Fundraising and the SU fan base

[Moontan]

YOu made the right call, if you can avoid dealing with SU on issues its usually a good thing.

To be honest, in that situation there was likely little that SU could do. It might've been worth asking, though. Especially if this is something you have to deal with on an annual basis. Even if they offer to help, they would likely be at the mercy of the host school/facility.

 

[OttoMets]

I get a magazine from Maxwell, a magazine from the university, a magazine for A&S, solicitations for the general fund, solicitations for maxwell, solicitations for A&S, many emails selling sweatshirts, emails from the dome ticket office, and emails from career services because I mentor people looking to break in to my field - so I am pretty sure the university has my contact info. But I have never, not once, received anything in the mail or via email selling the I'm In campaign or any prior campaign. I contributed of my own volition. But there is not one ounce of effort being thrown in to collecting funds from the general alumni base for athletics, despite sports being an important part of the experience most of us had at SU. And per the above that it's being rolled out through the alumni clubs - a. how many people keep their information up to date with the local alumni club; b. i haven't received anything from my alumni club. The very basics of this involve looking at the $2b academic campaign and getting a list of who contributed and sending them all an email. It costs nothing, you just cross reference a database. But nothing has happened, nothing. it's incredibly weak to the point of incompetence. Syracuse might not have a huge pool of billionaires to pick over, but they have a huge number of people making 200k-$500k as lawyers, lobbyists, advertising/marketing execs etc who can afford to drop $10k a year on supporting something that brought them joy during a care free time in their lives - but you have to make them want to do it and not just hope they'll reach that conclusion on their own.

I even get emails and an occasional mailing from the University of Chicago's athletic department looking for money and I was just a grad student there. Do you know how bad Athletics are at Chicago - pretty bad, no one cares about the teams even a little unless your son/daughter/boy-girlfriend plays on one of them. We had a classmate who was playing on the football team and he was 27 or something. And yet despite the extent to which sports do not matter at that school they had better fundraising, despite the fact that given their endowment size that place doesn't necessarily need to raise money to keep up a 3rd rate athletics budget.

Ignoring the little/mid-size fish doesn't work when you have such a limited number of big fish in the pond.

Agree.

Why are we learning about an I'm In campaign from the Phoenix alumni club president? That SU doesn't directly e-mail alumni and past donors is mind-boggling.

I just don't think SU uses its existing resources very well. And that doesn't make me eager to go out of my way to donate anything beyond what I do for basketball/football tickets.

 

[rrlbees]

Agree. Why are we learning about an I'm In campaign from the Phoenix alumni club president? That SU doesn't directly e-mail alumni and past donors is mind-boggling. I just don't think SU uses its existing resources very well. And that doesn't make me eager to go out of my way to donate anything beyond what I do for basketball/football tickets.

Jason posted about it here a whole back. I think we had it tacked maybe? Same thing though. These fund raising things shouldn't be learned about for the first time here or an alumni club.

 

[OttoMets]

Jason posted about it here a whole back. I think we had it tacked maybe? Same thing though. These fund raising things shouldn't be learned about for the first time here or an alumni club.

Agree. They're not shy about e-mailing about 10% off on sweatshirts at Schine or special ticket offers and the like. Ask me for money. Maybe send me a calendar once in awhile. Pretend you care.

 

[rrlbees]

Agree. They're not shy about e-mailing about 10% off on sweatshirts at Schine or special ticket offers and the like. Ask me for money. Maybe send me a calendar once in awhile. Pretend you care.

I'm not an alum but have bought things from the bookstore. So I've gotten those emails too. Seemed like every few days leading up to Christmas. Sweatshirts. Hats. Sweatpants. Zip up sweatshirt.

 

[shandeezy7]

Agree.

Why are we learning about an I'm In campaign from the Phoenix alumni club president? That SU doesn't directly e-mail alumni and past donors is mind-boggling.

I just don't think SU uses its existing resources very well. And that doesn't make me eager to go out of my way to donate anything beyond what I do for basketball/football tickets.

From my past experience, the reason for doing this is because of the fear of donors "self-soliciting." That is, that if you send out a mass appeal to the general donor base for a specific campaign, you may have an alum donate $5,000, when, through proper cultivation and solicitation by the development staff, they could have been a $100,000 donor.

 

[OttoMets]

From my past experience, the reason for doing this is because of the fear of donors "self-soliciting." That is, that if you send out a mass appeal to the general donor base for a specific campaign, you may have an alum donate $5,000, when, through proper cultivation and solicitation by the development staff, they could have been a $100,000 donor.

Interesting. Didn't know that.

 

[cuseinchina]

From my past experience, the reason for doing this is because of the fear of donors "self-soliciting." That is, that if you send out a mass appeal to the general donor base for a specific campaign, you may have an alum donate $5,000, when, through proper cultivation and solicitation by the development staff, they could have been a $100,000 donor.

You can figure out who the bigger fish are -just hire a couple of interns to go through your database and find them on linked in etc. Plus you can see who donated to the general fund and at what level. Spam the rest of us.

To me this is just an excuse (though at least a somewhat valid one) for not doing the basic blocking and tackling on the fundraising side.

And like I said I get fundraising materials from several other parts of SU - so what's the differentiator with athletics - I certainly don't think it's because they are too sophisticated which is what you are getting at here.

 

[shandeezy7]

You can figure out who the bigger fish are -just hire a couple of interns to go through your database and find them on linked in etc. Plus you can see who donated to the general fund and at what level. Spam the rest of us.

To me this is just an excuse (though at least a somewhat valid one) for not doing the basic blocking and tackling on the fundraising side.

I'm sure they know who the big fish are, for the most part. My guess is that they have a pretty sophisticated database. And I'm not saying I agree with that strategy really, especially since they probably have a limited number of gift officers and would have no way to see everyone worth seeing. Just that it may be a reason.

 

[cuseinchina]

I'm sure they know who the big fish are, for the most part. My guess is that they have a pretty sophisticated database. And I'm not saying I agree with that strategy really, especially since they probably have a limited number of gift officers and would have no way to see everyone worth seeing. Just that it may be a reason.

Yeah I don't know...I mean I hear ya but just saying it's pretty clear they aren't getting the message out if someone like myself isn't even getting info.

 

[shandeezy7]

Yeah I don't know...I mean I hear ya but just saying it's pretty clear they aren't getting the message out if someone like myself isn't even getting info.

Yeah I agree with you. It's a tricky situation. And they've probably got consultants that are telling them 20 different things, contradicting one another.

 

[llandz]

I get a magazine from Maxwell, a magazine from the university, a magazine for A&S, solicitations for the general fund, solicitations for maxwell, solicitations for A&S, many emails selling sweatshirts, emails from the dome ticket office, and emails from career services because I mentor people looking to break in to my field - so I am pretty sure the university has my contact info. But I have never, not once, received anything in the mail or via email selling the I'm In campaign or any prior campaign. I contributed of my own volition. But there is not one ounce of effort being thrown in to collecting funds from the general alumni base for athletics, despite sports being an important part of the experience most of us had at SU. And per the above that it's being rolled out through the alumni clubs - a. how many people keep their information up to date with the local alumni club; b. i haven't received anything from my alumni club. The very basics of this involve looking at the $2b academic campaign and getting a list of who contributed and sending them all an email. It costs nothing, you just cross reference a database. But nothing has happened, nothing. it's incredibly weak to the point of incompetence. Syracuse might not have a huge pool of billionaires to pick over, but they have a huge number of people making 200k-$500k as lawyers, lobbyists, advertising/marketing execs etc who can afford to drop $10k a year on supporting something that brought them joy during a care free time in their lives - but you have to make them want to do it and not just hope they'll reach that conclusion on their own. I even get emails and an occasional mailing from the University of Chicago's athletic department looking for money and I was just a grad student there. Do you know how bad Athletics are at Chicago - pretty bad, no one cares about the teams even a little unless your son/daughter/boy-girlfriend plays on one of them. We had a classmate who was playing on the football team and he was 27 or something. And yet despite the extent to which sports do not matter at that school they had better fundraising, despite the fact that given their endowment size that place doesn't necessarily need to raise money to keep up a 3rd rate athletics budget. Ignoring the little/mid-size fish doesn't work when you have such a limited number of big fish in the pond.

Every SU alum has received at least 2 emails about the I'm In campaign. So even if your local alumni club, if you live in an are with one, has not contacted you , you have gotten emails. If they have your email address, that is. So maybe you did not see them.
Also my husband has an MBA from U of Chicago and has never received anything for a donation to athletics. And he gets plenty of stuff from them. So I guess that was not a good example oaf school doing it better.
I do agree more can be done to promote this campaign but it is only about 2 months old.

 

[cuseinchina]

Every SU alum has received at least 2 emails about the I'm In campaign. So even if your local alumni club, if you live in an are with one, has not contacted you , you have gotten emails. If they have your email address, that is. So maybe you did not see them.
Also my husband has an MBA from U of Chicago and has never received anything for a donation to athletics. And he gets plenty of stuff from them. So I guess that was not a good example oaf school doing it better.
I do agree more can be done to promote this campaign but it is only about 2 months old.

All I can speak to is my personal experience with U of C and my experience with SU. I certainly don't think U of C is a good comp school for Syracuse's athletic fundraising efforts, but I was just amazed that as a business grad from there I got solicited and yet have received nothing from SU - undergrads tend to identify strongly with their school as compared to grad students who identify with their specific programs.

In terms of I'm In - I think it's a great idea. But I haven't deleted an email in probably 3 years - I've checked my spam boxes etc and don't see anything.

I did get something in the mail after I donated but was never solicited.

The point isn't to bi**ch and moan, it's to hopefully generate some focus in areas where it is clearly needed. We ALL want this to be successful.

Do you think they are doing a great job with this so far??

 

[Moontan]

Why are we learning about an I'm In campaign from the Phoenix alumni club president? That SU doesn't directly e-mail alumni and past donors is mind-boggling.

Alumni clubs have their email lists (which include non-alumni) and the University has theirs. The University won't share local alumni contact info with he alumni clubs due to privacy issues.

The alumni clubs do the best they can and occasionally will ask the University to send their message to the University's list. It's not perfect. Not all schools work this way, but many others do.

 

[OttoMets]

Alumni clubs have their email lists (which include non-alumni) and the University has theirs. The University won't share local alumni contact info with he alumni clubs due to privacy issues.

The alumni clubs do the best they can and occasionally will ask the University to send their message to the University's list. It's not perfect. Not all schools work this way, but many others do.

I'm sure the alumni groups do good work; far from criticizing them, I think the University's approach is the problem.

The leadership I like. In many cases, middle management and the rank and file do a lousy job (and not just in this area).