THANK YOU! Literally all my job is right now is maniacally checking the percentage of alumni who made gifts this year. All we’re asking for is one small gift a year, and it counts toward getting the school a higher ranking.
Do not. It’s not that funny. Every day I go get my mail from the mailroom and see some of those standard, business reply envelopes and think oh boy, gifts! And I open them and it’s a bill for someone’s student loans and they write nasty things on it and act like they are the only people to have ever had this idea even though I just got the same thing last week! Hysterical!!!
It should. You have a few options. You can be taken off calling and direct mail lists, or you can be removed from the pool altogether. You probably don’t want to be removed from the pool altogether, because then you wouldn’t receive your alumni magazine, Homecoming invitations, whatever. If a student calls you, you can ask to be removed from the solicitation list but reiterate that you’d like to receive other school communications. You can also call the Alumni Relations Office and ask, if you’re not receiving student calls.
As it were, I work in development for a university (private, medium-sized) and I am happy to address some of your points. I am condensing it now so that it’s not a tl;dr situation but here you go:
1) Full tuition doesn’t cover the cost of educating a student. Also most students are not paying full tuition anymore, even if their fin.aid. package is nominal.
2) Your money isn’t going to the President’s retirement account. We aren’t a bunch of scumbags in a back alley who keep the money in a shoebox. There are laws. If you allocate to, say, your major’s academic department, we legally are required to give that academic department the money. Even if you allocate to a general annual fund, that’s where the money sits, and it goes to what Administration deems the most pressing needs.
3) We aren’t asking you to give money to US. We are asking you to give money to the students. Every experience you had on campus was, believe it or not, paid for either fully or in part by alumni philanthropy of some amount. Allocate it to financial aid so future students don’t have to take out loans. Give it to career services so that students who may not have the networking opportunities you had can also get jobs they love.
I’m going to stop now because I’ve probably already been snarky enough and it’s already a tl;dr. Happy to address any additional questions or concerns. I’ll leave you with this: Please don’t be mean to the students who call you. They are literally students doing a job and trying to make money. If you don’t want to make a gift, fine, but please don’t yell at them!
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THANK YOU! Literally all my job is right now is maniacally checking the percentage of alumni who made gifts this year. All we’re asking for is one small gift a year, and it counts toward getting the school a higher ranking.
Do not. It’s not that funny. Every day I go get my mail from the mailroom and see some of those standard, business reply envelopes and think oh boy, gifts! And I open them and it’s a bill for someone’s student loans and they write nasty things on it and act like they are the only people to have ever had this idea even though I just got the same thing last week! Hysterical!!!
It should. You have a few options. You can be taken off calling and direct mail lists, or you can be removed from the pool altogether. You probably don’t want to be removed from the pool altogether, because then you wouldn’t receive your alumni magazine, Homecoming invitations, whatever. If a student calls you, you can ask to be removed from the solicitation list but reiterate that you’d like to receive other school communications. You can also call the Alumni Relations Office and ask, if you’re not receiving student calls.
Most institutions and organizations have minimum credit card gift amounts.
As it were, I work in development for a university (private, medium-sized) and I am happy to address some of your points. I am condensing it now so that it’s not a tl;dr situation but here you go:
1) Full tuition doesn’t cover the cost of educating a student. Also most students are not paying full tuition anymore, even if their fin.aid. package is nominal.
2) Your money isn’t going to the President’s retirement account. We aren’t a bunch of scumbags in a back alley who keep the money in a shoebox. There are laws. If you allocate to, say, your major’s academic department, we legally are required to give that academic department the money. Even if you allocate to a general annual fund, that’s where the money sits, and it goes to what Administration deems the most pressing needs.
3) We aren’t asking you to give money to US. We are asking you to give money to the students. Every experience you had on campus was, believe it or not, paid for either fully or in part by alumni philanthropy of some amount. Allocate it to financial aid so future students don’t have to take out loans. Give it to career services so that students who may not have the networking opportunities you had can also get jobs they love.
I’m going to stop now because I’ve probably already been snarky enough and it’s already a tl;dr. Happy to address any additional questions or concerns. I’ll leave you with this: Please don’t be mean to the students who call you. They are literally students doing a job and trying to make money. If you don’t want to make a gift, fine, but please don’t yell at them!