Category: Blog

August 2011. Institutional marketing departments are increasingly asked to be all things to all people and are frequently under-resourced and under-staffed. In order to be effective and meet the competing demands of various campus constituents, department heads need to think creatively and strategically about structure, staffing models, and resource allocation. We turned this week to Elizabeth Scarborough, CEO of SimpsonScarborough, for her advice on leading an effective marketing department. She frames the challenge in terms of moving from operating simply as a service provider to operating as a communications strategy partner. “Ten years ago,” Scarborough notes, “most marketing departments were thought of as a news bureau or as the internal Kinko’s. Now, offices are beginning to shift from operating like a print shop to operating like a strategic marketing innovation center.” Scarborough offers these four recommendations for marketing and communications departments in higher education: Stop taking orders for publications, and instead work with other offices to address their marketing challenges in more strategic ways Set strategic goals and measures for your marketing operation Ensure that the marketing office owns the functional responsibility for the website Staff your office with “marketing strategists” Stop Taking Print Orders “On many campuses,” Scarborough notes, “marketing […]

July 28, 2011. According to a national survey of higher education alumni conducted by the Collaborative Innovation Network for Engagement and Giving and presented to the Annual Giving Directors Consortium (April 2010), only 52 percent of alumni at those institutions with the highest alumni participation rates believe their alma mater keeps them closely connected and values its alumni relationships. At the same time, institutions are trying to meet fundraising goals by calling on fewer and fewer donors. Now is the time for your institution to stop this unsustainable advancement strategy. We turned this week to Jim Langley, president of Langley Innovations, for his advice on how institutions need to rethink their strategy for engaging future donors. A Diagnosis: How Institutions and Alumni Misconnect “The underlying malady,” Langley remarks, “is a loss of emotional engagement with the institution. Alumni remain appreciative of their degree and of their time at the institution, but feel emotionally detached from the alma mater after graduation.” This disaffection can take different forms for different generations of alumni: Young alumni are likely to have graduated with a significant load of student debt and are now facing the challenges of building a career amid a sluggish economic recovery; when […]

July 28, 2011. As advancement shops in higher education struggle with a slow economic recovery, it is increasingly important to build staff metrics that encourage effective work. Tracking meaningful metrics beyond dollars raised can empower you to: Reward high performers, making it easier to retain your best officers Identify training needs Incentivize cross-boundary work toward shared goals For advice on taking fundraising metrics beyond dollars raised, we turned this week to Rick Dupree, assistant dean of development and alumni relations for the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, and D. Scott Peters, director of annual giving at the University of Richmond. A Culture of Incentives “A good metrics system means that development officers know what’s expected, they know what will happen if they meet and exceed goals. It takes away the guessing game. Development officers are entrepreneurs at heart — they have egos, they’re creative, they want to do excellent work and be recognized for it.” Rick Dupree, Indiana U Dupree adds that the 100-point metrics program he put in place a decade ago at Indiana University allowed him to do “two atypical things” — offer bonuses and terminate low performers. He assigned points for achieving specific goals. “If a staff […]

Whether driven by a desire for social impact, or the harsh economic realities of unsustainable utilities expenditures, or by political and market demand, more colleges and universities are taking the trend to become more environmentally sustainable seriously. More than 650 institutional presidents have pledged carbon neutrality as signatories to the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (APUCC), and hundreds of institutions now employ sustainability coordinators. Yet many sustainability initiatives have yet to see meaningful gains. In fact, at the majority of colleges and universities, sustainability efforts remain limited to disparate, one-off programs, from trayless dining to student-directed recycling programs to “green” capital projects and energy efficiency measures. To move beyond one-off programs, it’s critical to identify how efforts toward a sustainable campus add benefits beyond just cost savings and social impact. Defining the value proposition for sustainability at your campus and mapping the impact of sustainability on a wide array of campus priorities (e.g., student recruitment and retention, stakeholder relations and fundraising, etc.) will empower an institution to more effectively target campus-wide or system-wide investment in sustainable initiatives, and to better engage broader campus constituencies and build alliances beyond the “usual choir.” “The question to address now is: How do you get […]

“Demonstrating that sustainability isn’t just a cost but also provides payback, especially financial payback, is crucial to establish early,” Dave Newport suggests. As you look to build momentum for sustainability efforts on your campus, it will be critical to identify what energy, water, and resource savings projects have already been undertaken at your institution, and then to prioritize your key projects — “low-hanging fruit” that will show rapid returns in the form of cost savings. The key is to begin a cycle of cost savings and reinvestment of savings in further sustainability efforts. “You can’t do everything. Focus on finding those early wins that allow you to generate support for more robust efforts,” Dave Newport advises. While inventorying current efforts and identifying the next several projects that will generate financial returns, make sure to integrate opportunities for student learning and student engagement into efficiency and cost control initiatives: Connect efficiency programs with faculty and student efforts (for example, invite students to take part in a lighting efficiency project, or involve an architecture or engineering course in the process of designing your next LEED facility) Prioritize tangible projects that you can show to current and prospective students as a real example […]