Fundraising
GBC 2012
Fundraising Issues Overview
• Issue 1 – Fundraising Outreach
• Issue 2 – School Outreach vs. Student
Outreach
• Issue 3 – Maintaining Corporate
Sponsorship
• Issue 4 – Maximize Limited Funding
Sources
• Issue 5 – Formalize Fundraising Efforts
• Other Thoughts
Issue 1 – Fundraising Outreach
• Standardize outreach process across student clubs.
• Develop and present letter, presentation, sponsor
value propositions, and discuss the sponsors right’s
(would it be co-branding, how much exposure,
etc.)
• Start with alumni, but also consult faculty who likely
have good relationships within the industry.
• If fundraising done for an event, in-kind requests
often more successful than $’s.
• Have in-person meetings rather than email/phone
outreach
Issue 2 – School Outreach versus
Student Outreach
• Many loops in order to go through
school administration
– School already has a process set up
– Alumni board, Fundraising board, etc.
• If it’s well run, student run clubs can
become self sufficient
– Ensure School administration is on board
and understand student actions
Issue 3 – Maintaining Corporate
Sponsorship
• Important to communicate the benefits
of sponsorships to corporations
– Sponsors need to understand the value
proposition of their sponsorship.
– $’s versus in kind.
• Keep them in the loop with regards to
ongoing activities and how their
sponsorship is helping.
• Involve sponsors in activities and engage
in discussions regarding student help
Issue 4 – Maximize Limited
Funding Sources
• Clubs typically funded by members or
through limited “activity fees” through
School.
• Think about opportunities to collect data
among students or within the community
and sell it to local organizations.
• Some schools even sell “human resource”
services
• Funding for charity events
Issue 4 – Maximize Limited
Funding Sources (cont.)
• School owned concession/vending
machines or bars:
– Money spent by students goes back to the
school
• Consulting or company projects where
the funding goes back the clubs.
– Involvement with 180degreesconsulting
– This may be in conflict with class-sponsored
projects that allows interactions with
companies.
• Merchandise sales to alumni
Issue 5 – Formalize Fundraising
Efforts
• How can School formalize fundraising
efforts & instill it as ongoing process that
includes relationships with stakeholders
(i.e. corporations & alumni)?
• Have fundraising director (transfer
knowledge, maintain database)
• Run clubs as separate entities with unique
corporate relationships
– Provide opportunities for club and
corporations to interact.
– Work with fundraising director
Issue 5 – Formalize Fundraising
Efforts (cont.)
• Find platforms to facilitate sponsorship
exposure via advertising:
– Televisions on campus
– Booklets to incoming students
– Website – structure information in such a
way as to ensure maximum exposure
APPENDIX
Issue
• Denise (Foster) – Need
ideas for sponsorship of
club and other MBA
events
• Processes and tactics
for obtaining and
maintaining
sponsorship (and to
avoid competition with
current funding)
Potential Solution
•
•
Martha – sponsorship best
practice “packages,” get clubs
tapped into database that
funders can access.
Inder (Schulich) – Schulich
doesn’t rely on admin to provide
sponsorships – reach out on
student level instead of faculty
reaching out – adding value to
clients later on, whereas admin
may have rigid system to reach
out – clubs have own
sponsorships, funding doesn’t
come from GBC – clubs have
their own networks - make sure
that more than one club doesn’t
reach out to same clients
(through shared database)
Problem
• David (NCCU Taiwain) No
regulation on school
funds, looking into
sponsorship without
controversy, program
support, size and
frequency of events,
admins saying they
should, database is just list
of corporate names – just
cold calling - student
body is divided (50%
local, 50% foreign) – not a
lot of funds
Solution
• Inder (Schulich) – make
sure that when cold
calling, you actually
reach out to the person
in charge/in interest in
donations – don’t
make proposition on
phone, meet in person
or email
Problem
• David – no supervision
or regulation over bank
account (GBC
considered
extracurricular)
Solution
•
Colin (Duke) – At Duke,
everything is processed through
b-school, processes are put in
place: everything is through fees,
no club fees – may be slower but
covers you liability-wise (travel,
insurance) and better for
tracking money – logarithm
separates money into clubs from
large student fee fund, in
addition to slush fund if you want
to apply for more money – MBAA
survey determines how clubs are
doing—you’re able to follow –
funding based on how many
people responded
Problem
• Martha (Rotman) –
inconsistent
approaches to student
sponsorship, they seek
sponsors in silos (who
doles out sponsorship?
Does GBC combine
forces with clubs?)
Solution
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Inder (Schulich) – Giving GBC autonomy
avoids conflicts of interest, but understand
about benefits of auditing
Brad – Things can vary as to which club
leaders are proactive, they rely on admin a
bit, but it is mixed bag – depends on what
event it is and what time of year it is.
Denise – Push ownership to clubs and GBC
just acts as oversight, don’t mandate on
how clubs spend the money
Colin – Hard with year-to-year sponsorship –
better to do it with large student fees,
baseline money amount for each club, big
event each week that is co-sponsored
each week by different club from big fund
– hard to ask incoming students to become
good fundraisers
Martha – expensive events are extra in
addition to set fee
Problem
• Inder – Inconsistent
sponsorships (60%
student levy, 40%
sponsorships) –
companies don’t see
value so they don’t
continue – How do
they allocate money to
best of ability?
Solution
• Colin – Problem may
be resolved with
extended contracts (5
year contracts) – that’s
not how Duke does it,
but relationships are
directly managed by
clubs -
Problem
• Brad – How do you
keep donors involved
after the fact?
• Dean – They have very
strong BBA program,
not much cooperation
between BBA and MBA
• Colin – Lack of long
term relationships –
inconsistent/awkward
fundraising “asks”
Solution
• Martha – (THIS IS MORE OF
AN INSIGHT ABOUT THE
PROBLEM) Club just wants
money, but corporate
sponsors want to send
someone there to talk.
• Colin – Sponsors want to be
involved in events that are
applicable to them as
opposed to undergrad vs.
grad. There is distinction
between events that are
social and events that are
applicable to them.
• Formalization of
Fundraising: How can a
school formalize their
fundraising efforts and
instill it as an ongoing
process that includes
relationships with
stakeholders, i. e.
Corporations and
Alumni?
• website gets a lot of
hits. They thought
about all of the
different platforms to
sell advertising and
built it as part of
campus media. Ads
are sold. They are
currently working on
formalizing this
because they do not
want to take funding
out of their own
budget.
– Concessions/vending
machines on campus
• Made funding a nonissue. Their issue was
how to prioritize the
funding.
•
Copenhagen business school
owns canteens and bars. This is
for the entire school, but the
MBA School gets the benefit.
The school was able to beat
the existing, private deals.
There is an issue of
continuation. In Copenhagen,
the president actually takes a
year off school to run the
business.
Additional Suggestions
– Develop and present letter, presentation, specific sponsor value
propositions, and present the sponsors rights (would it be cobranding, how much exposure, etc.)
– When you approach a company, start with Alumni, but also use
the Faculty who have good relationships with the industry.
– Sometimes fundraising is done event by event. If you ask for
something specific rather than general, it is easier to get items.
Example of football tournament was used where the school
asked Nike for balls. They also got jerseys. Energy drinks was also
sponsored. All of these items reduce costs, which in and by itself is
a form of fundraising.
– NUS Business school (Singapore) runs celebration case
competition. Had two oil companies…made one the principal
sponsor which the case was based on. The other was only an
event sponsor with less visibility. Other Universities may not want to
be associated with Oil companies. Oil companies are low
hanging fruit with respect to funding. They would always like to
associate themselves with business schools. Before going to
companies, you have to have your value proposition right,
otherwise you may struggle.
•
Clubs have fixed budget that
comes from student funding.
Or students pay for
membership to clubs. Funding
can also be achieved by
selling data to corporations:
– Problems with data security in
Singapore.
– Difficult to access alumni
information.
– Anonymous survey data could
be possible….data such as
people’s preferences,
participation rates given certain
activities…data that could have
value for people outside of
university. Shift from fundraising to
selling.
•
– If schools don’t prevent it, think
about human resource selling.
Clubs reach out to organizations
and offer pre-screened
candidates. Sell the contact
details of these pre-screened
candidates to companies.
– Specialized companies sponsors
specialized clubs, works well with
consulting. Need companies to
sponsor professional clubs on a
continuous basis.
– What about targeting local
corporations such as a local
brewery where the benefits can
be mutual? Works well if there is
an alumnus at the company.
• How do you maintain
corporate sponsorship on a
continuous basis:
– The global financial crises
played a role in corporations
pulling back
– Need to continuously update
the corporations on what
they are getting and who is
seeing their product. For
example, send the
Corporations photos of their
exposure or their
“involvement” in events to
keep them abreast of things
and provide statistics of how
many people were exposed
to their product. Media
coverage, etc. This will
illustrate the value proposition
of their sponsorship and help
keep them engages.
– Thank them and keep them
in the loop. Brainstorm with
them on ways to help them
as well. It is a two-way street.
• School fundraising
outreach versus student
outreach:
– Alumni Board vs.
Fundraising Board. There
are often many “loops”
that need to be gone
through.
– CMC sends out events to
corporations. Allow
corporations to buy into it.
– If it’s well run, the student
clubs can become selfsufficient and reach out
independent of the CMC
or Administration.
– Work with advertising
agencies. Need to sell the
platforms where they can
provide a value
proposition that speaks to
the amount or extent of
exposure.
– If CMC and administration
understand the value that
the student clubs bring,
they will be ok with it.
• What if students directly
worked with
corporations as part of
their clubs and that
way generate money
for the students. We
need to think about the
potential issues here
with regards to whom
actually gets the
money. Does it go
back to the club only
• 180 Degrees Consulting
(medium that allows
students to engage
with consulting
companies on projects)
– School conducts
consulting assignments
to corporations. With the
current arrangement,
schools get the benefit
of the money and it does
not necessarily go into a
“for student benefit” pot.
Additional Ideas
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What is attractive to funders? Big $ v. in kind donations
Attracting Big $ club accountability prize “club excellence” – ask recruiters ->not fruitful
~$500/sponsor eg.“GE Prize for Club Excellence” – put your name on this prize synonymous with
excellence, speak to their brand
Raising the requirement for asking for club sponsorship. All clubs asking the same companies for
funds. Formulate a consolidated effort – centralize and standardize. Present to them clearly let
them know the cost/benefit leading to recurring annual sponsorship.
Advertizing in IT Lab other areas of the school
Membership dues - $ money one time at the beginning of the program-> pays for social events,
not able to attend events unless dues are paid, independent of tuition separate account away
from University account. Executive mandate to spend the money at the end of the year so
there is no profit.
Fundraising for charities – much easier than asking for social activities
Extracurricular activities – recruiters host a tailgate, sponsor the event, but there is not profit
On campus fundraisers need to be done on the university account -> bureaucratic, paperwork,
annual fees - Use external acct
Ads books in student interest books/accepted students – a letter from the Student Body hard
mail or pdf
Competition for vendors – already donated to school in another capacity
Starting the fundraising culture (not US) – historical precedence private funding exists in the US,
fundraising is ingrained roots of the - offer Alumni a good/benefits in the future
Have a single fundraising director – long run benefits, transferable knowledge – create a
database to update year after year
• Private and public funds – funds that
are set up my private persons, from
large companies
• Assign a role/position to comb
through possible leads for qualification
• Wine tour, Red Wings/sporting events
• Merchandising – target to alumni
• Goal of fundraising to make student
lives better the MBA experience more
fruitful