Communications Audits: Your Customers Speak
Ever ask the question — what’s wrong with this picture? A communications audit is the way to find out. For alumni associations, fundraising organizations and advancement offices striving to cultivate more effective engagement and support, a communications audit will help you assess your staff structures and the effectiveness of your communications programs. What’s more, you...
Read MoreA Pleasant Diversion: Isabel Allende on Writing
This is a pleasant diversion — the opportunity to hear author Isabel Allende talk about writing Island Beneath the Sea, a novel that captures the revolutionary history of Haiti as it became the world’s first black republic. “I wasn’t planning to write this book — I was planning to write about the pirates of the Caribbean — and that was before Johnny...
Read MoreUniversity PR Offices and Alumni: A Disconnect?
Many university public relations offices seem to have a tin ear when it comes to the potential power of harnessing alumni voices for strategic campaigns – such as legislative advocacy. And it’s a missed opportunity. Monovision in the PR office is not what’s needed at a time when making the case for investing in education is vital to universities, the workforce and the...
Read MoreAlumni Communicators: Reframe Your “Case for Support”
Evolving technologies keep alumni communicators on a reactive whirl. A new idea to test, a new format to try — all with the purpose of keeping the alumni information “churn” going. But what’s the communications strategy that will both create value for alumni and yield ROI for the institution’s overall goals for increased support of various forms? Alumni as a whole...
Read MoreFundraising is Business!
There’s been a lively debate underway in the Chronicle of Philanthropy about whether about fundraisers are “selling” a product. Putting money at the center of the development relationship taints the process, argues veteran fundraiser Jennifer McCrea in her Exponential Fundraising blog. Yet the notion of “selling” shouldn’t be a dirty word because it solves...
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