When Your College Calls

You've just gotten home from work a short while ago and you're busily preparing dinner when the telephone rings. A glance at the caller id reveals that it's your old college on the phone. You've received calls like this before but have never answered them before. For some reason though, your curiosity is sparked this time and you quickly wipe your hands clean on a dish towel and answer the call. So, why are you being called?

In the majority of situations like the one just described, you would be answered by a current student of your alma mater. If properly coached, they would proceed to initiate a conversation with you and update you on all of the major happenings at your old school. Ideally, the student speaking with you would have a major in common with you and so would be able to speak to you about professors and classes that each of you might have taken. With a solid rapport established, the student would then thank the alum for taking the time to speak with them. If the alum is a past donor, the student would also thank them for their past gifts, noting that the alum has been a steady supporter in the past but that they have not yet made a gift in the current fiscal year. If the alum has never given in the past, the student would ask if the alum would consider making a first-time gift to the school, citing the importance of alumni giving and support for the annual fund.

Here's the thing that many people don't realize: alumni giving and annual fund support are critical for almost every college in the country.

Why is alumni giving such a critical measure of a college's success? The easy answer is that if alumni aren't willing to give back to their school, why should anyone else? Alumni giving percentages are looked at closely by foundations and state agencies when determining whether or not they are going to fund a grant request. Those same percentages are a key factor in how organizations such as U.S. News and World Report rank colleges and universities. Parents and students also look at those numbers to determine the happiness of alumni with their school.

Annual giving programs at colleges and universities are also an important part the institution's success. An annual fund is an unrestricted fund that is used to help fund scholarships for deserving students, to fund needed programs on campus, and a wide variety of other uses as determined by the President and their advisory staff. Most colleges have endowments that, in conjunction with tuition and other alternative revenues, pay for the day-to-day running of the institution. Annual giving, and other fundraising efforts, helps to make up the differences between income and expense, which can often be substantial.

Something else to keep in mind is that your school would never have asked a student to call you if they did not have a reasonable expectation that you would at least hear the student out and consider their request. Fundraisers, especially in higher education, are not going to put a student in the position of calling a potential donor just so that they can be yelled at when they ask someone to consider making an outrageous gift. No, in most cases, if an alum is being called as part of a phonathon calling program, the student will ask for something along the lines of $50 or $100. If the answer is "No," they might ask for a token amount equaling the cost of a meal at McDonald's in order to capture your participation as an alum. In all cases, the call is treated as a success if the alum took the time to actually speak with the student caller and had a positive experience with a representative (in this case the student) of their school.

So, the next time you see that caller id flashing with the name of your school, you might want to consider picking up the phone and talking with the person on the other end. If it is a solicitation, you don't have to say "Yes," but you might want to consider whether or not a charitable gift to your alma mater is something that you can. At the very least, you'll get a chance to talk with a current student and find out what's going on back at the place where you spent four years of your life.