On the Line...with Jason Fisher

Proximity Matters When it Involves Alumni Participation

I’ve had the opportunity to work on hundreds of phonathon and annual giving programs in my career.  As part of my consulting and audit responsibilities, I often take a closer look at statistical results and attempt to dig into the numbers to find trends that the phonathon and annual giving staff can exploit.  It’s amazing how consistent statistical trends are from campus to campus.  What one might consider at first to be an isolated phenomena is often found in other programs as well, leading me to the conclusion that human behavior is remarkable similar no matter what institution people attend.

 

In particular, I like to review the alumni participation rates by proximity to campus.  They tell an interesting story; one that fundraisers should not overlook.   In general, the farther one goes from campus, the higher the alumni participation rate.  I would say that the vast majority of the schools I work with follow this pattern.  In fact, I cannot remember the last time this wasn’t true.  There are a number of theories floating around out there that try to explain this, but let me give you my basic reasoning for why I believe this happens.

Understanding Decreasing Participation Rates- The Philanthropic Priority List

If the average college or university annual giving program achieves 20-30% participation, does that mean that 70-80% of the people are not loyal to the institution?  Of course not.  But as fundraisers, we sometimes struggle to find answers to the tough questions surrounding low participation- especially in phonathon.  We wonder why our nondonors cannot consistently break double-digits, and why our lybunts simply don’t renew every year.  What caused those sybunts to suddenly stop giving?  If you’ve ever asked these questions of your own program, you’re not alone in your thinking.

 

The answers to these questions are a bit of a mystery for each institution, but I’ve developed a philosophy over the years that helps explain why higher education in general has taken steps backward in alumni pledge rates. I call it the Philanthropic Priority List.  It works like this.  Everyone has multiple interests in life.  As a 22 year-old student these interests may be fairly narrow, but they tend to grow with life’s experiences.  Receiving a graduate degree, getting married, starting a family, building a career, and expanding friendships all add to these interests as a person ages.  Before long, a person has a list of charitable groups that they consider giving to every year.  These include undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, fraternities and sororities, churches, children’s private school or public school fundraisers, national non-profits like United Way or the American Cancer Society, local community organizations, political campaigns, interest groups, and world social change organizations.  Higher education is in competition with all of them, and where your institution falls on their priority list will determine if you get a gift and how much that gift is worth.  Your caller’s job is to persuade the alum to move their alma mater a notch or two higher, thereby increasing the chances of gaining their support.