Dive Brief:
- Some schools are finding themselves caught between what groups of current students are demanding and what alumni and donors think is best for the campus.
- Inside Higher Ed reports that alumni have been one of the loudest constituencies in responding to the wave of protests across the country, prompting the need for careful and consistent communication with this population and delicate consideration of their role as donors.
- A Harvard law student asked alumni to stop donating following what she thought was too weak of a response to the defacement of black faculty portraits, but many schools do not expect protests or campus responses to greatly affect those who have made a habit of giving.
Dive Insight:
Many of the institutions that have been roiled in campus activism in recent weeks have long, well-established histories of giving — especially schools like Harvard. Pomona College President David Oxtoby got both positive and negative feedback from alumni following his meetings with campus activists. He told Inside Higher Ed that people already have plenty of excuses not to give, and many who would cite the protests as a reason probably weren’t giving anyway.
The reality is that alumni giving is dominated by a tiny fraction of people at any given institution. While administrators should consider the needs and desires of their entire campus communities, including alumni, they must also keep things in perspective.