Social media is a vital part of any modern fundraising campaign—both for a campaign's launch and keeping it going.
For large universities, coordinating social media strategy across campuses, schools, and departments can be incredibly hard. It's Marisa Larson's job to do that as Development Communications Coordinator at the Kansas State University Foundation.
We're thrilled to share news of our partnership with Santa Clara University. Hundreds of alumni and students have already signed up for the Santa Clara University Switchboard.
Michelle Cwirko-Godycki '03 is Associate Director of Marketing and Communications in the Office of Alumni Relations. Megan Bradley is Assistant Director of Social Media and Career Networking in the Office of Alumni Relations.
We asked them to share why they're excited about working with Switchboard.
We all know intuitively that young alumni are different than their older counterparts, but we often lack the data to explain how—or to explain what we can do about it.
Now we have some data to help.
The Alumni Attitude Study surveyed over 500,000 alumni at 200 universities and colleges between 2001–2012. The survey asked alumni of all ages questions about their giving habits and relationships with their alma maters. The data explain why young alumni giving patterns are different than those of their older peers.
We make a lot of assumptions about alumni giving without the data to back them up. To help us test those assumptions, here are three graphs from rigorous surveys with hundreds of thousands of participants.
The data reveal that young alumni give at much lower rates than their more established counterparts— as many of us already know at our own institutions.
They also help us understand how we might improve those giving rates by addressing alumni's frustrations and needs.
We're excited to announce our partnership with Occidental College! We've been working with Oxy for several months now but haven't had the chance to share.
Occidental's tight-knit, purpose-driven community is the perfect fit for Switchboard. The Occidental Switchboard's 700 users are proof enough of that already. We couldn't be more proud to be serving such an inspiring group of people.
Courtney Stricklin is Occidental's Assistant Director for Employer Relations at the Hameetman Career Center, and Culley Johnson is Occidental's Assistant Director for Engagement Communications. We asked them to tell us a little bit about why she's excited to see the Occidental Switchboard continue to grow.