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Educational Fundraising Video |
Why People Give to Schools
On the face of things, it may seem odd that people would give so much money to colleges. Looking at the institutions in America, private colleges are among the most well-endowed enterprises in our society; and private philanthropy is the main source of this funding.
Most of that, of course, comes from alumni. Why do alumni support their schools so handsomely?*
- In the more than two decades I have been helping schools communicate with their alumni, I find that most schools can bank on the fact that alumni feel loyal. They came of age there. They were challenged, corrected, coaxed, and stretched, and their school placed them into a rite of passage that benchmarks their lives. Institutions gain from the personal investment their faculty makes in the lives of each student. In many ways, and for many people, the institutional bond is as important and strong as the parental bond in terms of impact on the shaping of adult lives and practical character lessons.
- I find another significant reason for alumni loyalty, as I interview the graduates of many different institutions. The friendships between students that are forged in college are often more profound than sibling relationships. Going forward through life, a sibling is usually a few years different in age, peer group, and formation experiences (and kids who've never had a sibling have grown from less than 10% to almost one quarter of the student pool). College buddies live, eat, and share together in ways that rival even the closest of family ties. That closeness; forged in the dorms and deepened in a classroom and athletic events, generates a tribal bond that is unmatched in the culture at large. Nothing trumps college in its hold on a group of people; not family, not church, not geography, and certainly not ideology.
- And there is a third major reason why colleges have an enviable ability to pull at the heart-strings of alumni: anyone can see that education is essential for the prosperity of future generations. The cold, hard facts demonstrate that people with degrees do better; and people with a certain college's program under their belt gain from that school's niche strengths; it might be a spiritual bond, a human bond, a habit of engagement with ideas and diversity; whatever the distinctive of the college, each can genuinely lay claim to an impact that shaped the intellect, memories, values, and practical lives of almost every student who attended.
Video guys have always tried to exploit these institutional, tribal, and psychic bonds as they produce putative fundraising videos. The problem is that often, the attempts to strum the heartstrings are often mawkishly manipulative. (I learned that phrase from my first college client, who called me up short when I crossed the line of authenticity). You know the drill. Videos that recite the safe phrases, play the alma mater, and pretend to honor the memory of past students and profs when in reality they are packaging a commodity. The only thing that really changes is the colors and the song.
My proven "recipe" for creating college fundraising vehicles that actually work is to use no recipe. None. I start from scratch every time, and get to know the real mood on the campus and among the alumni. I find out what worries alumni, what the controversies might be, who's hot and who's not as a spokesman, how 60s grads of that unique institution think differently than their 70s, 80s, 90s, and Millennial fellow-alums. If there's sensitivity to the closure of some fraternities, or the reputation of a coach who went astray, I'll find that out.
And then I focus on the stories. The treasured profs, the victories over hardship, the wise policies, the local and international impact in science or medicine or the arts, the amazing and transformative gifts. Often, these stories and the individuals who live them are just below the surface, and a little geological work is needed to unearth them. That's my specialty, my "art" -- finding your unique stories, and then telling them to your audience with clarity and emotion.
*Here's an article by a Stanford prof on the role of identity -- both self-image and involvement in social groups -- as an impact on giving above and beyond guilt, sympathy, or "happiness".
