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News Washington News
March, 2004 - Edition 14 Welcome to the March, 2004 edition of Washington News. Read on for client consulting activity, development and marketing news items and a featured article on emerging fundraising trends. In this edition:
Conference Speaking - Dates and Locations
Washington Services will be presenting at the following conferences during 2004:
April 16-18, 2004: EKES (European Council of International Schools), Dublin, Ireland
October 13-15, 2004: Tri-Association (Association of American Schools of Central America, Colombia, Caribbean and Mexico), Mexico City Frank Opray will deliver a session designed to assist international schools, which are contemplating an investment in a development and alumni relations function. November 6-9,2004: AISA (Association of International Schools in Africa), Nairobi, Kenya   Good work in international schools all too often goes unheralded in the "home" country although British international schools have readily recognised the work of identities such as Roger Fry of COBISEC and Ron Stones of Tanglin Trust School, Singapore who have been awarded the CBE and the MBE respectively.
It is gratifying therefore to note that the driving former Head behind the most successful Australian International School Hong Kong, the now retired Christine Neilsen,was awarded an Order of Australia, (AM), in the recently announced Australia Day awards. At an earlier time the founding Principal of the Australian International Schools in Jakarta and Bali, Penny Robertson, was awarded the OAM. At last inspirational work in education internationally is beginning to receive the recognition it deserves.
 The Golf Academy - Loretto School, Edinburgh, Scotland
A stroke of creativity As reported in the November 2002 edition of the Washington News, The Golf Academy at Loretto School is a wonderful example of how focussing on a school’s strengths, and adopting a niche marketing approach, can have a marked effect on the success of that school. Loretto Director of Development, Ian McLean, who was previously Director of Development at St Peter’s College and Prince Alfred College in Adelaide, moved from Australia to the UK in 1999 taking his strong interest in cricket and golf with him. At Loretto School in Edinburgh, (a traditional boarding school but with a growing number of day pupils), Ian has created The Golf Academy to capitalise on the school’s long standing connections with the game in order to attract more pupils and to give the School a significantly higher profile with a marketing edge. The result is Britain’s first specialised school based golf academy and the response to the initiative has been quite remarkable. Being located in the heart of traditional golf territory and Loretto’s very strong personal links to the game were two obvious strengths that the school had been ignoring. Having successfully launched the Academy less than two years ago, Loretto now sees something like 50% of its enrolment enquiries being generated because of the School’s commitment to golf! Pupil numbers are steadily increasing as a consequence – boarding number in particular. The Golf Academy is now an official partner with The Scottish Golf Union and its national Under 14 tournament and Loretto’s Summer and Easter camp programmes are attracting pupils from all over the UK for taster courses as an introduction to a full-time commitment. Former pupils of Loretto who retain their interest in golf have supported the programme and made substantial financial commitments to enable on campus facilities to be developed and to provide funds for scholarships to attract the best possible talent. In many cases the very existence of the Academy has re-kindled the interest of alumni in their old school. The best of Scottish and Irish juniors are now attending Loretto but most importantly, the Academy programme caters for beginners and intermediate level golfers from 8 to 18 years. The other great benefit has been the promotion and publicity the School has received by creating something unique – something that was sitting under its nose all the time! This represents an outstanding example of how seeking out and exploiting a “natural strength” can lead to all sorts of tangible benefits. Ian McLean is happy to talk to schools about the concept and can be contacted at Loretto on mcleani@loretto.com or +44 (0)131 6534434
Media Skills / Presentation and Speaking Skills / Asking for the Gift Each of the above are key skills Heads of schools or universities need to have in their personal "tool kit" but often in our experience these skills are under developed. "Where can I get professional help?" is a question we have been asked by Heads of institutions on three occasions in recent months, reflecting the increased attention being paid to community and donor relations by educational institutions.
Washington Services works with skilled and experienced media and presentation coaches and in upcoming editions of Washington News, Jo Pearson of Melbourne based Media Strategies, will outline the increasing need for these skills and will describe how they can be learnt or enhanced. Jo is one of Australia's leading presentation skills specialists, and media identities. She has worked as a senior prime-time television newsreader, journalist, producer and reporter for nearly twenty years in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and the United States. Trained as a newspaper journalist, Jo also has extensive experience as a radio news reporter and presenter.
Watch out for Jo's informative and challenging articles in forthcoming editions.
Donor Cultivation (or lack thereof) – A True Story! A couple who spoke and dressed like country hicks went to Harvard University and asked the secretary if they could see the President. "He'll be busy all day" came the curt reply. Not to be deterred they waited for hours and finally when she could stand it no longer she sent them in to see the President. He was frustrated that they were taking up his time and planned to get rid of them as soon as possible. The wife explained that their son attended Harvard for just one year but loved it. Sadly he had died in an accident and his parents had wanted to build a memorial to him. They were not thinking in terms of a statue but a building. Yet when the President saw her gingham dress and his homespun suit, he mocked them saying that a building would cost millions of dollars. The couple were silent and as they turned to walk away she said to her husband "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we start our own?" Mr. and Mrs. Stanford walked away and established the university that bears their name, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about. "You can easily judge the character of people by how they treat those who can do nothing for them." Malcolm Forbes 1919-90 (Publisher of “Forbes”) Fundraising in Schools – An Ever- changing Scene (Part One) Towards the end of an academic year schools should be planning for their fundraising programme in the subsequent year and they need therefore to be cognisant of changes taking place in the market. In this, the first of two articles, Frank Opray reviews some shifts in fundraising practice and points to significant trends which are emerging. Schools need to take on board these trends and societal changes in order to ensure that their fundraising, in an increasingly competitive world for the philanthropic dollar, is as effective as it can be. 1. Annual Giving
As with all forms of direct marketing and engaging a constituency or a customer base, commercial and non-commercial entities are paying increasing attention to segmenting their market. So it is with annual giving programmes whereby successful schools are addressing differing sections of their community on differing grounds. The nature of the approach to alumni will differ from that to parents and the projects for support may well differ as between staff and supplier audiences. Just as in the commercial world, the relevance of the message to the target audience is all-important. Likewise choice of projects for support will lead to higher participation in annual giving and schools therefore are increasing offering a range projects across buildings, equipment, libraries, support for staff and scholarship programmes. Three to five years ago it became fashionable to supplement a mail ask for annual giving with a follow up phone call from a volunteer parent or perhaps a paid former student. Such programmes not only lifted the participation rate in annual giving but they also had the advantage of identifying other giving or volunteering prospects amongst the parents and alumni receiving the calls. This aspect tended to offset the additional cost of such programmes and the considerable organisational burden they brought. In recent times however the plethora of fundraising and direct marketing phone calls received by the average household has made this approach less than effective and possibly even counter-productive. In the US there has been considerable consumer backlash against such phone calling in recent months and the indications are that this will soon be manifest in other countries as well. Serious phone/mail programmes in support of annual giving may well have had their day as a consequence. Meanwhile, there is good news for annual giving programmes on two fronts and schools need to be alert to these developments: a) On-line Giving
Whilst on-line giving to annual appeals has been slow to start, with consumers failing to embrace on-line philanthropy to the extent they have on-line purchasing and information retrieval, the expectation is that it will come into its own over the next decade. Alumni are already demonstrating their willingness to book reunion functions and the like on-line and their willingness to also donate in this manner is bound to follow. The propensity for recent alumni and younger parents, and the not so young, to conduct the bulk of their business on-line is here to stay and schools need to gear up for this emerging trend.
b) Matched Giving
Little by little corporates around the world are starting to take up the strong lead shown by their US counterparts or parent companies and are starting to participate in matching the giving of their employees. Such matching is generally on a one to one dollar basis but can be as high as even three to one in some instances.
Schools with strong alumni chapters in the US and/or those with significant parent numbers employed by US firms in particular, should be researching and promoting the concept of matched giving in conjunction with their annual giving programmes. Often Development Directors in schools will need to be pro-active in encouraging the Human Resources departments of major corporations in their area to embrace matched giving, notwithstanding that the parent company in the USA for example might sponsor a vigorous matching programme. The effort will be worthwhile in the longer term. 2. Major Gifts All charitable institutions, not only schools, are continuing to focus more and more on the small number of likely significant donors in their constituency who can give at a level which can make a substantial difference. It is increasingly recognised that this is where the Head’s and the Director of Development’s time is best spent. Thus the often quoted 80/20 rule – 80% of donations coming from 20% of donors – is tending to give way to a 90/10 rule or some would even argue a 95/5 rule. Fewer donors in all forms of charitable giving are underwriting capital campaigns and CEOs are spending more of their time engaging proportionately fewer potential donors. All institutions, schools included, will have a handful of potential donors in this category and if the school is serious about its fundraising potential these hand picked candidates need due research and cultivation. It is no coincidence therefore that development staffs are spending an increasing proportion of their time on donor research and on donor cultivation. There is every indication that one of the consequences of such an approach is that infrequent institution-wide capital appeals are giving way to continuing and rolling major gift programmes with potential donors being cultivated continuously and asks being made at the appropriate time according to the donor’s “readiness”. On the other side of the coin schools are reporting that potential donors are becoming more discerning as to what they will give to, what background information they require in order to make a substantial gift and, importantly, the extent of their involvement downstream of the gift. Woe betides a school which does not allow a major donor to maintain an overview of where and how his or her gift was acquitted. Gone are the days when donors tended to say, “here is my gift, do what you will with it”. 3. Trusts and Foundations
Charitable trusts and foundations have not escaped to need to be more efficient and effective in their giving and one of the consequences of this is that many of them are tending to make larger grants to fewer recipients and to do this over longer periods than annually as in the past. Additionally they are becoming more focussed in their grant making, identifying and supporting specific causes where they identify a specific need or for which they have a particular affinity. In part this trend highlights the increased attention being given to good governance practices and directors’ responsibilities by the boards of trusts and foundations reflecting the very same trend in corporate governance generally. The implication of this trend for schools is that they need to think in terms of developing “partnership relationships” with particular trusts and foundations rather than just rolling over last year’s funding submission, as has largely been the case in the past. This implies:
Strategically, schools should treat supportive trusts and foundations just as they would other major donors, noting that continuing stewardship of a gift is all important if a subsequent gift is to be achieved. The next article in this two-part series will appear in Washington News in May 2004 and will address trends in corporate sponsorship, corporate philanthropy, special events and bequests. Further Information (return to top) For further information and all other enquiries regarding Washington Services' consultancy services, please contact Frank Opray at: frank@opray.net Washington Services [ About Us | Our Products | Sporting Clubs |Email Form | Related Sites ] Copyright © 1998-2007 Washington Services. All Rights Reserved. |
