsletters to parents. His personal tie to the institution slides into conversation when León García gives interviews or fields questions during presentations to CETYS faculty members or at local town hall meetings.
“It puts a face to a success story,” says Carlos H. García Alvarado, director of CETYS’ Ensenada cam-pus and a former director of institutional advancement.
A 1978 graduate of CETYS’ Mexicali campus, León García relied on a scholarship and various jobs at the university to pay for college. He wasn’t a stranger to working hard; the middle of three chil-dren, he was only 5 years old when his father died and had juggled jobs alongside his high school studies to help with family expenses and save for college.
But León García rarely shares such details of his undergraduate experience and childhood difficulties with staff or students.
“It’s important not to make this job too much about me,” says León García, who has dedicated 29 years of his professional life to CETYS. “The idea is to empower others, not myself. My priority has been to continue the work of previous presidents and the perpetuation of their ideals.”
Nevertheless, one facet of the job is very personal to him: raising money for scholarships and student experiences. Ninety percent of CETYS students today receive financial aid. As part of the current CETYS 2020 campaign, León García has asked alumni to support scholarships and the expansion of athletics and other student activities. About 600 alumni con-tributed gifts totaling $350,000 in 2012. Gifts from 55 other alumni who sat on CETYS’ governing board that year totaled more than $1 million.
To SERvE aNd PRoTECTLeón García isn’t the only campus leader who is guarded about certain aspects of his undergraduate experience. Morehouse’s Wilson, however, glosses over some of his history for a different reason. He chuckles now when recalling a reporter’s questions about his “Disturbed About Morehouse” series. After taking a moment to consider his response,
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payiNg it ForwarD: Fernando león garcía, whose own Cetys educa-tion was supported by a scholarship, has made increasing funding for students a presidential priority.
Wilson explained that his writings as a student focused on what were seemingly unbearable prob-lems at Morehouse. He has since made sure the essays aren’t available online.
Wilson is much more open to discussing how Morehouse has been a part of his life since child-hood. He grew up idolizing his church pastor, a Morehouse alumnus who had moved his parsonage into an all-white neighborhood in Pennsylvania. Convinced that Morehouse must have been a factory of sorts that produced larger-than-life men like his pastor, Wilson enrolled sight unseen.
He found lifelong friends in classmates such as filmmaker Spike Lee and basked in the supportive campus atmosphere. Wilson also noticed some of Morehouse’s bureaucratic shortcomings. As an under-graduate, he met President Emeritus Benjamin Mays, who had mentored Martin Luther King Jr., a 1948
Morehouse graduate. Mays’ presidency lasted 27 years, and he later was the chair of Atlanta’s board of education who oversaw the integration of the city’s public schools. Wilson explained his grievances, saying that he “loved Morehouse but didn’t always like it.”
Mays advised the young Wilson to help enact the changes he wished to see and to finish his studies so that he could someday come back to serve Morehouse. “That was a defining moment for me,” Wilson recalls.
Before returning to campus as president, Wilson took seriously Mays’ call to improve Morehouse. As the college’s Boston alumni chapter president, he helped raise $1 million for scholarships and commu-nity outreach. Now as president, Wilson aspires to operational excellence—and job one is improving the institution’s aging technology infrastructure. Although the process has just begun, students and staff have spent countless hours unraveling procedural and
technical glitches in important areas such as financial aid. Some of Wilson’s other goals for his young presi-dency are to increase Morehouse’s $129 million endowment and bump up the alumni giving rate from 38 to 65 percent. The additional funds would, for instance, provide faculty research stipends.
“I have a deep love for this place and have always had high expectations for Morehouse,” Wilson says. “There are aspects of life here that need more invest-ment and development.”
”“It’s important not to
make this job too much
about me. The idea is to
empower others, not myself.
— Fernando León García CETyS university
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ForeigN relatioNs: tan Chorh Chuan’s transformative study abroad experiences lie behind his emphasis on student exchange programs and intercultural activities at Nus today.
iNTERNaTioNal iNSPiRaTioNLike Wilson, Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, president of the National University of Singapore, wants to improve his students’ experience. But his wide focus goes beyond campus and Singapore’s borders. Tan avidly encourages NUS’ 27,000 undergraduates to broaden their perspectives by studying abroad before they graduate.
He speaks from the heart and personal experience. The seventh of nine children in a single-income fam-ily, Tan had never ventured farther than neighboring Malaysia before attending NUS. Thanks to scholar-ships and faculty donations, he supplemented his medical education with two months of study at a London hospital and a two-week program at Japan’s Dokkyo and Juntendo universities.
Beyond the intellectual benefits, Tan says traveling showed him his personal strengths and weaknesses and helped him learn when and how to trust strangers.
Those are reasons why he’s so adamant that current students take advantage of studying abroad.
“These are opportunities for self-reflection that may be clearer than what they learn in class,” Tan says.
During Tan’s presidency, NUS has promoted stu-dent exchange programs and internships through its international relations office, which organizes campus events such as German Day and Middle East Night to fuel interest in specific regions. Academic departments host question-and-answer sessions for students curious about studies in particular subjects. To defray costs the university awards scholarships to Singaporean undergraduates based on financial need and to foreign students based on academic merit.
NUS officials say that so many alumni approve of and appreciate Tan’s efforts to increase cross-cultural awareness and knowledge among students that the international relations office is considering asking alumni abroad to serve as hosts for NUS students.
C A S E C U R R E N T S 23
hoMe sweet (MouNt) holyoke: three decades after walking a leaf-strewn path with her younger sister (left), lynn Pasquerella was inaugurated as the college’s 18th president in 2010.
”“I want to connect with the past,
yet still move forward.
— Lynn Pasquerella mount Holyoke College
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BlESSiNgS aNd CURSESAlthough alumni presidents clearly have natural advantages, Harvard’s McLaughlin points out some drawbacks. She compares such vulnerabilities to the struggles of a president who previously served at another institution. If he or she enjoyed success the first time around, the president may instinctively rely on the same strategies to achieve similar outcomes at the new institution without fully considering the dif-ferences between the campuses.
Similarly, alumni presidents may rely too much on past experiences as a student when making decisions as the chief executive. Take Holden Thorp, the for-mer chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who departed in June. The 1986 UNC alumnus was selected to lead his alma mater by a unanimous vote of the university’s board of trustees in 2008, but an athletics scandal that spilled into aca-demics proved too much for Thorp to overcome. Reporters and op-ed writers speculated that Thorp’s connection to the university, coupled with no previous management of athletics, produced a large blind spot for UNC sports.
McLaughlin recommends that alumni presidents take their time to reach decisions rather than relying on instinct, emotion, or a belief they understand the institution better than others because they are alumni.
“It’s wise to stay flexible and be open to new learn-ing,” McLaughlin says.
Alumni presidents also contend with a situation other chief executives don’t need to handle: how they’ll be perceived by their fellow graduates when making big institutional decisions.
“The alumni might assume you’re going to hold the institution to its sacred past,” McLaughlin says. “A president might be criticized if he or she changes the curriculum or decides to knock down a building. It is seen as betrayal. Alumni tend to ask, ‘How could you, of all people, do this to us and to the school?’”
Mount Holyoke College President Lynn Pasquerella found herself in such a predicament with about 30 alumnae last year. She disclosed in an e-newsletter that a committee of administrators and students was con-sidering consolidating five aging dining halls into one to save money.
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The alumnae objected, insisting that valu-able learning had occurred every night in the dining halls when they, as students, discussed politics, history, and many other topics in small groups. Those groups typically dined together for an entire semester or longer. They argued that a single cafeteria-style din-ing facility at the women’s institution in Massachusetts might feel unwelcoming and drive students away. Tradition, the anxious alumnae said, would be squashed.
As a 1980 Mount Holyoke alumna, Pasquerella could relate to their sentiments. When addressing the alumnae’s concerns, she sprinkled the college’s rationale with memories of some of her own dinnertime debates. She explained that the tradition of deep discussions during supper had actually petered out before her presidency.
“Students are now choosing dining halls
based on that night’s meal choices [and] don’t sit for long anymore,” Pasquerella says. “But I remember our talks when I was an undergraduate, analyzing the pros and cons of nuclear power with other women. This kind of give and take was important to my intellectual development.
“I’m glad I could respect the opposition, yet break it down,” Pasquerella continues. “I want to connect with the past, yet still move forward.”
Such sentiments fueled Pasquerella’s decision to freeze Mount Holyoke’s tuition for two straight years to alleviate students’ loan burdens. Pasquerella’s sensitivity to stu-dents’ financial struggles has roots in her undergraduate years at Mount Holyoke. When her Pell Grant and other financial aid failed to cover her expenses, Pasquerella lined up a job grading papers. Her commitment
to keeping tuition reasonable is evident in Mount Holyoke’s current strategic plan, which specifies cutting operating costs by reducing administration and other functions.
ThE UlTiMaTE alUMNi ENgagEMENT The exact number of alumni who preside over their alma maters hasn’t been tracked in recent years by organizations that support and study college presidents. Nor is there any mandate among institutions to hire alumni presidents—although on some campuses it may seem like tradition. At Morehouse, Wilson is the seventh consecutive alumnus president since 1967.
Perhaps that’s why Wilson is unfazed when students and alumni complain publicly about Morehouse’s current problems. In fact, he sympathetically summarizes their views when meeting with faculty or news reporters. The vocal activist that emerged during his undergraduate years has since matured.
For instance, Wilson is occasionally asked to reflect on the tenure of Morehouse’s for-mer President Gloster. He balances his com-plaints from long ago with praise, pointing out how Morehouse added a dozen buildings during Gloster’s time.
Much like Gloster and his other prede-cessors, Wilson models and promotes the college’s values to students, advancement vice president Howard says. Wilson has become a servant and leader for the institu-tion, showing students the importance of supporting their alma mater during their college years and long afterward.
“It’s as if John started his job as an under-graduate and has returned here for the next chapter,” Howard says. “Our alumni presi-dents take long-term views of the institution and students in ways no one else can.” C
Lydia Lum is a freelance writer and former reporter for
the Houston Chronicle and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
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ediA
To share or not to share? I studied the Tumblr post for about five minutes. The animated GIF (bit.ly/eyeroll-gif) was hilarious—Lucille Bluth, matriarch on the TV show Arrested Development, rolling her eyes while sipping what’s prob-ably her third martini—but it was the accompanying text that had me transfixed. It was a bawdy response from Hamilton College students after a rival university’s student newspaper talked, let’s say, “smack” about them in April. The sentiment was real—uncensored, timely, and relevant. In the spirit of asking for forgiveness rather than permission, I clicked post and it instantly appeared on The Scroll (bit.ly/HCscroll), the moderated social media platform Hamilton launched in February 2013.
Since the debut of our custom-made web platform, which resembles a con-stantly changing Pinterest board, decisions like that are now a regular part of my day as director of interactive content strategy. Students, alumni, prospective students, and other community members vie to have their tweets, posts, and pic-tures appear on The Scroll, part of a friendly competition that ensures a steady stream of content through hashtags like #GetScrolled and @HamiltonCollege mentions. When I came to the New York college in June 2012, I hoped for this kind of vibrant social media engagement, but I wouldn’t have guessed we would realize that goal in less than a year.
Hamilyin the All
The true story of what happens when
a college stops being polite and
protective of its campus’s quirks
and starts getting real on social media:
The Scroll
By Jessica Krywosa
28 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Show off yoUR aUdiENCESoon after arriving at Hamilton, I was told that alumni and students feel an exception-ally strong connection to the college. A born cynic, I thought: “Sure, that’s what every institution says about its community.” But once I began studying social media senti-ment about Hamilton, I discovered people really do love this place. The attitude among alumni on social networks was overwhelm-ingly positive. Student voices, however, were nearly nonexistent. After meeting with stu-dents and alumni to discuss possible reasons for the disconnect, I learned that many felt Hamilton either wasn’t trying to actively engage its audiences through social media or, even worse, the college didn’t want to hear from them. We needed to change that perception.
We wanted a vehicle that would highlight the voices and passion of our audiences: alumni tweeting about their professional accomplishments, students blogging while doing research in Antarctica, prospective stu-dents posting pictures of their campus visits, and everything in between. We didn’t want to just distribute Hamilton-created content. We wanted to show the interaction among our audience members; feature the valuable content they’re creating and sharing about us; and better yet, give them a place to do it that would generate genuine Hamilton buzz, increase our mentions, stimulate authentic conversations, and attract more people to join the party.
Prior to launching The Scroll, I noticed many institutions were building social media hubs that aggregated their own feeds, but they weren’t including or asking for audience-generated content. Many colleges were also using Storify to curate content from Twitter chats and event-based social media activity. Housing this valuable con-tent on a third-party site seemed like a missed opportunity. That’s when it dawned on us: Instead of relying on constantly evolving social media platforms, we would
become agnostic and create our own. We wanted people to share and talk about Hamilton on the college’s website. And we were fortunate enough to have the internal talent to develop such a tool.
PlaTfoRM waNTEd: faST, flExiBlE, aNd USER-fRiENdly At first glance, The Scroll may seem like just another social media mashup that col-lects an institution’s social media feeds in one place to highlight real-time activity, but its inner workings are much more complex. The site, which was developed by Hamilton’s communications and web ser-vices offices, displays hand-selected content from multiple social networks, including Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram. Thanks to the talents of a dedicated on-site developer, our platform’s flexible back-end design allows us to specify and select con-tent sources by keywords, mentions of the @HamiltonCollege handle, hashtags, and even particular users. Since we can call on internal resources, we can make upgrades and changes at a moment’s notice.
By not relying on specific social chan-nels, we’ve created a customized stream of social media content without cannibalizing our audiences on existing social networks. The Scroll can pull content from virtually any social channel through the use of hashtags, which means users don’t have to think about choosing a certain channel for their content. (And we can add new ones to The Scroll’s functionality if they gain traction among our audiences.) Users also can easily find the information and conver-sations that are most relevant to them because we tag and package content, then share it through a handful of named tabs aimed at certain audiences. Head for the Hill, for example, is geared toward prospec-tive students and families while Buff & Blue features athletics-focused conversa-tions. We can instantly change content tags and direct posts to the appropriate area.
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C A S E C U R R E N T S 29
When a topic or a hashtag gets hot, such as admissions, we dedicate space to it and make it a featured tab. With the added functionality of linking to a specific tab or to an expired trending tab, we can also archive social media content by topic.
a SCRoll iS BoRNWhile Hamilton’s web services team was developing and building the platform, our marketing and design teams worked on The Scroll’s branding and visual identity, starting with its name. The idea combines Hamilton’s 200-plus year history with the notion of a scroll as a communications tool and the digi-tal scrolling people now do every day. After coming up with dozens of options—for both the platform and its audience-specific tabs—we presented the ideas to our newly created student social media advi-sory group for a vote. The winners were clear, even if a few voted against some of the staff’s personal favorites.
The most crucial step in this process was achieving buy-in at all levels across campus. With The Scroll as the centerpiece, we held meeting after meeting to discuss our Share and Engage strategy, speaking with everyone from the college’s senior officers to alumni volunteers. To encourage more campus account users, we held multiple workshops and one-on-one meetings where we discussed social media strategy and best practices. We explained why we were creat-ing The Scroll and how campus users could create accounts, get involved, and engage in conversations that would benefit their departments. We involved as many stake-holders as possible, listened to their views, and invited them to participate in the hopes that they would create content to help keep The Scroll alive and relevant.
After months of development, meetings, and feedback, The Scroll went live. To light a viral flame on campus, we created faux parchment paper scrolls and placed them in high-traffic areas. Each one fea-tured The Scroll logo, its web address, and the hashtag #GetScrolled. Student leaders who had a preview of the platform started using the hashtag, which piqued their class-mates’ interest.
As our primary content campaign, #GetScrolled has quickly become part of the Hamilton culture. The hashtag appears in
emails, web pages, invitations, and programs. The phrase is part of the campus lexicon. Everything from birthdays to feminist philos-ophies have been tagged and added to The Scroll, which has transcended our notion and limitations of the Hamilton brand.
iT’S alivE—aNd lifE iS MESSy On The Scroll, we use terms that the col-lege would never include in its formal com-munications channels. For instance, light side and dark side, nicknames that students
and alumni use to refer to the two sides of the Hamilton campus, frequently appear on The Scroll. Light side denotes the origi-nal Hamilton campus, sometimes known as the “preppy” side; the dark side, also known as the “artsy” side, is the former Kirkland College campus that merged with Hamilton in the late 1970s. We appropri-ated “Hamily,” a hashtag coined by an alumna, and dubbed the site’s alumni sec-tion tab Our Hamily.
From its inception, The Scroll has been a lesson in campus change, but it’s also a
vibrant demonstration of the Hamilton brand—one that’s per-petuated primarily by students and alumni. To remain credible and authentic, the acceptable con-tent threshold remains extremely high. Most content is Scroll-worthy, with the exception of posts that threaten general safety, are violent in nature, attack a spe-cific individual, or are libelous. This level of permissibility comes with some discomfort. In fact, some submissions lead to long periods of reflection as we decide whether to add or tag certain con-tent (profanity-laced posts and Arrested Development GIFs included). The Scroll challenges Hamilton to not only promote users’ positive sentiments but also their negative comments. Part of
Hamilton’s mission is to cultivate critical thinkers and effective communicators, so the college should be comfortable providing a space for people to freely and authentically express themselves.
Watching these kinds of realistic interac-tions play out has provoked difficult what-if discussions about how we would handle The Scroll’s content during a campus emergency or a scandal. The general consensus is that whatever is on the minds of our community members should be fodder for the platform.
out to launch: hamilton college scattered traditional paper scrolls across campus in February 2013 to spark curiosity and spread the word about the debut of the scroll, the new York college’s moderated social platform.
30 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Sanitizing our content would deaden its effect. If The Scroll becomes just another institutional voice, it will lose all credibility and the content will disappear.
lET ThERE BE CoNTENTBy creating a platform that showcases user-generated content, we’ve leveraged the van-ity aspect of social media. People want to #GetScrolled. Knowing that users generally post comments and pictures with the intent of being seen, we appeal to their sense of self-promotion and benefit from the con-tent they produce.
Since The Scroll’s debut, students’ social media exchanges with Hamilton have dou-bled. They’ve reported that their friends have either increased their use of social media or, in some cases, joined social net-works so that they can interact with others who appear on The Scroll. Alumni also have embraced the platform. They send pictures from regional events, post campus memories and photos, and even proclaim their giving status during annual fund challenges.
Beyond #GetScrolled, all major college events receive hashtags, but promoting those created by community members remains our golden ticket. We work with leaders on and off campus to publicize hashtags; we’ve even given them trending status so that our community can follow events in real time. During a recent student debate about gun control, students publi-cized their own hashtag, #hcdebates. Once it became popular, we gave it a trending tab on The Scroll and dragged the social media fire hose for content to add to the section. Students appreciated our approach and spread the word. Now they routinely brain-storm hashtags for other events and look for new ways to promote activities and capture the community’s attention on The Scroll.
Hamilton17 was a trending tab through-out this year’s admission yield season. When applicants logged in to receive their admission decision, the message included the #Hamilton17 hashtag and an invitation
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to #GetScrolled. Many used the hashtag in their joyful posts about being accepted, often including photos of themselves wear-ing Hamilton apparel or posing with a col-lege banner.
During our spring open house for accepted students, visiting prospective stu-dents and their families took pictures in front of the statue of Alexander Hamilton, the college’s namesake and a rite of passage for campus visitors. Indoors, as accepted stu-dents and their families waited for a presen-tation to begin, a large projection showed The Scroll constantly updating as users tweeted and posted their photos. In addition to entertaining the captive audience, The Scroll gave people another way to interact with Hamilton and each other.
In April, we decided to see if The Scroll’s irreverence could generate some fundraising buzz, so we worked with the development office on the Dark Side–Light Side GOLD Challenge, an annual fund contest aimed at raising scholarship money from young alumni (bit.ly/HClight-dark) that capitalized on the rivalry between the two sides of cam-pus. Using the primary hashtag #hcgold13, although #lightside and #darkside were used as well, recent graduates challenged each other to give. More than 200 alumni partici-pated, propelling the light side to victory with 117 gifts to the dark side’s 93 contribu-tions (11 people gave to both sides). A cou-ple years ago, experimenting with these terms for fundraising purposes would have been unthinkable. An environment that embraces and reflects students’ and alumni’s true campus experiences added to the fun of the good-natured competition.
KEEPiNg UP aNd KEEPiNg iT REal The Scroll is a living entity that needs to be fed regularly. It is all day, every day. Nights and weekends. Holidays and vaca-tions. There is no way to set it and forget it. I select each piece of content that appears. Curating The Scroll requires human judg-ment. But how can one person continually and objectively monitor, approve, tag, and promote content?
The Scroll’s positive reception and popu-larity has spurred discussions about allowing other people to manage specific content areas. By spreading the work across campus and involving content managers who know
Take a Peek Inside The Scroll Learn more about Hamilton College’s homemade social media platform, The Scroll, and hear from the person who moderates it in the upcoming CASE webinar Digital Marketing Strategies for Your Advancement Office. In this 75-minute session, Jessica Krywosa, the New York college’s director of interactive content strategy, will discuss the thinking behind The Scroll; its steady diet of user-generated content; and how this open approach is impacting the brand, pushing the campus’s communications boundaries, and testing leaders’ comfort levels. Register at bit.ly/scroll-webinar.
their audiences, the platform can become even more dynamic as it maintains its level of authenticity.
The Scroll can also be integrated even deeper into what we do as communicators. For instance, since we archive The Scroll’s posts by topic, we can add social content to news stories, emails, and web pages by link-ing to specific tabs, such as athletics, or even an expired trending tab.
However The Scroll evolves, the one con-stant will be change. With an ever growing and passionate community of users, The Scroll will continue to push the boundaries of how Hamilton communicates and reflect the true and varied experiences of campus life. Once you’ve gone to the dark side (or light side), anything’s possible. C
Jessica Krywosa is the director of interactive content
strategy at Hamilton College in New York.
32 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Time=Treasure
a l u m n i e n g a g e m e n t
C A S E C U R R E N T S 33
iSto
ckph
oto/
thin
kSto
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I asked alumni directors that question two years ago as I conducted research about how my advancement peers assigned value to non-financial alumni contributions and involvement, such as assisting admissions, hiring students as interns or employees, or helping plan a class reunion.
My colleagues responded to the question in a predictable fashion. “Of course we care!” “They are our best advocates.” “They support us in other ways.”I followed up by asking, “Can you prove it?”
Let’s pretend higher education fundraising is suddenly illegal. Do you still care about your alumni?
By Ronald a. Cohen
Time=Treasure
34 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Alumni
do not need
a thick wallet
to generate
impact or value
for their
institutions.
Alumni directors struggled with that one, and that led me to more closely study the issue. My conversations with more than 100 advancement col-leagues from across the United States and Canada yielded an inescapable conclusion: The process that drives fundraising at institutions is frequently absent in alumni relations.
Advancement leaders should promote and recog-nize nonmonetary contributions and alumni engage-ment the same way they do financial gifts. Many institutions understand the need to find, train, evalu-ate, and retire volunteers, but few spend time creating the case for participation, setting and communicating alumni volunteer goals, making a targeted ask, and acknowledging services rendered.
PUT VolUNTEERiSM oN ThE MENUFor decades advancement professionals have told alumni, “The most important thing you can do is give to the institution.” Small gifts of $25 or $50 add up to make a difference, the argument goes. While that statement is true, the overall impact is small because a handful of benefactors usually contribute the bulk of the money in major campaigns. In the latest CASE Campaign Report, educational institutions reported that the top 10 percent of donors provided 95 percent of campaign dollars raised in fiscal year 2011.
This doesn’t mean that advancement leaders should dissuade alumni from making financial gifts. But to engage more graduates, alumni professionals need to promote the myriad other ways graduates can contrib-ute. Alumni do not need a thick wallet to generate impact or value for their institutions. Advancement leaders must make sure alumni know that.
Institutions that prioritize volunteerism and engage-ment are seeing great success. Boston College has made giving back to the institution a focal point of its current “Light the World” campaign. Among the campaign’s major priorities: doubling the number of annual alumni volunteers from 2,000 to 4,000. The university sur-passed the mark within 12 months of the campaign’s 2008 launch. In Canada, the University of British Columbia Alumni Association has set a goal of engag-ing 50,000 graduates annually by 2015 and regularly monitors its progress through an alumni dashboard. Statistics from the dashboard run in the university’s magazine, which also provides ideas for how graduates can volunteer, donate, and more.
ASk MoRE, ASk BETTERHow often have advancement officers heard this line: “I hear from you only when you want money”? That graduate is really saying, “The only time you ever ask me for anything is when you ask for money.”
A colleague studied this phenomenon and found that graduates must receive, on average, nine nonfund-raising communications for each gift solicitation before the “I hear from you only when” sentiment dissipates. When I shared this with my Susquehanna colleagues, the president scoffed: “I can get to nine!”
Sure enough, he did. I pushed further. How many times did Susquehanna ask alumni for anything other than money? None of us could get close to nine requests that didn’t involve financial gifts.
Alumni offices need to partner with departments on campus to determine where and how graduates can serve so they can make targeted asks. If career services is looking to expand its network of compa-nies in which to place interns, alumni relations must be part of the planning process. A typical request an alumni leader may make looks like this: “We need internship hosts for students. Is that a possibility with your company?”
That’s a vague question likely to produce a non-committal answer. But an alumni leader who knows exactly what to ask for can drill down to specifics and tie the request to an institutional goal. “Can you help us meet our target of placing 100 students in intern-ships for the 2013–2014 year by offering an opportu-nity for one or more students?” The question demands a firm answer and ties the ask to a larger purpose.
ThANk ThE MAjoR DoNoR (Who DoESN’T GiVE A DiME)Once alumni respond to your call for volunteers, the next step is recognition. One institution I visited runs a volunteer program in which alumni help recruit students. The admissions office tracks the number of prospective students that volunteers contact and shares the information with the alumni office. A 2005 grad-uate interacted with 100 individual prospects in one year. His work generated about 20 applications, according to staff estimates.
Twenty applications in Susquehanna’s admissions process typically yield three enrolled students. Assume each student graduates in four years. At Susquehanna, the average annual net revenue per student is roughly
a l u m n i e n g a g e m e n t
C A S E C U R R E N T S 35
$20,000. By recruiting three students, that graduate essentially helped deliver $240,000.
How should his effort, which equates roughly to a six-figure gift, be recognized so that the graduate contributes year after year? At the time the institution recognized this volunteer no differently than others: listing his name among participants and sending a note of thanks. Other institutions haven’t done much better. They may include volunteers alongside benefactors in their donor honor rolls or produce an honor roll dedicated solely to volunteers. Yet even volunteer recognition in honor rolls isn’t usually stratified like donor lists, which are grouped by sup-port level. When we recognize the volunteer who devotes 100 hours of service in a different way than we acknowledge the hundreds who give one hour, we will have reached an inflection point.
TEST-DRiViNG ThE MoDElIn April 2012 I put my research into practice. Our division launched the Susquehanna Engaging in Regional Volunteer Experiences program. We approached the monthlong program much as we would a fundraising campaign: planning with campus partners including student life and university commu-nications, setting a goal of 10,000 service hours, marketing the importance of participation, developing a volunteer track-ing system, and determining participant recognition.
We exceeded our goal, logging more than 17,000 hours from 347 registered alumni. Each graduate received a printed note of thanks, and alumni participants from SU SERVE sub-mitted photos that filled the university’s 2013 calendar. One graduate, a volun-teer paramedic, and his co-workers dedicated 900 of their regular on-call and emergency service hours during the campaign. Our president sent him a personal thank you letter because we considered his service the equivalent of a lead gift in a campaign.
So how does Susquehanna benefit? For starters, SU SERVE has raised the profile of volunteerism at the university. Those who have participated in the service project report feeling closer to Susquehanna in post-event surveys. Admissions representatives point to the
program as evidence of Susquehanna’s tightly knit and engaged community. This year we doubled the service-hour goal to 20,000 hours, and 387 alumni rose to the challenge, delivering nearly 25,000 hours of service.
RElEVANCE ToDAy = REVENUE ToMoRRoWPromoting and acknowledging alumni contributions is particularly important in a tough job market, says James Langley, president of Langley Innovations, a fundraising consultancy based in Rockville, Md., and a former advancement vice president at several institu-tions. Despite the strong attachment young alumni feel to their alma maters, high tuition, student loan debt, and a sputtering job market make it difficult for many of them to contribute financially. Yet that’s what advancement leaders repeatedly ask them to do.
“By the time their debts have been retired, their emotional attachment has waned,” Langley wrote in a 2010 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
If alumni relations leaders want to perpetuate that attachment, they can’t stress an immediate return on investment. They need to focus on the fruits of the community they build—and that community is built when alumni feel appreciated for the contributions they make.
Let’s return to the admissions volunteer who interacted with 100 prospective students in a calendar year. If he were com-
pelled to continue, in 20 years he
might speak with 2,000 prospective students. Perhaps that volunteer, moved by the institution’s appreciation of his work, may make a major gift. If alumni profes-sionals begin recognizing and guiding alumni toward these modes of giving, educational institutions will benefit in powerful ways. C
Ronald A. Cohen is the vice president for university relations at
Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania.
When we recognize the volunteer who
devotes 100 hours of service in a different way than
we acknowledge the hundreds who give one hour,
we will have reached an inflection point.
i n t e g r a t e d a d v a n c e m e n t
36 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
I’m not a radical guy. Indiana University East, a 4,000-student regional commuter campus that’s part of the Indiana University system, is not a subversive place. But to many advancement profes-
sionals, the integrated advancement model we operate under sounds crazy. Why? Because we added student affairs, known at IU East as
campus life, to our division. Five years ago our institution was transitioning
from a community college to a university that grants bachelor’s and selected master’s degrees. The chan-cellor and I saw this as an opportunity to reorga-nize advancement in a heretical and holistic way. We wanted to eliminate advancement silos and develop a common-sense structure that focuses on lifetime engagement and starts where our
institutional relationships begin—with prospective and current students.
Before we restructured, communications and mar-keting was a separate unit from alumni relations and development. Today the four units in our division each communicate with a different target audience in the engagement lifecycle. The name of our division,
External Affairs, was deliberately chosen to convey a broader focus than the term advancement, which people often view as synonymous with development. In addition to handling strategic communications and brand management, communications and marketing works closely with admissions to reach prospective students. Campus life, which includes student activities, student government, and clubs and organizations, focuses on current students. There’s no mistaking the audiences—or duties—of either the gift development or the alumni relations and campus events office.
PuTTing STudEnTS fiRSTHow unconventional is our approach? Only 21 per-cent of communications and marketing offices rank current students among their top three audiences, according to CASE’s inaugural survey on communi-cations and marketing trends, which was conducted in February and March 2013.
It’s all about the students is a motto of mine, one that I borrowed from fundraising legend Jerold Panas, author of The First 120 Days: What a New College
Taking the Lifelong View
Indiana University East smashed its silos, embraced student affairs, and made managing the engagement lifecycle a priority
C A S E C u R R E n T S 37
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President Must Do to Succeed and executive partner of Jerold Panas, Linzy & Partners. We must continually connect our work to students and constantly renew the passion and enthusiasm that originally drew us to the rewarding field of higher education. In his book, Panas recommends higher education leaders take this student-centered message to heart and keep it in mind every day. But how do you translate this notion into meaningful lifetime engagement?
At any institution, lifetime engagement is no one’s job, yet everyone’s job. When territory is undefined or divided—like the functional silos often found in higher education advancement—programs, activities, and people can fall through the cracks. Our division decided to take on this mission and align our units to shepherd audiences across the crucial transition points.
We view having a hands-on role in student com-munications as a competitive advantage. Communica-tions and marketing coordinates all major student messaging—including web, social media, email, and print—and partners with other units on projects and activities. From this vantage point, we ensure a consis-tent voice and common vision in communicating with
prospective and current students as well as groups in other stages of the lifecycle. We think this is more effi-cient, especially with a relatively small staff of 16, and certainly more effective. We don’t worry about incon-sistent or duplicate messages because we know what our audiences are receiving.
Direct interactions with students help us better relate and connect their successes to alumni and donors. Being in touch with students also makes our work more enjoyable and rewarding because we feel more closely tied to the institution’s educational mission.
To maximize integration and collaboration across all phases of the lifecycle, from prospective students to donors, information sharing should be seamless. Data regarding a student’s participation in campus groups and activities, for example, should be shared with the alumni office; otherwise, alumni relations staff members will essentially be starting from scratch. I dislike phrases such as cradle to grave and cradle to endowment, but that’s the essence of this approach—a strategic method of developing strong relationships and managing them over a lifetime.
Taking the Lifelong ViewBy RoB Zinkan
i n t e g r a t e d a d v a n c e m e n t
38 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
LET’S TaLk aBouT CuSToMER SERviCEOur division’s objective is straightforward: Advance IU East’s mission by enhancing the institution’s rep-utation, relationships, and resources. These three R’s define our work and help us focus on emphasizing outcomes over outputs. Instead of a communications staff member thinking about her job as simply churn-ing out campus news articles, we try to place her work within the larger context of earning reputation-enhancing attention, which plays an important role in our efforts to strengthen relationships and attract resources. It’s the difference between being effective and being busy (and it’s very easy to be busy in this kind of organizational structure).
Ultimately, we are charged with increasing the flow of resources to the institution. We can influence this primarily through fundraising and enrollment, which include both student recruitment and reten-tion. To paraphrase higher education retention expert Neal Raisman: Students who don’t graduate don’t become alumni. Yet, how many advancement shops discuss or try to participate in campus retention efforts? While many factors and departments influ-ence retention, advancement shouldn’t ignore its important role in this complex issue, which is a priority on most campuses.
Our staff members sit on committees and partici-pate in initiatives related to retention and completion. We regularly communicate with academic leaders and deans about these issues. We also encourage staff to
get out of the office and actually talk to students and make them feel welcome on campus.
Creating more opportunities for campus engage-ment leads to increased student success. That’s how we view campus life, and our communications and marketing efforts play a key role. Our integrated approach to student communications ensures students receive information that’s relevant and timely. Effective internal communications is a critical part of the stu-dent experience, and we know that students’ campus
experiences will influence whether they choose to give as alumni. In other words, customer service matters.
To more easily relate retention to our work, we often use terms such as experience marketing and customer service. We’re not the Ritz-Carlton or Zappos, but having a service standard keeps us focused on delivering on IU East’s brand promise and reinforces our division’s commitment to lifetime engagement. Our standard is: We want everyone with whom we interact, whether students or alumni, to be meaningfully engaged with the university for their lifetime. Stating this and sticking to it help us keep customer service top of mind, see the big pic-ture, and create a culture that values lifetime engage-ment. Having this mindset shifts our perspective from thinking of people as admitted students or event attendees to viewing them as partners in a life-long relationship with the university.
For example, when incoming students participate in our Facebook class groups, campus life can sur-mise who will likely be active on campus before they even move in. Similarly, we can determine which students will probably be highly involved as alumni and, therefore, possible alumni leadership and devel-opment prospects.
Culture may be the most important factor in developing an integrated advancement model around lifetime engagement. The four units within our divi-sion communicate constantly, and the directors meet weekly. Our physical offices are in close proximity
within the same building. When we’re not meeting as an entire staff, people often sit in on other units’ staff meetings to discuss ways to work together on projects and activities. All these factors contribute to the seamless system we are cultivating.
In a structure where offices and audiences inten-tionally overlap, we encounter some gray areas about roles and responsibilities, which we address through a culture of open communication and collaboration. The dividing line between alumni relations and gift
We’re not the Ritz-Carlton or Zappos, but having a service standard
keeps us focused on delivering on IU East’s brand promise
and reinforces our division’s commitment to lifetime engagement.
C A S E C u R R E n T S 39
development is not always clear, but overall, these intersections are positive side effects that reflect our shared ownership of these areas.
SEEing RESuLTSSince our reorganization we have experienced signifi-cant gains in both student recruitment and retention. Enrollment has increased 85 percent in the past five years. The other part of the equation is fundraising. Our lifetime engagement model is still too young to directly attribute growth to it, but we’re seeing suc-cess. In the past fiscal year, our total number of donors hit a record high, and our faculty-staff giving rate reached 92 percent.
On the communications side, we’ve benefited from the strong partnerships we’ve developed with other units. Such relationships blossom when multiple offices not only work together but also think beyond the scope of their own work. Our annual spring con-cert for students, for example, is now a successful event for a variety of audiences. Communications and marketing worked with local media to promote the April 2013 concert—headlined by Neon Trees—and reinforce IU East’s status as a traditional four-year university. Campus life, which organizes the concert, worked with communications and marketing and admissions to make the concert a memorable event that would attract targeted prospective students, but they also turned it into a special occasion for newly admitted students, who were given VIP seating.
Our division’s structure may look different, but managing each stage of the engagement lifecycle in this manner is just common sense. Aligning the offices so that they work together as audiences prog-ress through each phase is a worthwhile and practical investment. In fact, IU East is a model for the life-time customer relationship management project Indiana University is implementing across its eight campuses. The project combines three separate infor-mation systems—one for prospective students, another for current students, and yet another for alumni and donors—into one CRM tool.
gETTing BEyond inTERnaL BaRRiERS So by now you’re likely on board with our lifetime engagement model. But you’re also thinking I was fortunate to have the chancellor on my side from the get-go, which made dismantling and reorganizing
long-standing silos much easier. Implementing this approach at many institutions may pose a challenge due to internal forces and institutional barriers related to support, structure, culture, or history, but you can begin with basic steps. Try to spur some cross-functional conversations. Invite a colleague to coffee. Ask peers who work outside your area (but who deal with audiences or projects that align with
your office) to attend your staff meeting—or see if you can sit in on their staff meeting. You’ll be amazed by what can you learn about other units in these settings. When the institution’s mission is the focal point, finding common ground is easy.
Another suggestion is to support the work of other campus offices. Volunteer to help at another unit’s event. Look for ways to develop partnerships with other departments. We always try to place someone from our division on the search committee for open staff positions. It’s a great way to find out what’s hap-pening on campus and learn about another depart-ment’s challenges and opportunities.
When peers at other institutions learn about my division’s structure, they frequently say, “We could never do that at my university.” People are often intimidated by drastic change. My advice is to start small and identify some mutually beneficial opportu-nities to collaborate. When you realize that you share more commonalities than differences, you can begin to break down barriers.
By thinking, acting, and communicating with lifetime engagement in mind, we make sure our audi-ences are the top priority and avoid an institution-centric mode of communicating and managing relationships. In advancement, Panas’ mantra rings true, but I would add one thing: “It’s all about the students, not the silos.” C
Rob Zinkan is the vice chancellor for external affairs at Indiana
University East.
When the institution’s mission is the focal
point, finding common ground is easy.
CCS has been pleased to partner with the University of Windsor on the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation beginning with a feasibility study, followed by consultative services and ultimately residential campaign direction. Via these initiatives, more than $87 million has been raised from public and private sources. CCS is excited to continue this partnership as the University prepares for its fi rst comprehensive campaign, guiding the strategic planning for this transformational initiative and providing on-site management of the University’s development operations.
Let CCS help you surpass your advancement goals.800.223.6733 | www.ccsfundraising.com | [email protected]
Helping Extraordinary Colleges and UniversitiesFund Facilities, Innovations & Futures
Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering InnovationUniversity of Windsor — Ontario, Canada
d e v e l o p m e n t
C A S E C U R R E N T S 41
Pete
McA
rthu
r
Need a Consultant?Five fundraising
scenarios that call for outside
intervention
At my first position as a chief development officer, I inher-ited a stalled $300 million campaign. Once I came on board, I learned that the ambitious goal, set and announced by the president, was unsupported by the con-sultant’s feasibility study.
For a brief moment that first week I wondered if it was too late to get my old job back. You know the maxim of cam-paigns: If you raise one dollar under goal, the campaign is deemed a failure.
The university had hired a consultant, a former head of high-performing develop-ment shops at two prestigious private insti-tutions, and he helped me figure out how to keep the president happy and conduct a successful campaign: We would reach the
By LaureL Price Jones
CCS has been pleased to partner with the University of Windsor on the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation beginning with a feasibility study, followed by consultative services and ultimately residential campaign direction. Via these initiatives, more than $87 million has been raised from public and private sources. CCS is excited to continue this partnership as the University prepares for its fi rst comprehensive campaign, guiding the strategic planning for this transformational initiative and providing on-site management of the University’s development operations.
Let CCS help you surpass your advancement goals.800.223.6733 | www.ccsfundraising.com | [email protected]
Helping Extraordinary Colleges and UniversitiesFund Facilities, Innovations & Futures
Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering InnovationUniversity of Windsor — Ontario, Canada
42 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
… when you believe you can raise more money.An independent consultant can help you determine
where your department is underperforming and identify short- and long-term opportunities to increase philanthropic revenue. The strategies can include a thorough portfolio review with gift officers to see where they spend their time or, as in the example below, an assessment of staffing levels in other areas of potential philanthropic growth.
Confer with a consultant …
In a bid to ramp up revenue, the development vice president at a flagship state university directed the fundraising staff to focus only on top prospects: those who could give $100,000 or more. So why was fundraising flat? The development chief brought in a consultant to find out.
After reviewing major gift officer activity and fundraising results, the consultant identified two problems: Very few fund-raisers were contacting new $100,000-plus prospects—instead they were going back to repeat donors—and no one was charged with developing corporate and foundation relations.
The consultant advised the vice president to regularly update staff on results related to the $100,000 initiative. The vice president needed to work with his senior managers to remove fundraising obstacles and make gift officers aware of their performance toward the new initiative. And despite his lack of interest in corporations and foundations, he needed to hire staff to cultivate relations with those donors. That alone could increase results by as much as 25 percent.
When you’ve decided to engage
counsel (after interviewing them
and checking references, of
course), you can expect several
things of the relationship:
Advice tailored to your institu-
tion, staff, and constituents. The
advice you receive from your con-
sultant should reflect the specific
challenges you face, acknowledge
the type of organization you repre-
sent, and recognize the realities of
your working world.
Integrity and confidentiality.
To be effective, a consultant must
gain and maintain trust by being
an honest broker. The consultant
works for the institution but serves
a particular client: a president, a
board member, or a senior devel-
opment officer (whoever has
retained the service). A consultant
should maintain all confidences.
Counsel attuned to industry
challenges and trends. The best
adviser can address a variety of
specific challenges—or consult
others who can. The most helpful
consultants have a network of col-
leagues and experts.
You’ve Made the Call. Now What?
$300 million goal by leaving the end date open (an increasingly common practice now but unheard of at the time).
No longer pining for my old job, my confidence swelled because I had a knowl-edgeable and highly experienced partner. We completed that campaign and more than doubled annual fundraising results dur-ing the next five years. Since then I’ve been the CDO at several institutions, and I never approached a new situation without a good consultant to help me read the fundraising landscape with independent eyes.
I am not sure I would have known to hire a consultant in that first CDO posi-tion. Selling your superiors on a consul-tant isn’t easy. The request is often greeted with statements like, “I hired you to be the expert—why do we need a consultant?” or “Consultants are expensive.” After working with consultants and serving as a consultant myself for many years, I’ve gained a clear per-spective on when advancement shops need outside assistance. The following case studies involve common circumstances for when an effective consultant can help an institution improve results and thrive. If these situations sound familiar, you need a consultant.
d e v e l o p m e n t
C A S E C U R R E N T S 43
… when you have a big idea, need, or opportunity.
A new leader with bold ideas takes the helm. The board lays out an expanded vision in a new stra-tegic plan. Other revenue sources have dried up. Such situations compel organizations to signifi-cantly increase philan-thropic revenue. This is the time to consider a campaign or special fundraising initiative, and a consultant can help you assess donors’ interest in supporting a campaign and set reasonable goals.
… when you want to build a culture of philanthropy.
Successful nonprofits are steeped in a culture of philanthropy. Everyone at the institution—from the president and board to the staff—understands its importance. Fundraising is talked about openly, and everyone advances the institution. The leaders and staff dream big and know that philanthropic investment will help the institution realize its goals. A consultant can help your organization better match this picture.
As a community foundation approached its centennial, the president and vice president wondered if the pending cele-bration offered an opportunity to launch a major fundraising effort. Would the anniversary, as well as the goal of meeting ever increasing community needs, provide a compelling case for a campaign?
To help determine the fea-sibility, the nonprofit hired a consultant who worked with the vice president to develop a written case for support and to test it in interviews with senior staff, community leaders, board members, and donors. The organization used the feedback to determine the size and scope of a campaign.
A new development vice president joined other senior university personnel at a meeting to discuss an urgent budget crisis at a large private university. The institu-tion needed to cut $4 million in scholarships to help balance the budget. To her surprise, no one asked the development chief about filling the gap with a special fundraising initiative. When she raised this, the senior staff seemed unaware that fundraising could help the university meet its urgent needs.
The vice president called a consultant to help change the culture. Together they developed a year-long program to educate the campus—starting with the president and his senior staff—about the role of fundraising. The consultant reinforced the vice presi-dent’s message and brought evidence and anecdotes from other institutions to show how universities with philanthropic cultures are the most successful.
Work completed on time and
on budget. Once you agree on a
timeline and a fee, only unforeseen
circumstances should change the
agreement, and any change should
be in writing. Your contract should
cover the work you expect the
consultant to do, the start date, the
duration, and the expected cost.
Do your part. To make the most of this partnership, you and your team need to invest
in it. The consultant will spend most of his or her time interacting with the development staff,
institutional leaders, donors, and friends of your organization. He or she will find other essential
information in your institutional reports, policies, procedures, appeals, and stewardship materi-
als. To keep the consultant working efficiently—on time and on budget—you need to provide
time, information, and access to key players. Without access, the consultant’s work may never
be fully informed. If you’re too busy to work directly with the consultant, assign a liaison.
If you decide to hire a consultant, look forward to adding significant experience to your
team, work hard on the partnership, give the consultant the widest access to people and infor-
mation possible, and prepare for success!
d e v e l o p m e n t
44 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Consulting RelationshipRed Flags
Most consulting relationships yield good infor-
mation and workable solutions, but things can
go wrong. Keep these pitfalls in mind when you
engage a consultant:
• Consultantsneedsthetrustofeveryone
at your institution. If there is any resistance,
their reports and recommendations will likely
fall on unreceptive ears.
• Someconsultantsarebetterthanothers
at understanding an institution’s unique
environment. If the consultant suggests
changes that are unfeasible for an organiza-
tion of your size and type, he or she may be
recycling recommendations.
• Consultantsarenotpartofthestaff.One
consultant lost a client by being too blunt with
the board about a staffing challenge. Good
consultants are honest about challenges and
possible solutions but don’t involve them-
selves in implementing suggested next steps
unless asked.
• Afterlearningmoreabouttheinstitutionand
its needs, some consultants will recommend
services beyond the scope of the original
contract. Development leaders can be rightly
concerned when a consulting firm recom-
mends services that seem unnecessary, cre-
ate more work for the development staff, and
offer little benefit to the institution. Only you
can determine if the new services add value
and are a natural, appropriate extension of
the initial work.
If you have trouble with a consultant, check
the contract. All contracts should include lan-
guage on how to end the relationship if you can’t
resolve a problem. C
Laurel Price Jones, principal of Price Jones Consulting,
previously led the development offices at Stanford
University School of Medicine in California; The
George Washington University in Washington, D.C.;
and Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
… when you believe personnel or organizational structure is holding you back.
Your main resources as a development leader are your people and their time. When the organization runs smoothly, you raise more money. If you’re concerned about the development department’s performance and organization, it’s time to call a consultant.
... when you want an independent assessment, no matter the problem.
Consultants are impartial, so they focus on what’s best for the institution. You can discuss things with a consultant that you may not want to present to your team or your boss. Good consultants act as a reliable, honest sounding board for senior development professionals and institutional leaders.
It didn’t take long for the new president of a large, Midwestern university to second-guess a budget-saving measure he implemented. He had elimi-nated the position of vice president for development and alumni relations and placed those responsibilities within the office of the vice president for government relations. On its face, this move seemed to make sense. The vice president for government relations was well-connected to some of the state’s richest and most influential people.
A consultant evaluated the new organizational structure. After inter-viewing administrators and the development and alumni relations staff, he assessed fundraising results, individual fundraiser activity, and staff morale. The consultant’s findings: Everyone respected the government relations chief but felt he was spread too thin to oversee development. Fundraisers wanted more direct supervision and coaching. And the poor fundraising results indicated that gift officers were not getting enough attention and management. The president agreed that a restructuring would allow the development staff to reach its full potential.
The new development vice president at a private university knew that he needed the right people in the right positions to be successful. As the new guy in town, he received conflicting opinions about the strengths and weak-nesses of the fundraising staff from his colleagues, including the president’s cabinet and the development office. Some of the advice contradicted his initial impressions. He hired a consultant to assess the readiness of his team to raise significantly more gifts.
The consultant reviewed the fundraising results, policies and procedures, and major gift officer performance metrics. She interviewed administrators, board members, and the development staff. One of the great mysteries in fundraising consulting is that people will tell a consultant what they won’t tell the CDO; in this case staffers offered frank assessments about weak fundrais-ers. The vice president trusted the consultant’s evaluation and recommen-dations because her advice was based on honest feedback and a thorough understanding of the development office.
“I have a genuine passion for fundraising and engagement. When I partner with an organization to create an impactful strategic program, I am at my best.”
Heather Greig, Senior Associate and Annual Giving Specialist at Bentz Whaley Flessner, is focused on helping institutions build a stronger base of support. By leveraging data and creative programming, Heather will partner with you to transform your program.
Transform Philanthropy
July2013.indd 1 5/20/2013 10:37:56 AM
46 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
©Ha
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Cam
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These are busy times for U.S. community colleges. When the economy dips, enrollment spikes. Laid-off workers seek training for new careers. Traditional stu-dents attend two-year institutions before transferring to four-year colleges and universities to save money. Until recently community colleges relied almost exclu-sively on state and local funding, but deep budget cuts are putting pressure on these institutions’ foundations to bridge the gap. As community colleges more aggres-sively raise funds, some are turning to veteran fundrais-ers from their four-year counterparts to build or boost development programs. A community college development office is often a different world for experienced advancement profes-sionals from four-year institutions. They may go from 200 staffers to two. They find a focus on major events rather than major gifts. Some young foundations lack the tools, such as alumni and donor databases, that col-lege and university advancement shops take for granted. Yet where some development officers see warning signs, others find an opportunity to construct a new program from scratch.
CURRENTS profiles five university advancement veterans who are reshaping donor and alumni engage-ment at community colleges.
Tiny staffs, heavy workloads,
and limited resources.
Why are so many development pros finding
happiness at community
colleges?
By ElEanor lEE YatEs
PeoPleBuildlike
to
who
s m a l l - o f f i c e f u n d r a i s i n g
C A S E C U R R E N T S 47
Stacey Lockhart sums up her approach to fundraising this way: “I love a challenge, and I’m not afraid to ask anyone [for a gift]. When it gets easy, I get bored.”
Her professional life has been anything but boring since becoming the executive director of the founda-tion at Washington’s Wenatchee Valley College, where she found a significant challenge: “In the 74-year history of the college, there was no annual fund,” she says. “There was fundraising for planned and major gifts but not for the kind of gifts people can make every day.”
The former executive director of the University of Alaska Anchorage Alumni Association, Lockhart was hired to raise money for projects other than student scholarships. She spent a year organizing and analyz-ing donor records and discovered a major pipeline problem—most donors were 70 or older.
To cultivate younger donors and alumni, she orga-nized the college’s first annual fund, capturing alumni contact information, starting with the class of 2011, and using a mail appeal to draw several hundred first-time contributors.
“We’d never cultivated alumni, just people we knew were affluent. Gifts of $25 to $100 from alumni add up,” says Lockhart, who plans to launch a phonathon next year.
She’s also made the college a more visible commu-nity partner. The foundation recently joined with the student government association to host Wenatchee Valley College night at a local minor league hockey game. Students, faculty, staff, and alumni scooped up more than a quarter of the tickets at the packed 4,200-seat venue. “Our choir sang the national anthem; we
gave away a $2,000 scholarship and had a food drive,” she says. WVC was the event’s largest sponsor, which helped raise the college’s profile in the community.
WVC communicates its work with key donors at a twice-a-year women’s luncheon. Lockhart brings stu-dents, instructors, or other college staff to share success stories. For the average WVC student—a 29-year-old who has a family to support and is looking to learn new, marketable skills—college is a life-changing expe-rience. “Some students worked for years before hitting the salary ceiling,” Lockhart says.
Students talk about returning to the classroom and juggling school, homework, family, and jobs. Hearing about the sacrifices students make to further their education inspired four donors to become mentors, Lockhart says.
As the community has learned more about WVC, donors and donations have increased. The college’s recent campaign to fund a new music and art build-ing with a recital hall stalled when it reached just two-thirds of its goal. “We asked the community for major gifts and offered naming opportunities, both large and small,” Lockhart says. Donors could name one or more of the 150 seats in the recital hall for $250. The center opened in September 2012, and at press time, only six chairs lacked a name. Lockhart expects more supporters to take a seat soon.
Stacey LockhartExecutive director, Wenatchee Valley College Foundation, Wash.
Arrival at the college: 2011
First big challenge: Complete a capital campaign for the $9.6 million
Music and Art Center.
What do you mean there’s no annual fund?
s m a l l - o f f i c e f u n d r a i s i n g
48 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Campaign manager? You guessed it. He’s currently in a campaign to raise $5.3 million for the health care and the life sciences programs.
This type of juggling act is not uncommon at community colleges. McKittrick’s advice?
“You must be organized or work with people who are highly organized when you have a small staff,” he says. “Your to-do list will change halfway through the morning, and you have to tell yourself that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.”
Volunteers are essential. A retired development professional who is also a faculty member helps edit the alumni e-newsletter and assists in fundraising efforts. Another alumnus—a former vice president of institutional advancement at several colleges and universities—reviews draft campaign materials. Retired faculty and staff members volunteer at the annual golf tournament and a 5-kilometer race.
“Working at the college is emotionally rewarding,” McKittrick says. “You know you have impact on the students. When I’m having a bad day, I go out and I’ll talk with students who are struggling to balance work, family, and their education. They help me step it up a bit.”
During Keith McKittrick’s 20-year career as a fund-raiser, he’s traveled the United States raising millions for Framingham State University (his alma mater), the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, among others, before accepting the director of development position at Holyoke Community College in 2011.
“It’s a different life now,” he says. “Some donors at the University of Massachusetts travel in their own Lear jets. I met fascinating people but it really wasn’t who I was. I am in a time in my life that I want to do something for my community. At a two-year school, you wear a lot of hats but you know the students.”
In addition to McKittrick, the advancement shop at the Massachusetts community college consists of the vice president for institutional development, an alumni relations director, and an assistant. McKittrick
generates support from local businesses, oversees fac-ulty and staff solicitations, and raises gifts from foun-dation board members—while also managing their volunteer fundraising activities.
Prospect research? He does that. Stewardship? Him again.Grant writing? He does a little of that too, recently
applying for funds to operate an adult education cen-ter and a nursing and health education center.
Keith M. McKittrickDirector of development, Holyoke Community College, Mass.
Arrival at the college: 2011
First big challenge: Develop a more consistent major and
planned giving program, with an emphasis on alumni and
area business leaders.
Master of Many, Many, Many doMains
C A S E C U R R E N T S 49
the average number of full-time workers that community college foundations employ. one-fifth of
foundation staff works full time for the college, dedicating only a portion of its time to foundation work.
3
sourCe for data inserts: Community College Foundations, Case WHite paper, oCtober 2010
When Doug Ferguson was hired as director of alumni programs at Delaware County Community College, the Pennsylvania institution was coping with significant funding cuts from the state, its primary source of funding.
“My vice president [of institutional advancement] was looking for someone to change some of the thinking regarding alumni, fundraising, and overall engagement,” says Ferguson, who previously worked in the alumni office at his alma mater, Widener University in Pennsylvania.
Within a month of his fall 2010 hiring, Ferguson was helping mobilize DCCC’s 25,000 alumni through his new alumni e-newsletter, which directed graduates to an online petition protesting state bud-get cuts to community colleges.
There’s a lot a one-person alumni affairs office can accomplish by taking full advantage of free social
media tools and cultivating campus allies in the work of engaging future alumni. At DCCC, the accom-plishments include: • Growingcirculationforthee-newsletterfrom
1,400 to 9,500 in part because Ferguson was able to find lost alumni using LinkedIn. “It’s in all respects my database,” he says. “Some of the biggest successes of my job have come through this site.”
• BuildingDCCC’salumniLinkedIngroupfrom130 to 790 members who network for jobs, take part in career discussions, and learn campus news.
• PartneringwithStudentEmploymentServicestocreate the Career Alumni Mentoring Program, which pairs students with alumni in their desired career fields for short one-on-one meetings.
• JoiningforceswithCampusLifetohostayearlongseries of leadership workshops, each featuring an alumni panel that discusses workplace issues and answers students’ questions.
• HelpingPhiThetaKappa,anationalhonorsocietyfor students at two-year colleges, organize a new alumni chapter for DCCC graduates.
Such efforts keep alumni connected to the campus while teaching students about their future role as sup-portive alumni. “We want to make a first impression on [students] before they transfer,” Ferguson says. “This will hopefully lead to increased alumni partici-pation and donor involvement.”
In the meantime, he expects campus partnerships and social media to continue their vital role in that work. “I’m a one-man office,” says Ferguson. “I have little to no budget. You have to be creative and resourceful.”
Doug Ferguson Director of alumni programs,
Delaware County Community
College, Pa.
Arrival at the college: 2010
First big challenge: Reduce
more than 1,200 pieces of
returned mail to about 300.
s m a l l - o f f i c e f u n d r a i s i n g
percentage of community colleges that allocate resources for alumni relations55
Mobilize alumni? CheCk.
Car problems, a doctor’s bill, child care issues: For community college students with tight budgets, these aren’t just annoyances—they’re calamities that often forcethemtoquitschool.Becausethestakesaresohigh, Melinda Silverstein, executive director of the Cabrillo College Foundation, focuses on big, impact-ful gifts.
That decision meant saying goodbye to the Cali-fornia community college’s longtime golf tournament.
“Development staff should be cultivating, steward-ing, and soliciting major gift donors to raise $1 million in private gifts each year. That cannot be done through special events,” says Silverstein, who was recruited from the University of California, Santa Cruz development office. Such events are time-consuming, unprofitable, and rarely result in participants making a planned or major gift, she says.
When she was hired, Silverstein focused on “getting the financial house in order,” including hiring a skilled money manager for the endowment. She wrote job descriptions, trained staff, and worked with the board and president to move the college away from special events. Silverstein secured a grant to conduct a major gifts feasibility study.
She also developed solicitation plans for major donors, overhauled the college’s scholarship application and management processes, and expanded the founda-tion’s board—which then required recruiting more community leaders to serve. Most of the foundation’s
board members are President’s Circle members who give at least $1,000 annually and also raise funds. “As you build a high-performing organization and have a powerful board of directors, it acts like a magnet for other community leaders,” she says.
In addition to the unrestricted funds raised through the President’s Circle, the foundation nets approximately $4 million each year for the college. Silverstein attributes that success to an energetic
board, a strong nominating committee, and dedicated volunteer fundraisers.
Foundation directors need to help their presidents be successful, she says. “They should prepare plans for their presidents that will promote foundation goals but not take a lot of their time.” Silverstein sug-gests writing talking points for college presidents to
use during donor visits and community events, as well as scripts for solicitation phone calls and emails.
“Meet regularly with the president with a detailed agenda outlining exactly what needs to be discussed,” she adds.
The payoff of a well-oiled fundraising operation is that needy students don’t have to see their dreams derailed, such as a 19-year-old student whose mother died, leaving her to care for her younger sisters. A grantfromCabrillo’sWomen’sEducationalSuccess,a committee that has raised and endowed more than $1 million to aid students with emergencies, helped her stay in school. “My mother is looking down on us,” the student, who also works for the college, told the committee. “You all are my mothers now,” she said before donating $100 to the emergency fund.
Melinda SilversteinExecutive director, Cabrillo College
Foundation, Calif.
Arrival at the college: 1998
First big challenge: Hire a professional
manager to systematically grow the
small, bare-bones foundation.
C A S E C U R R E N T S 51
percentage of foundations, among those reporting a focus on major gifts, that have staff dedicated to raising large gifts 48
percentage of foundations that require board members to give annually. members contribute an average of $1,149.47
Goodbye golf tournaments,
hello Major Gifts
“The thing I like most about community college advancement efforts [is] that they are very much about building,” says Twyla Casey Wells, executive directoroftheJohnstonCommunityCollegeFoundation in North Carolina. Butcreatingacomprehensivedevelopmentpro-
gram costs money and, like other community col-leges,JCClackedfundstohireneededstaff.Wells’solution: “I’ve tried to compensate with technology,” including investing in a major student and alumni data migration project to locate alumni who gradu-ated before 2010.
“There was little existing alumni data accessible to the development office, so we were beginning from scratch,” says Wells, who previously worked in alumni relations at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She reorganized her three-person staff so that a portion of one employee’s time is focused strictly on alumni. The data migration proj-ect, which Wells estimates cost the college approxi-mately $40,000, has also helped her small staff better reach the institution’s alumni.
A vendor imported student records into the col-lege’s donor management system and updated records of those who graduated as far back as 1982 (transferring microfilm and paper records of alumni who graduated between 1969 and 1981 proved too costly). “After completing the address updating pro-cess, we conducted a wealth prospecting process of all of our donor management data,” she says. Withnewfoundaddresses,JCClauncheditsfirst
major outreach project last summer, mailing graduates postcards with a link to a short survey on alumni pro-grams and services. ThisfallthecollegeisrollingouttheJCCAlumni
BacktoClassScholarshipprogram,whichallowsalumni to take one free class funded by the founda-tion. The purpose: to increase registration, bringing the college an estimated $130,000 in enrollment-based state funding, and to offer alumni an immediate benefitbeforeaskingthemtogiveback.InJulyand
Twyla Casey WellsExecutive director, Johnston Community
College Foundation, N.C.
Arrival at the college: 2000 (public
information officer and grants director);
2008 (foundation’s executive
director)
First big challenge:
Transition the
department from
focusing solely
on scholarships
to developing a
comprehensive
philanthropy program.
August, the college held informational sessions about the alumni scholarship program and shared institu-tional updates, areas of strategic focus, and forthcom-ing initiatives such as a future bond referendum.
The college enhanced its donor management system to make it easier to send publications and invitations electronically. New online scholarship management software replaced the paper applications, simplifying the process for both students applying for and staff managing scholarships.
“With the accessibility of technology, we are better able to strategically align our appeals, communica-tions, special events, and programs to specific constit-uents,” says Wells, who credits the college president for recognizing the importance of the investment. “Buildingagreatdevelopmentprogramrequiresinvestments today that pay dividends tomorrow.” C
Eleanor Lee Yates is a freelance writer who formerly served as a
public information officer and a publications editor for Durham
Technical Community College in North Carolina.
investing in a hiGh-teCh fix
s m a l l - o f f i c e f u n d r a i s i n g
52 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Academic Accolades 2013 CASE research awards recognize scholars
Karsevar Thelin Trollinger Fugate McAllister Starace Gallo
The CASE Research Awards in Educational Advancement
recognize the critical contributions of professionals who
produced research in the past year on subjects ranging
from fundraising trends at California’s colleges and universities
to Facebook use among the world’s top educational institutions.
John Grenzebach Awards for Outstanding Research in Philanthropy for Educational Advancement
Outstanding doctoral dissertation: Kent Karsevar, senior director
of development for the colleges of engineering, science and math-
ematics, and social sciences, California State University, Fresno
Examining California’s two major public university systems—the
University of California and California State University—and many of
the state’s private institutions, Karsevar identifies fundraising trends
and best practices, including the role university leaders play.
Outstanding published scholarship: John R. Thelin, professor of
educational policy studies and evaluation, University of Kentucky;
Richard W. Trollinger, vice president for college relations, Centre
College, Ky.
Thelin and Trollinger’s article, “Forever is a Long Time: Reconsid-
ering Universities’ Perpetual Endowment Policies in the Twenty-First
Century,” appears in History of Intellectual Culture. The authors
discuss the pros and cons of increasing endowment spending and
donors who place time limits on gifts.
Alice L. Beeman Research Awards in Communications & Marketing for Educational Advancement
Outstanding doctoral dissertation: Wesley Fugate, executive
assistant to the president and secretary of the board of trustees,
Randolph College, Va.
Fugate finds that private liberal arts colleges trumpet intimate
learning environments in recruiting, but that differentiates them from
larger state institutions—not one another. These colleges must dis-
tinguish among themselves better, starting with social media.
Outstanding published scholarship: Sheila McAllister, assistant
professor of public relations and journalism and director of the grad-
uate program in corporate and public communication, Monmouth
University, N.J.
In McAllister’s Public Relations Review article, “How the World’s
Top Universities Provide Dialogic Forums for Marginalized Voices,”
she concludes that, despite social media’s ability to facilitate two-
way communication, most institutions control the posting capabili-
ties on their Facebook pages and stifle user involvement.
H.S. Warwick Research Awards in Alumni Relations for Educational Advancement
Outstanding doctoral dissertation: Melissa Starace, director of
alumni affairs, Northampton Community College, Pa.
Starace examines how community college presidents, advance-
ment leaders, and volunteers develop and define meaningful and
philanthropic relationships with alumni despite diminished state and
community resources.
Outstanding published scholarship: Maria Gallo, development
manager, office of the president, St. Angela’s College, Sligo, Ireland
Gallo’s study shows how advancement strategies and the
cultivation of alumni relationships benefit European institutions—
especially in terms of giving. The article, “Beyond Philanthropy:
Recognizing the Value of Alumni to Benefit Higher Education
Institutions,” appears in Tertiary Education and Management.
C A S E C U R R E N T S 53
CU
RR
ENT
S
YOUR PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION AT WORK
56 board of trustees
58 district chairs
59 steLLar sPeaKers
61 PeoPLe on the move
62 buyers guide
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54 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
SimpsonScarborough Expands Scholars ProgramSimpsonScarborough has great news for
newcomers to educational advancement. The
higher education communications and market-
ing consultancy has doubled the number of
positions in its scholars program to four begin-
ning with the 2014 cohort.
The program nurtures the professional
development of educational communica-
tions and marketing professionals and
establishes a pipeline of future mentors.
SimpsonScarborough Scholars receive ben-
efits that include:
• ACASEpremiermembership.
• A subscription to CURRENTS.
• Registration for the CASE Summer Insti-
tute in Communications and Marketing.
• Peer-to-peer networking opportunities.
• Credit to the CASE Store.
Applications for the 2014 program are due
Nov. 15. For more information, visit bit.ly/
SS_Scholars or contact Heyward Smith at
[email protected] or 202-478-5666.
AWARDS
CASE Europe Bestows Leadership Honor
Yvonne van Rooy,
former president of
Utrecht University
in the Netherlands,
received the CASE
Europe Leadership
Award at the associa-
tion’s annual confer-
ence in August. Van Rooy, who served Utrecht
for nine years, strengthened the university’s
ability to attract competitive research funds
and recruit outstanding students during her
tenure. As a result, Utrecht was recognized
A Knight to Remember Eric Thomas, chair of CASE Europe’s
Board of Trustees, was awarded a
knighthood in the Queen’s
Birthday Honors in
London on June 15.
Thomas, vice-chancellor
of the University of Bris-
tol, received the
knight bachelor
title for his ser-
vice to higher education,
which includes chairing
the U.K. government’s
Task Force on Voluntary
Giving to Higher Educa-
tion. Congratulations,
Sir Eric!
C A S E C U R R E N T S 55
as the Netherlands’ top university, instilling
a strong sense of pride among alumni. Van
Rooy built upon that sentiment, establish-
ing the nation’s first professional alumni and
development office. She played a major role
in planning Utrecht’s first campaign and has
continued to participate as a donor and vol-
unteer since leaving the presidency in 2012.
In Memoriam Robert G. Smith, a champion for educational advancement
and the widower of former CASE President and CURRENTS
Founding Editor Virginia Carter Smith, died July 2 at age 82.
Smith’s fundraising career stretched more than three decades
and included service to The Ohio State University, where he
was the institution’s first vice president of development; the
University System of Maryland, where he established and led
the USM Foundation; Colgate University in New York; and
Washington College in Maryland.
RESOURCES
Do You Know? CASE is now posting job announcements on
Twitter. Check out @CASEcareers to keep
up with the latest educational advancement
opportunities. Job seekers also can find ads
on CASE’s Career Central website (www.
case.org/career_central).
RESOURCES
CASE Blog Makeover Check out the refurbished CASE blog,
blog.case.org, which explores trends and
best practices in educational advancement.
Launched in 2010 as a forum to discuss social
media topics, the CASE blog now includes
conference summaries, member interviews,
Twitter chat recaps, and more. New features
include a mobile- and tablet-friendly design, an
author page, and a tag cloud that allows read-
ers to sort posts by topic.
Volunteer bloggers come from a variety of
backgrounds and include experts who work
at educational institutions worldwide. To
contribute to the CASE blog, contact Janna
Crabb, director of online communications, at
Honor those who have shown extraordinary dedication to strengthening independent schools.Winners are recognized at the CASE-NAIS Independent Schools Conference, Jan. 12–14, 2014, in Orlando, Fla., and receive a crystal award.
There have been many distinguished professionals who have gone before
us and shaped independent school advancement in significant ways. To be recognized in the class of these colleagues is truly humbling and is an incredible honor.Woodie Haskins Assistant Head of School for External Affairs at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School and recipient of the 2013 CASE Robert Bell Crow Memorial Award
Above: Haskins addresses the 2013 CASE-NAIS Independent Schools Conference in Washington, D.C.
Salute an advancement professional with the Robert Bell Crow Memorial Award.
Honor a trustee with the Seymour Preston Award.
Applaud support staff with the Support Staff Distinguished Service Award.
Recognize a corporate or foundation partner with the John R. Chandler Award.
NOMINATIONS DUE Sept. 13, 2013Nominate Today! GO TO
www.case.orgENTER CASE CODE ISawards
2014 CASE
Independent Schools Awards
Goodwin
Brian Lee Chair Vice president for Development and institute Relations, california institute of technology
J. Michael Goodwin Chair-Elect president and ceo, oregon State University foundation
James T. Harris III Treasurer president, Widener University, pennsylvania
Tracy Barlok Secretary Vice president for Development and Alumni Relations, college of the holy cross, massachusetts
John Lippincott Ex-Officiopresident, council for Advancement and Support of education, Washington, D.c.
Gonzalez
Binney Brod
Lee
Hayashida
Esperón Fenlason
Kosak
Diane Binney Trustee-at-Large Director of Development, polytechnic School, california
Catherine Brod Trustee-at-Large Vice president of Development, college of Dupage, and executive Director, college of Dupage foundation, illinois
David Dini Trustee-at-Large Assistant headmaster, St. mark’s School of texas
Joëlle du Lac Trustee-at-Large Director of Advancement, Aiglon college, Switzerland
Lourdes Esperón Diaz Ordaz Trustee-at-Large Director of Alumni Relations, Universidad iberoamericana, mexico city
Laurie Fenlason Trustee-at-Large Vice president for public Affairs, Smith college, massachusetts
Sergio Gonzalez Trustee-at-Large Senior Vice president for University Advancement and external Affairs, University of miami
Peter Hayashida Trustee-at-Large Vice chancellor for University Advancement, University of california, Riverside
Robbee Kosak Trustee-at-Large Vice president of University Advancement, carnegie mellon University, pennsylvania
Barlok LippincottHarris
2013–2014 Board of Trustees
Dini
du Lac
56 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Schaefer
O’Rourke
O’Malley
Lisa Lapin Trustee-at-Large Associate Vice president for University communications, Stanford University, california
Catherine McGlinch District V Trustee Director of Development, neurosciences, heart and lung, minnesota medical foundation, University of minnesota
Jeffery McLain District IV Trustee Senior Vice president for Development, louisiana State University foundation
Elizabeth O’Rourke District II Trustee Secretary to the Board of trustees and Vice president for principal Gifts, Syracuse University, new York
O’Neil Outar Trustee-at-Large Vice president for Advancement, University of Alberta, canada
Amy Button Renz District VI Trustee president and ceo, kansas State University Alumni Association
James H. Moore Jr. Trustee-at-Large president and ceo, the University of Arizona foundation
Gary Olsen Trustee-at-Large Vice president of University Advancement, the University of Scranton, pennsylvania
Timothy O’Malley District VII Trustee Vice president for University Relations, University of San Diego
Peter Rooney District III Trustee president, Atlanta Youth Academy
Kathleen Santora Trustee-at-Large ceo, national Association of college and University Attorneys, Washington, D.c.
Kristina Schaefer District I Trustee Associate Dean for external Relations, mit Sloan School of management, massachusetts
Martin Shell Trustee-at-Large Vice president for Development, Stanford University, california
Greg Sheridan District VIII Trustee Senior Vice president for constituency programs, University of Washington
Ellen Sullivan Trustee-at-Largeexecutive Director of principal Giving Strategies, Boston college
McGlinch McLain
Moore Olsen
Rooney
Outar
Santora
Shell Sheridan Sullivan
Thomas
Eric Thomas Trustee-at-Large Vice-chancellor, University of Bristol, United kingdom
Kelly Zúñiga Trustee-at-Large executive Director, houston community college foundation
Renz
Lapin
Zúñiga
C A S E C U R R E N T S 57
Christine Tempesta District IDirector of Strategic initiatives, mit Alumni Association, massachusetts
Linda Durant District IISenior Vice president for University Advancement, Widener University, pennsylvania
Anita Walton District IIIDirector of Alumni Relations, north carolina central University
James Lewis District IVVice president for Development, University of texas at Arlington
Rickey McCurry District VVice president for institutional Advancement, Rose-hulman institute of technology, indiana
Sheri Irwin-Gish District VIexecutive Director of communications and marketing, college of Business Administration, University of nebraska–lincoln
Nancy Treser-Osgood District VIIDirector of Alumni Relations, pomona college, california
Cheryl Nations District VIIIAssociate Vice president for Advancement communications, University of Washington
McCurryTempesta Durant Walton Lewis
District Chairs2013–2014
Irwin-Gish Treser-Osgood Nations
58 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
Connect with an array of candidates. Virtually.Join us online for the Oct. 23 CASE Virtual Career Fair.
Sign up today at www.case.org/careerweekTo secure a booth, contact Rob Henry at [email protected]
CASE members: Take advantage of the Virtual Career Fair where you will have access to numerous qualified candidates, making your hiring process painless.
Job13_VirtJobFair_CURRENTShalf_press.indd 1 8/1/2013 6:23:30 PM
Stellar Speakers
CASE Stellar Speakers are faculty members who earn average combined scores of 4.5 and above (on a 5-point scale) on their evaluations for a session at the conference listed. A H denotes that the faculty member is a CASE Crystal Apple recipient, indicating that he or she has received this top rating at 10 different CASE conferences.
Editors Forum, March 2013 Jacqui Banaszynski, professor/Knight Chair in Journalism, Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri–Columbia.
Brian Brown, director, publications/senior editor, St. Thomas magazine and B. magazine, University of St. Thomas, MN.
Ryan Denham, writer/web editor, Illinois State magazine, Illinois State University.
Kristina Halvorson, founder/CEO, Brain Traffic, Minneapolis.
Maureen Harmon, editor, Denison Magazine, Denison University, OH.
Tina Hay, editor, The Penn Stater magazine, Pennsylvania State University.
Charles Higginson, publications manager, University of Kansas Endowment Association.
Chris Horn, director, University Magazine Group, University of South Carolina.
Art Jahnke, executive editor, Bostonia maga-zine, Boston University.
Matthew Jennings, editor, Middlebury Magazine, Middlebury College, VT.
Dale Keiger, associate editor, Johns Hopkins Magazine, Johns Hopkins University, MD.
Jeff McClellan, editor, BYU Magazine, Brigham Young University, UT.
Daniel Morrell, associate director, alumni marketing and communications/content man-ager, HBS Alumni Bulletin, Harvard Business School, MA.
Jodi O’Donnell, director, editorial services, Iowa State University Foundation.
Paige Parvin, editor, Emory Magazine, Emory University, GA.
Teresa Scalzo, director, publications/editor, Carleton College Voice, Carleton College, MN.
Tricia Schellenbach, director, communica-tions, Johns Hopkins University, MD.
HShane Shanks, senior communications strategist/editorial director, Zehno Cross Media Communications, New Orleans.
Amy Sitze, managing editor, development, University of Minnesota Foundation.
Strategic Talent Management, March 2013 Amy Bronson, director, recruitment and train-ing, development and alumni relations, Boston University.
Michael Eicher, senior vice president, advancement, Ohio State University.
Kevin Groves, associate professor, organi-zational theory and management, Graziadio School of Business and Management, Pepperdine University, CA.
Peter Hayashida, vice chancellor, advance-ment, University of California, Riverside.
HTrish Jackson, executive director, col-lege and foundation partnerships, Fullbridge Program, Cambridge, MA.
Karyn Reif, associate vice president/chief operating officer, alumni relations and devel-opment, Northwestern University, IL.
Zachary Smith, assistant vice chancel-lor, development, University of California, Riverside.
Holly Wolk, director, advancement recruit-ment and professional development, Tufts University, MA.
Workshop for Newcomers in Alumni Relations, March 2013Rick Davis, director, enrichment programs, University of North Carolina General Alumni Association.
Douglas Dibbert, president/director, alumni affairs, University of North Carolina General Alumni Association.
Sallie Hutton, leadership giving officer, Elon University, NC.
Craig Little, director, alumni societies, Ohio State University Alumni Association.
Kevin Wesley, assistant vice president, advancement and alumni relations, University of Rochester, NY.
Best Practices in Volunteer Engagement, April 2013Molly Peoples, alumni relations manager, networks, University of Cambridge, UK.
Alumni Fundraising Master Class, April 2013Patty Lam, director, development, Asia, Boston University.
Soon Min Yam, director, alumni affairs, Nanyang Technological University, SGP.
Social Media and Community, April 2013Elizabeth Allen, director, online communica-tions and alumni relations, American School in London.
Keith Hannon, associate director, social media, alumni affairs and development, Cornell University, NY.
Jeff Kirchick, regional sales manager, Zinch, Boston.
Mike Petroff, digital content strategist, Harvard University, MA.
Patrick Powers, project manager, mStoner, St. Louis.
Marketing and Branding Institute, April 2013 Luanne Lawrence, associate chancellor, strategic communications, University of California, Davis.
HShane Shanks, senior communications strategist/editorial director, Zehno Cross Media Communications, New Orleans.
Joselyn Zivin, director, market intelligence, Eduvantis, Chicago.
Mastering Major Gift Solicitation, April 2013Tony Bretherton, director, community rela-tions/executive director, Geelong Grammar Foundation, Geelong Grammar School, AUS.
Institute for Senior Alumni Relations Professionals, April–May 2013Donna Arbide, associate vice president, alumni relations and annual fund, University of Miami/executive director, University of Miami Alumni Association.
Steven Hall, vice president, alumni relations, Boston University.
Lisa Lewis, executive director/CEO, University of Minnesota Alumni Association.
C A S E C U R R E N T S 59
Stellar Speakers
Events Master Class, April 2013Fiona Blair, director of corporate relations and events, University of Reading, UK.
Tracy Playle, director, Pickle Jar Communica-tions, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Asking Workshop, April 2013Cath Bees, leadership giving manager, University of Bristol, UK.
Lottie Donovan, leadership giving manager, University of Bristol, UK.
Richard Norman, head, major gifts, University of Reading, UK.
Greg Spencer, senior leadership giving man-ager, University of Bristol, UK.
Alumni Relations and Fundraising Conference, April 2013Richard Gillingwater, managing director, Accrue Brand Value, Warwickshire, UK.
HLorna Somers, senior campaign director, McMaster University/vice president, McMaster University Foundation, CAN.
Campaigns Forum, May 2013Nicholas Bull, chairman, De Vere Group, London.
Debbie Henthorn, development manager, strategic priorities, University of Nottingham, UK.
Fundraising for Health, May 2013Jennifer Cormack, director, university fundraising, King’s College London and King’s Health Partners.
Marc Weinstein, vice principal, development and alumni relations, McGill University, CAN.
Consumer Marketing, May 2013Tim Longden, director, marketing and com-munications, City University London.
Transforming Your School Through Powerful Communications and Sustainable Fundraising, June 2013Sinéad Collins, director, communications and marketing, United World College of South East Asia, SGP.
Dave Shepherd, director, college advance-ment, United World College of South East Asia, SGP.
Online Engagement, June 2013Tom Latchford, CEO, Raising IT, London.
Tim Ngwena, designer/digital consultant, Tim Ngwena Consultancy, Weybridge, UK.
Alumni Relations Master Class, June 2013Nik Miller, manager, alumni and friends engagement, University of York, UK.
Internal Communications, June 2013Tracy Playle, director, Pickle Jar Communica-tions, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
East to West Coast: Creative Cultivation, June 2013HTrish Jackson, executive director, college and foundation partnerships, Fullbridge Program, Cambridge, MA.
Lori Cloninger Sweeney, senior director, development, Oregon Health & Science University Foundation.
Building a Development Internship Program, June 2013Shelley Strickland, philanthropic research associate, Development Summer Internship Program, university development, University of Michigan.
Katy Wallander, development officer, student philanthropy, University of Michigan.
Kat Walsh, director, student engage-ment, marketing and annual giving, University of Michigan.
Creating a Sophisticated Annual Giving Program, June 2013HShaun Keister, vice chancellor, devel-opment and alumni relations, University of California, Davis. C
cASe online Stellar Speakers are presenters who earn an average of 4.3 or above (on a 5-point scale) on their seminar evaluations. cASe recognizes the particular challenges of presenting in a virtual format, which is reflected in the scoring differences of on-site speakers.
Online Speakers
60 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
To submit a listing to “People on the Move,” send an email containing your name, current title, institution, city, and state or country and previous title, institution, city, and state or country to [email protected]. High-resolution (300 dpi) headshot photos are accepted.
People on the Move
NORTH ATLANTIC (I)Kelly Dodge, vice president, university advancement, University of Maine at Farm-ington, from dean, institutional advancement, Maine Central Institute.
Donald Hasseltine, vice president, develop-ment, Brown University, RI, from vice presi-dent, external relations, Carleton College, MN.
MIDDLE ATLANTIC (II)Ralph Amos, executive director, University of Maryland Alumni Association, from assistant vice chancellor for alumni relations, University of California, Los Angeles/CEO, UCLA Alumni Association.
Julie Dietrich, director, government relations, from director, special projects and initiatives, Widener University, PA.
Deborah Andrews Dunlap, director, devel-opment, from co-head, capital campaign, St. Catherine’s School, VA.
Katherine Ferguson, assistant director, development, from director, annual giving, St. Catherine’s School, VA.
SOUTHEAST (III)Joshua Cogswell, director, university develop-ment, University of South Alabama, from direc-tor, development, neurosciences programs, University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Millie J. Erichsen, director, development, Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College, FL, from director, development, University of Central Florida Foundation.
Tysus Jackson, vice president, institutional advancement, Talladega College, AL, from director, development, Child Health Advo-cacy Institute, Children’s National Medical Center, DC.
SOUTHWEST (IV)Jayme Ferrell, director, annual giving and leadership initiatives, Oklahoma State University Foundation, from director, distinguished giving, American Cancer Society, Dallas.
Craig Jackson, associate director, develop-ment, College of Arts and Sciences, Oklahoma State University Foundation, from advance-ment intern, University of Kansas Endowment.
Jill Johnson, senior director, development, College of Engineering, Agriculture, and Tech-nology, Oklahoma State University Foundation, from associate vice president, institutional advancement, Southwestern College, KS.
Steven Sturgeon, associate director, devel-opment, Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University Foundation, from vice presi-dent/commercial loan officer, Bank2, Okla-homa City.
GREAT LAkES (V)Timothy J. Dougherty, vice president, advancement, Interlochen Center for the Arts, MI, from vice president, advancement, United World College-USA, New Mexico.
Patricia Moline, associate vice chancellor, development and alumni relations, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, from vice president, development, Oklahoma State University.
Sarah N. Prasher, director, from associate director, alumni relations, Ohio Northern University.
FAR WEST (VII)Myra Garcia, vice president, university advancement, University of La Verne, CA, from vice president, institutional advancement, Wagner College, NY.
PACIFIC NORTHWEST AND WESTERN CANADA (VIII)Patrick Auerbach, associ-ate senior vice president, alumni relations, from executive director, alumni relations, University of Southern California.
Jeff Geldien, director, development and alumni relations, from development officer, Gonzaga University School of Law, WA. C
AmosUniversity of Maryland
Alumni Association
DietrichWidener University
CogswellUniversity of South
Alabama
ErichsenRollins College
JacksonOklahoma State
University Foundation
JohnsonOklahoma State
University Foundation
FerrellOklahoma State
University Foundation
PrasherOhio Northern
University
GarciaUniversity of La Verne
SturgeonOklahoma State
University Foundation
AuerbachUniversity of Southern
California
C A S E C U R R E N T S 61
ALUMNI DIRECTORIES
Harris ConneCt • Cov. 21511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]
ALUMNI MERCHANDISE
ameropean Corp. • 6050 Whitney Ridge TerraceNorth Haven, CT 06473800-466-4648 Email: [email protected]
FAN IN A BOX6925 E. Belmont Ave.Fresno, CA 93729559-252-4924 Fax: 559-255-8179Email: [email protected]
ALUMNI RELATIONSHIP SOFTWARE
imodules software • 307400 W. 132nd St., Suite 300Overland Park, KS 66213913-888-0772 Fax: 913-341-2986Email: [email protected]
ALUMNI SEARCH SERvICE
Harris ConneCt • Cov. 21511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]
ANNUAL GIvING
Harris ConneCt, • Cov. 2 idC fundraisinG division 1511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]/idcfundraising
ruffaloCodY • 14, 16, 2465 Kirkwood North Road SWP.O. Box 3018Cedar Rapids, IA 52406-3018800-756-7483 Fax: 319-362-7457Email: [email protected]
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
ameropean Corp. • 6050 Whitney Ridge TerraceNorth Haven, CT 06473800-466-4648 Email: [email protected]
BRANDING
GCf Greatest Creative faCtor3000 Chestnut Ave., Suite 400Baltimore, MD 21211410-467-4672 Fax: 410-467-4306Email: [email protected]
lipman Hearne • 2200 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600Chicago, IL 60604312-356-8000 Fax: 312-356-4005Email: [email protected]
• A page number next to the company name refers to an ad in this issue. Phone numbers with area codes 800, 866, 877, or 888 may not be accessible from outside the United States.
NORTH CHARLES STREET DESIGN ORGANIZATION
222 W. Saratoga St.Baltimore, MD 21201410-539-4040 Fax: 410-685-0961Email: [email protected]
SIMPSONSCARBOROUGH 1403 King St.Alexandria, VA 22314571-257-7251 Fax: 571-482-3840Email: [email protected]
COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANTS
CARTER HALLIDAY ASSOCIATES107 South St., Suite 5DBoston, MA 02111617-456-1689 Fax: 617-456-1693Email: [email protected]
lipman Hearne • 2200 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600Chicago, IL 60604312-356-8000 Fax: 312-356-4005Email: [email protected]
MARTS & LUNDY 1200 Wall St. WestLyndhurst, NJ 07071Also: 370 Lexington Ave., Suite 414New York, NY 10017800-526-9005 Fax: 201-460-0680Email: [email protected]
mSTONER 4311 N. Ravenswood Ave., Suite 304Chicago, IL 60613Also: 10002 Aurora Ave. North, Suite 36 #129Seattle, WA 98133773-305-0537 Fax: 773-404-2921Email: [email protected]
NORTH CHARLES STREET DESIGN ORGANIZATION
222 W. Saratoga St.Baltimore, MD 21201410-539-4040 Fax: 410-685-0961Email: [email protected]
snavelY assoCiates112 W. Foster Ave., Suite 401State College, PA 16804814-234-3672 Fax: 814-234-3786Email: [email protected]
STUDIO-e DESIGN 9 Damonmill Square, Suite 3CConcord, MA 01742978-287-5535 Fax: 978-287-0507Email: [email protected]
ZEHNO CROSS MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS757 St. Charles Ave., Suite 203New Orleans, LA 71030504-525-1271 Fax: 504-525-1273Email: [email protected]
DESIGN: PRINT AND WEB
lipman Hearne • 2200 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600Chicago, IL 60604312-356-8000 Fax: 312-356-4005Email: [email protected]
mSTONER 4311 N. Ravenswood Ave., Suite 304Chicago, IL 60613Also: 10002 Aurora Ave. North, Suite 36 #129Seattle, WA 98133773-305-0537 Fax: 773-404-2921Email: [email protected]
ruffaloCodY • 14, 16, 2465 Kirkwood North Road SWP.O. Box 3018Cedar Rapids, IA 52406-3018800-756-7483 Fax: 319-362-7457Email: [email protected]
STUDIO-e DESIGN 9 Damonmill Square, Suite 3CConcord, MA 01742978-287-5535 Fax: 978-287-0507Email: [email protected]
ZEHNO CROSS MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS757 St. Charles Ave., Suite 203New Orleans, LA 71030504-525-1271 Fax: 504-525-1273Email: [email protected]
DONOR RECOGNITION
FAN IN A BOX6925 E. Belmont Ave.Fresno, CA 93729559-252-4924 Fax: 559-255-8179Email: [email protected]
ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT
lipman Hearne • 2200 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600Chicago, IL 60604312-356-8000 Fax: 312-356-4005Email: [email protected]
ruffaloCodY • 14, 16, 2465 Kirkwood North Road SWP.O. Box 3018Cedar Rapids, IA 52406-3018800-756-7483 Fax: 319-362-7457Email: [email protected]
EvENT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
Harris ConneCt • Cov. 21511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]
imodules software • 307400 W. 132nd St., Suite 300Overland Park, KS 66213913-888-0772 Fax: 913-341-2986Email: [email protected]
ExECUTIvE SEARCH
Campbell & CompanY • 11One E. Wacker Drive, Suite 3350Chicago, IL 60601312-644-7100 Fax: 312-644-3559www.campbellcompany.com
Additional offices in Boston, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington, DC. Call 877-957-0000.www.campbellcompany.com
pasCHal murraY inC. West: Corporate OfficeSan Diego, CA East: Mailing Address8311 Brier Creek Parkway, Suite 105 Raleigh, NC 27617760-863-4512 Fax: 760-863-4513Email: [email protected]
rpa inC.2895 S. Reach RoadWilliamsport, PA 17701800-922-9277 Fax: 570-321-7160Email: [email protected]
FUNDRAISING CONSULTANTS
ALEXANDER HAAS3520 Piedmont Road, Suite 300Atlanta, GA 30305404-525-7575 Fax: 404-524-2992Email: [email protected]
bentZ wHaleY flessner • 457251 Ohms LaneMinneapolis, MN 55439800-921-0111 Fax: 952-921-0109Email: [email protected]
Campbell & CompanY • 11One E. Wacker Drive, Suite 3350Chicago, IL 60601312-644-7100 Fax: 312-644-3559 Additional offices in Boston, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington, DC. Call 877-957-0000.www.campbellcompany.com
Carol o’brien assoCiates inC.South Court, 3211 Shannon Road, Suite 100Durham, NC 27707919-403-2500 Fax: 919-403-6632Email: [email protected]
CCs • 40www.ccsfundraising.com
CCS New York461 Fifth Ave.New York, NY 10017800-223-6733 Fax: 212-967-6451Email: [email protected] CCS Boston 10 High St., Suite 503Boston, MA 02110888-553-9693 Fax: 617-292-3339Email: [email protected] CCS Washington, DC 1730 Rhode Island Ave. NWWashington, DC 20036888-451-4080 Fax: 202-628-4403Email: [email protected] CCS Baltimore100 E. Pratt St., Suite 1520Baltimore, MD 21202 800-249-2680 Fax: 410-337-2616Email: [email protected] Chicago 155 N. Wacker Drive, Suite 1790 Chicago, IL 60606 800-832-3214 Fax: 312-596-9253Email: [email protected] CCs st. louis 231 S. Bemiston Ave., Suite 800 St. Louis, MO 63105 314-854-1350 Fax: 314-854-1349Email: [email protected] CCS Seattle800 Fifth Ave., Suite 4100Seattle, WA 98104206-447-1310 Fax: 206-447-1311Email: [email protected]
campus buyers guide
62 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
CCS San Francisco100 Montgomery St., Suite 2270San Francisco, CA 94104800-227-3834 Fax: 415-392-0391Email: [email protected] southern Ca8001 Irvine Center Drive, Suite 1430Irvine, CA 92618949-954-5252 Fax: 949-788-0377Email: [email protected] Toronto10 Bay St., Suite 801 Toronto, Ontario M5J 2R8 416-368-5902Email: [email protected] CCS LondonBedford House3rd Floor3 Bedford St. London WC2E 9HD+44 (0) 20 7240 3822 Email: [email protected] CCs dublinc/o Mazars Harcourt Centre, Block 3Harcourt Road, Dublin 2Ireland +353 1 676 0041 Email: [email protected]
FAN IN A BOX6925 E. Belmont Ave.Fresno, CA 93729559-252-4924 Fax: 559-255-8179Email: [email protected]
GRAHAM-PELTON ConsultinG inC.230 Park Ave., 10th FloorNew York, NY 10169800-608-7955 Fax: 908-608-1520Email: [email protected]
Harris ConneCt, • Cov. 2 idC fundraisinG division
1511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]/idcfundraising
MARTS & LUNDY 1200 Wall St. WestLyndhurst, NJ 07071Also: 370 Lexington Ave., Suite 414New York, NY 10017800-526-9005 Fax: 201-460-0680Email: [email protected]
rpa inC.2895 S. Reach RoadWilliamsport, PA 17701800-922-9277 Fax: 570-321-7160Email: [email protected]
ruffaloCodY • 14, 16, 2465 Kirkwood North Road SWP.O. Box 3018Cedar Rapids, IA 52406-3018800-756-7483 Fax: 319-362-7457Email: [email protected] Granville Ave., Sui
sCHultZ & williams inC.325 Chestnut St., Suite 700Philadelphia, PA 19035215-625-9955 Fax: 215-625-2701Email: [email protected]
wasHburn & mCGoldriCk inC.950 New Loudon Road, Suite 210Latham, NY 12110518-783-1949 Fax: 518-783-4001Email: [email protected]
FUNDRAISING PUBLICATIONS
lipman Hearne • 2200 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600Chicago, IL 60604312-356-8000 Fax: 312-356-4005Email: [email protected]
snavelY assoCiates112 W. Foster Ave., Suite 401State College, PA 16804814-234-3672 Fax: 814-234-3786Email: [email protected]
FUNDRAISING SOFTWARE
Harris ConneCt, • Cov. 2 idC fundraisinG division
1511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]/idcfundraising
imodules software • 307400 W. 132nd St., Suite 300Overland Park, KS 66213913-888-0772 Fax: 913-341-2986Email: [email protected]
ruffaloCodY • 14, 16, 2465 Kirkwood North Road SWP.O. Box 3018Cedar Rapids, IA 52406-3018800-756-7483 Fax: 319-362-7457Email: [email protected]
INTERNET SERvICES
Harris ConneCt • Cov. 21511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]
MARKETING
FAN IN A BOX6925 E. Belmont Ave.Fresno, CA 93729559-252-4924 Fax: 559-255-8179Email: [email protected]
lipman Hearne • 2200 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600Chicago, IL 60604312-356-8000 Fax: 312-356-4005Email: [email protected]
NORTH CHARLES STREET DESIGN ORGANIZATION
222 W. Saratoga St.Baltimore, MD 21201410-539-4040 Fax: 410-685-0961Email: [email protected]
SIMPSONSCARBOROUGH 1403 King St.Alexandria, VA 22314571-257-7251 Fax: 571-482-3840Email: [email protected]
STUDIO-e DESIGN 9 Damonmill Square, Suite 3CConcord, MA 01742978-287-5535 Fax: 978-287-0507Email: [email protected]
ZEHNO CROSS MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS757 St. Charles Ave., Suite 203New Orleans, LA 71030504-525-1271 Fax: 504-525-1273Email: [email protected]
MARKET RESEARCH
lipman Hearne • 2200 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600Chicago, IL 60604312-356-8000 Fax: 312-356-4005Email: [email protected]
SIMPSONSCARBOROUGH 1403 King St.Alexandria, VA 22314571-257-7251 Fax: 571-482-3840Email: [email protected]
ONLINE FUNDRAISING SOFTWARE
Harris ConneCt, • Cov. 2 idC fundraisinG division
1511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]/idcfundraising
imodules software • 307400 W. 132nd St., Suite 300Overland Park, KS 66213913-888-0772 Fax: 913-341-2986Email: [email protected]
PHONATHON SERvICES
ARIA COMMUNICATIONS 717 W. St. GermainSt. Cloud, MN 56301800-955-9924 Fax: 320-258-2754Email: [email protected]
Harris ConneCt, • Cov. 2 idC fundraisinG division
1511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]/idcfundraising
ruffaloCodY • 14, 16, 2465 Kirkwood North Road SWP.O. Box 3018Cedar Rapids, IA 52406-3018800-756-7483 Fax: 319-362-7457Email: [email protected]
PLANNED GIvING SOFTWARE
CresCendo interaCtive inC. 110 Camino RuizCamarillo, CA 93012800-858-9154 Fax: 805-388-2483Email: crescendo@cresmail.comwww.crescendointeractive.comwww.giftlegacy.com
PLANNED GIvING WEBSITES
CresCendo interaCtive inC. 110 Camino RuizCamarillo, CA 93012800-858-9154 Fax: 805-388-2483Email: crescendo@cresmail.comwww.crescendointeractive.comwww.giftlegacy.com
PROSPECT RESEARCH
Harris ConneCt • Cov. 21511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]
TRAINING SERvICES
MARTS & LUNDY 1200 Wall St. WestLyndhurst, NJ 07071Also: 370 Lexington Ave., Suite 414New York, NY 10017800-526-9005 Fax: 201-460-0680Email: [email protected]
wasHburn & mCGoldriCk inC.950 New Loudon Road, Suite 210Latham, NY 12110518-783-1949 Fax: 518-783-4001Email: [email protected] production
vIDEO PRODUCTION
snavelY assoCiates112 W. Foster Ave., Suite 401State College, PA 16804814-234-3672 Fax: 814-234-3786Email: [email protected]
WEBSITE DEvELOPMENT
CresCendo interaCtive inC. 110 Camino RuizCamarillo, CA 93012800-858-9154 Fax: 805-388-2483Email: crescendo@cresmail.comwww.crescendointeractive.comwww.giftlegacy.com
GCf Greatest Creative faCtor3000 Chestnut Ave., Suite 400Baltimore, MD 21211410-467-4672 Fax: 410-467-4306Email: [email protected]
Harris ConneCt • Cov. 21511 Route 22, Suite C-25Brewster, NY 10509800-326-6600 Fax: 845-940-0801Email: [email protected]
imodules software • 307400 W. 132nd St., Suite 300Overland Park, KS 66213913-888-0772 Fax: 913-341-2986Email: [email protected]
lipman Hearne • 2200 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600Chicago, IL 60604312-356-8000 Fax: 312-356-4005Email: [email protected]
mSTONER 4311 N. Ravenswood Ave., Suite 304Chicago, IL 60613Also: 10002 Aurora Ave. North, Suite 36 #129Seattle, WA 98133773-305-0537 Fax: 773-404-2921Email: [email protected]
NORTH CHARLES STREET DESIGN ORGANIZATION
222 W. Saratoga St.Baltimore, MD 21201410-539-4040 Fax: 410-685-0961Email: [email protected]
ZEHNO CROSS MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS757 St. Charles Ave., Suite 203New Orleans, LA 71030504-525-1271 Fax: 504-525-1273Email: [email protected]
advertisers: to plaCe a listinG, Call +1-301-215-6710, ext. 131
campus buyers guide
C A S E C U R R E N T S 63
Rick
Tul
ka f
or c
aSE
View MasterFrom ‘Gangnam Style’ to Tahrir Square, Kevin Allocca analyzes the videos we share
How often do people say they wish they had your job? I like to say that I have every 15-year-old’s dream job [laughing].
That cuts both ways.It does. A large part of what we do is knowing what’s happening on our own
site and trying to keep a handle on the diverse array of video that exists in the
world. It’s also like a lot of people’s jobs; there are meetings and spreadsheets.
The thing I love is that every day there’s some new surprise, some new thing
we’re trying to grasp. I definitely don’t get to just sit and watch YouTube all
day, but there’s a part of the day when I do and it’s wonderful.
How can institutions grow their YouTube channel audiences?I think the rules are still being written for how to do that successfully. There’s this
whole crop of science channels that have quietly become very popular in the last
year or so such as SciShow, MinutePhysics, and AsapSCIENCE. They’re educa-
tional but also entertaining. A lot of people don’t realize how popular educational
content is. We’re getting to a point where some of the best educators in the
world can be accessed by anybody anywhere.
Which metrics are you tracking? As a company, when we try to understand popularity we’re thinking about how
long people are watching and how much people are sharing and searching. Some
of the most fascinating stuff to me is watching channels like Vsauce or Crash
Course that are building audiences. This is a relatively new thing, and we’re still
trying to understand the dynamics. The other thing that fascinates me is seeing
a lot of people posting about the same topic, trend, or meme because it shows
a level of impact on the culture. That’s not necessarily something we could’ve
tracked or measured before. We’re able to measure mass creativity now. How
many uploads about a specific topic have been created? How many parodies of
this song or movie have been produced? When you can see those things happen-
ing, it opens up this other point of view on pop culture.
What are some trends you’ve observed among age groups?There’s this idea that people who are over 30 aren’t watching a ton of web
video, but that’s not true at all. Everybody’s getting more comfortable with the
dynamics of what it means to share something and what you do when you find
something you like. There’s a lot of stereotyping that happens with the younger
demographics. Everybody thinks they’re watching Justin Bieber or something, but
that’s definitely not the case. People are watching stuff from all over the world.
The younger demographics are better at navigating some of these channels
because they’re not used to one type of media or another; they’re used to the
sheer connection between things.
—Interview by THErESA WAlkEr
Why do videos go viral? As YouTube’s
trends manager, kevin Allocca spends
a lot of time thinking about virality. And
after giving a TED Talk on the topic last
year, he also knows what it’s like to
star in a viral video since his presenta-
tion earned more than a million views
(bit.ly/viralAllocca). Allocca jokes about
watching videos for a living, but moni-
toring the culture is no easy feat when
approximately 100 hours of video are
uploaded to YouTube every minute. Once
content is online, “we can always return
to the things we love,” he says. “It’s easy
to be nostalgic today because we have
access to things from years past at our
fingertips.” With the recent launch of the
YouTube Trends Map (www.youtube.
com/trendsmap), Allocca and his team
designed a tool that illustrates which vid-
eos are popular among different demo-
graphic and geographic audiences in the
United States and shows that we’re often
less culturally divided than we think.
64 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3
O d d s a n d E n d s
On, Iowa, proudly at the fore,
On, Iowa, on forever more . . .
Every autumn, the University of Iowa campus resounds with the familiar strains
of On Iowa, written by UI graduate W.R. Law in 1917. It’s a nostalgic anthem,
steeped in history, but it speaks to the future as well.
The University of Iowa stands at the threshold of an era of great promise, and
we must act quickly and boldly to bring change to life for new generations.
For Iowa. Forever More: The Campaign for the University of Iowa is a $1.7 billion
campaign—the largest in Iowa history—that will help the UI remain
“proudly at the fore” of innovation and excellence.
We must educate our students—the leaders of tomorrow—to thrive in a
complex, global society. We must ensure a healthier and more sustainable world
through scientific and medical discoveries. And we must enrich commerce,
culture, and communities for Iowans and citizens beyond
our borders.
Together, we can ensure a bright future for Iowa . . . forever more.
To learn more, visit www.foriowa.org.
For Iowa. Forever More. will help the University
of Iowa continue to do great things—for our community, our
state, our nation, and the world. It
is only through transformational
philanthropy that we can realize our
vision for a university that leads by being
ahead of the curve of constant change.
GG+A is honored to serve as the University of Iowa’s strategic partner in philanthropic management. We celebrate the university’s past, present, and future success as a model for excellence in discovery, learning, and engagement.
Please call Mary Sorrentino at 312.372.4040 to discuss your goals, or visit www.GrenzebachGlier.com.
For Iowa...Forever More
—Sally Mason, PresidentUniversity of Iowa
GG+A_CASE_IOWA_2013.indd 1 7/19/2013 1:27:15 PM
