Dive Brief:
- Higher education leaders using personalized stories to connect with older alumni, parents and donors may see more success in building connectivity and engagement with the institution, University Business Magazine reported. There are four basic building blocks to these stories: relevance, impact, content and call to engagement.
- To improve stories, outreach officials must frame the story as relevant to the audience — not just centered around student recruiting. And, officials should take steps to make the story impactful, creating an emotional spark within donors, so they feel their investment is valuable.
- Stories should still relate back to the objectives of a capital campaign or plan by showing how a donor's philanthropy may serve an institutional priority, while the content ought to also invite the listener to get engaged in some form — whether its volunteering or donating. Testing these strategies with one-on-one meetings, rather than informal surveys or groups, may advance fundraising efforts.
Dive Insight:
Higher education institutions rely a great deal on the donations of past students and donors interested in engaging with the school's mission, but often times there can be a disconnect between these groups and outreach efforts. By creating tactics that actually resonate with older generations on how their money or volunteer efforts may pay off for students currently enrolled, outreach officials will see greater success in helping those outside the direct school community feel connected with the institution's goals.
For smaller schools in particular, effective storytelling tactics and engagement efforts are absolutely critical, given that a recent analysis by Moody’s found 70% of the wealth in higher ed is concentrated among 20 top institutions, and even though charitable giving is expected to increase 3.7% this year, most of those funds are similarly concentrated. Looking into the motivations behind why philanthropists decide to give is one way of making sure that the content of stories is going to be the right fit — and also a look into what type of emotional connection alumni and donors might be seeking out. Education Dive spoke with a number of major donors, including John Hardin of the Koch Foundation, who said that he always considers whether his return on investment is going to have a larger societal effect:
“When students succeed and professors discover new and better ways to address the challenges in our society, we see that as a successful investment. Ideas that challenge conventional wisdom have driven tremendous progress throughout history, and we aspire to see our philanthropy contribute to new discoveries that help people to live better and more fulfilling lives."