Respectfully, it absolutely is the university’s job and it’s why we have a staff of development professionals — to drive that philanthropy. As part of the larger alumni relations and communications function, they are not all fundraisers, but as a collective, their jobs are to stoke alumni affinity for Seton Hall by creating communications vehicles that begin to do that — things that make alumni feel pride, nostalgia, affinity, and kinship with their alma mater.
This in converted into driving attendance at events and participation in other alumni initiatives — volunteering, mentorship, etc. — as well as annual giving. This is where the group I call the “nickel and dimers“ are important, and in this context, I don’t use the term disparagingly. Annual giving, most of which occurs in small amounts — $50 to, say, $5,000 — don’t move the needle on operating budgets, but they create habits and a sense of investment. Some will continue to give at this level forever, but others can be trained to treat this as the runway to larger levels of giving, ranging from large campaign pledges to estate gifts, or just simply escalated levels of annual giving. (annual giving is also what drives the metric of “giving rate,” which I think is still a factor in the U.S. News & World Report ranking.)
Then you have your prospect researchers — the people who comb through publicly available records And other internal and external data to identify those who can become more significant donors. They are identified through home and other real estate holdings, high income professions, active engagement with the university (steady giving, frequent participation in events, etc.), and other signifiers of ability to give.
Reports on those people are then turned over to the various development people — the actual fundraisers — based on the type of gifts they think the alum would be most inclined to give. This begins the cultivation process — the process by which the school learns more about them and what makes them tick — their interests, passions, aspirations, and what they hold most closely about their time at Seton Hall. And as this relationship deepens and becomes (hopefully) more authentic, they begin to talk about giving to Seton Hall in more practical, concrete terms. They will make a proposal to the prospect based on what they think their ability to give is, essentially making their pitch for a type of gift. This often includes a lot of back-and-forth negotiation, but when an agreement is reached, this is conversion.
I have no illusions about Seton Hall and the makeup of our alumni base but I also know where we fit into the world, and I know we have people who are very capable of giving at much higher levels if we were finding them, identifying them, cultivating them, soliciting them, and converting them with skill. And I also know Seton Hall can do better producing materials that appeal to the rank and file. Our magazine is terrible. The annual report that came yesterday is not good, either. Both are “straight to the recycling” pieces. That’s on the university.
This is all salesmanship; these collateral materials are your advertising. They should have the advantage of built-in brand loyalty but even still, if your consumers think the brand isn’t cool, they will spend elsewhere.
