Activist, Learner

What Your Alma Mater Wants from You (And No, It Isn’t Money)

Posted by Christy Moss on March 24, 2008 at 10:00 am.

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Editor’s Note: This guest post comes from Christy Moss, a twenty-setting writer and fundraiser for a large state school.  She doesn’t have a blog, but she is passionate about teaching her peers about philanthropy.

I am a professional fundraiser – there, I said it. Specifically, I write the letters you get once a year from your alma mater – the ones you get before you pay off your student loans, before you have launched a high paying career, when you are still living in a cramped apartment and taking night classes for grad school. But I am also a young alumnae, so I know why those letters may seem annoying, but let me tell you what I’ve learned: 

They don’t want your money! 

At least not yet, anyway. Every year, at colleges and universities across the nation fundraisers debate whether or not to send you a letter. Seriously, every year. I’ve participated in a few of these debates myself. Here are the reasons you continue to receive the letters: 

1. Build Relationships  

You will spend many more years as an alum of your alma matter than the four short years you spent as a student.  

You and your peers will go on to do big and great things and someone has to keep track of all of you, to keep you connected. Often the most fulfilling aspects of being associated with a university occur after graduation. Over the years you will be invited to exclusive events, asked to mentor students, or encouraged to hang out with fellow alumni. You will want to keep up with peers, old professors, and eventually, you may even want to give back. 

But the reality is, young graduates move often. Some statistics indicate as often as once every six months for the first three years. To complicate that matter, the most reliable and scheduled university mailings come from a school’s fundraising offices.  

Fundraising cycles begin in the fall and most fundraisers believe that by the fall after your graduation, you have most likely moved out of your parent’s house. The only way to capture your new address is to send you mail. Instead of having this piece of mail forwarded to your new address, your alma matter pays the post office to send them your forwarding address.   

2. Participate in Culture of Philanthropy 

The highest contributors by percentage of income to philanthropic causes are low to lower-middle income individuals.

 Seeing that you have a college education, you are not likely to be among this group. Also, those with socially liberal views are less likely to give. Why? Because they tend to see civic work as a job of the government. All the while, public funding for education in our country is slipping to all time lows. 

Even if you choose not to make charitable contributions to your alma matter the message they are trying to convey is important. Your dollars matter. Your time matters. The giving that you do is significant. Much like traveling to a foreign country, charitable giving will widen your perspective to see not only the need, but the opportunities that abound. 

3.Forge a Legacy 

In Stanford’s most recent fundraising campaign, most of those who gave over $1,000,000 began giving to the university within five years of graduation. 

Think about the charitable giving you do now, whether it is donating clothing items to good will, putting a bit of change into the Salvation Army buckets or giving of your time to a religious institution. What is it that you enjoy about this experience? Is there a story connected to where you give and why? Did you take a class that changed your perspective? Would you like to make sure other students could afford to take this class? What if you had $10,000 to give, how would you give it? Would you want to ensure that all the animals from your favorite shelter had a chance at good homes? 

As you begin your personal history of giving, think about these questions. Your alma matter wants to help you find where your philanthropic passions lie. In truth, every good fundraiser wants you to ponder these questions, even if it leads you away from their organizations. A passionate giver is a happy giver and a happy giver keeps giving. Passionate, happy givers inspire others to give, and in this day and age, it is passionate givers who will make our world a little better than it was yesterday.  

So, the next time you see a letter from your alma matter in your mailbox, don’t hate the fundraisers. They don’t want your money, but they do want to send you on a journey of discovery toward pursuing your philanthropic dreams.  

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  • Okay, well I loved this post since I was the top fundraiser caller for my college when I was in school(UW-Madison), and I see you work for U of I and I'm from Urbana, IL.

    Anywho, it's a big misconception that fundraisers just want the money. They want the relationship too, and I think that was a good point in your post.
  • Christy, great post. I had no idea this was why colleges sent out philanthropy letters. When I received my first one last year from my undergrad, I was so confused because I really didn't have any money yet.

    Then when I started grad school last fall it was kind of the same thing - one of our speakers told us that is we contributed $2 million over our lifetime we got this 5x10 inch plaque on one of the walls. Pretty expensive slab of wood was all I could think... but apparently planting the seed young is very important in establishing a lifelong giver.

    One last thing - I've found that I'm much more willing to give back to my sorority than to my school. My husband is the same way with his fraternity. So I guess it has a lot to do with where you really spent those four years... and what mattered most in that time period.

    Thanks again!
  • Rebecca ~ I wish you still lived in Urbana, we could go to a coffee shop and swap stories about calling alumni. :-)

    Monica ~ I understand your desire to designate your gifts. This is also a trend among younger donors. As a group, we tend to be more invested in the outcome of the gift and less trusting of large organizations to spend our money as they see fit. Rather we seek to earmark it for specific causes. I also give to specific causes at my alma mater.

    A question for you ladies - the causes that you are interested in giving to (whether or not they are your universities) - how would you like them to engage you? (Through the mail, phone, email, etc.)
  • hey Christy

    Thanks for sharing! Interesting, public funding for education nearing all time low. Your right, it appears that most people expect the federal government to do everything. Education should only be a state issue because the constitution does not require the federal government to act in that regard. Anyhow, since changes are in the works at ORU, (for the better) I'll more willing to give back with hopes of growing relationships and remaining connected.
  • Christy, I definitely favor the internet over anything that is sent through mail. I seriously doubt that is representative of the general population though. Personally, I manage my entire social life outside of Chicago through Facebook. Sounds crazy, I know. But if my school added a little Cause for their alumnae (and maybe they have and I don't know about it) I would certainly add it to my profile and use it.

    I know for a fact that these won't work for everyone though. Facebook came out when I was a junior in college, and most of my friends two years older (age 26 now) do not even use Facebook, or do not use it the same way I do. Better keep sending them letters through the mail.

    A blog would be awesome too, but then again I have a blog, so it's normal that I would want to interact through a blog - and most of my peers don't have blogs.

    This is such an interesting topic to me. I've been thinking a lot about the way people communicate, and how if the channels people are comfortable communicating with do not match people essentially don't talk to each other.

    For example - I don't call people anymore. It's almost impossible to call people at normal times when I'm in downtown Chicago all day - there is nowhere quiet to have a private conversation. So I text message instead, or chat online. My brother and I just taught my mom how to text message for this exact reason - we have trouble finding a good place to return her phone calls before 10pm (when I get home normally).

    Anyway, I probably should write a post about this and not leave it in my comments section. Thanks again for the interesting topic!
  • When I went to school, my part time job was calling alumni and asking for donations and updating info Alumni magazine. I actually found that recent graduates were more likely to donate at least something (like $25) than older ones. However, if older guys donated it was usually a bigger amount.

    Just thought I will share my observations.
  • Miguel - at the university I work at, state funding has dropped to 17%. I am glad that you are considering supporting ORU. I visited your campus once for a conference. My friend and I had our picture taken in front of the giant hands. :-)

    Monica - universities are slowly beginning to consider online solicitation and the possibility of using social networking sites - though I think such forward thinking is in its infancy. The problem I hear fundraisers talk about most when discussing using the facebook causes application, is the fee charged by the application. I believe they take between one and three percent of the gift. Which doesn't sound like much, but the problem comes in crediting the gift. Should they charge you the fee on top of your gift, or should the fee come out of your gift. If the fee comes out of your gift then your gift receipt will show a different amount than you thought you gave, a potential confusion/ trust issue with donors.

    Do you think it is better to tack on the fee or to inform donors that a fee must be taken from their gift? Also - most colleges have websites that are able to receive gifts online, so branching out to another website that has a fee structure isn't as attractive to them. At this point, using a medium like facebook is a hard sell.....but we are still trying. :-)

    Roman – thank you for your observations.  On our campus there are different norms depending which college a student received their degree. Students who studied business or engineering often give back sooner because they have a direct career path after college, while those studying the liberal arts often wait, because it is more difficult for them to find a job and liberal arts students often go to graduate school immediately after finishing their undergrad. Did you find this was true when you called alumni?
  • Christy, Perhaps don't collect through the Facebook application. You could just use the application to promote alumnae donations.

    Also, if people want to donate through Facebook, charge the fee on top of it. And let them know they can escape the fee by donating through the main website instead. After all, the person donating wants all of their money to go to their cause.
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