Most institutions understand the concept of marketing – offer an attractive opportunity along with an easy way for people to respond. We market programs, special events, activities, athletics, ticket sales, annual giving opportunities, naming opportunities, planned giving, etc. But what comes before marketing – public relations – is at least as important as the marketing…
Category: Branding
A Higher Education ‘Feel Good’ Story With a Moral
Recently, I read a news story about a woman who posted on social media about potentially missing out on a substantial scholarship offer from Maryville College in Tennessee. If you have yet to read the story, the basics are that student was going to need significant financial assistance to go the traditional 4-year college route. …
2 Types of Meetings
Collaborative Meetings. These meetings are designed to brainstorm together, to collectively create, to “bounce ideas off of each other.” The purpose of these meetings is to involve others in the idea formation process. Responsive Meetings. These meetings are designed to react to a proposal, to refine an idea, to improve a plan. The purpose of…
Leading Volunteers
What’s the reason our institution utilizes volunteers? What’s the point? The purpose? If we expect our volunteers to provide the definitive answers to these questions, we may want to re-think our role. As advancement professionals who engage volunteers, our first duty is to understand clearly why they are being asked to volunteer. Our second duty…
Tribes or Ecosystems
Brand tribes have been a buzz concept in marketing circles for a few years now. From a marketing perspective, tribes – or customer communities made up of like-minded people who gather together based on shared interests and brands and the values those brands project – represent an opportunity to efficiently engage and motivate a large…
Just Go Play
My son plays high school basketball. During the fall of 2020, his freshman year, his high school made the difficult decision to cancel most of their season due to the pandemic. Because he would be missing a full year of his high school career, my son went to his coach and asked what drills he…
What We Need
We may, legitimately, need another gift officer on the team. Incontrovertibly, we may need another gift processor. There may be no question that we need more budgeted resources to implement our alumni program. All of these limited-resource realities (and many others) might be accurate and true. But none of them change the fact that today,…
Hope and Indifference
Two socially transmitted doctrines. In one, we invite an authentic, joyful, heartening belief to overtake us: “Tomorrow will be better than today.” In the other, we give in to a cynical, misanthropic, resigning frame of mind and heart: “I’m not concerned about tomorrow.” There is no question that advancing our institutions is done best when…
Promotions vs. Promoters
Advancement teams spend tremendous amounts of time, energy, and resources on promoting events, activities, campaigns, solicitations, receptions, giving days, etc. Promoting and marketing is so ubiquitous in advancement, it can be difficult to accurately assess the amount of staff energy and effort, the design time, the printing and mail costs that go into promotions and…
5 New Ways To Get Great Abs!
There is a simple reason headlines like this are used over and over again on fitness magazine covers or fitness posts on social media, etc. They work. For a whole host of reasons, many people seek slimmer midsections so they are curious about, “5 new ways. . .” As a result, such tried and trusty…