fundraising

The SJSU College of Social Sciences fall 2015 magazine is now online, in HTML and PDF formats. Check it out to learn more about the college’s people, processes, and plans! Also, please consider making an investment to assist us in our work. The college mailed an end of the year solicitation letter last month; I’ll reproduce it below. Please also spread the word to others!

December 3, 2015

Dear _____:

I trust you enjoyed your Fall 2015 copy of our college’s Together newsletter. If you have yet to receive a copy, you may view it online: sjsu.edu/socialsciences/about/newsletter. You will meet the college’s eight new faculty members, learn about the revamped Applied Research Center (ARC), and read about our Information Technology Coordinator’s long-term partnership with a local Native American community, the Muwekma Ohlone. The newsletter also includes some information about me, your new dean.

I’m writing to ask you to consider a year-end gift to the college. Your investment of any amount will directly and positively impact the important work of our students, faculty, and staff. As an example, at a recent ARC event, Professor Amy Leisenring discussed her research on parental engagement in San José elementary schools. The college supported this research with a grant; some of the grant money allowed undergraduate students to assist with data collection and analysis. This activity fit well into our college’s priority to provide financial support and opportunities for our graduate and undergraduate students to do actual research. As you can see, much of the research our students engage in is actually done in collaboration with local communities to solve pressing social issues.

Another college priority is to support our students so they can graduate as quickly as possible. A major strategy to accomplish this is through our Academic Counseling Center for Excellence in the Social Sciences (ACCESS). ACCESS provides students with academic advising, as well as tutoring in key social science skills like writing and statistical analysis. Our undergraduate students work 12-18 hours a week as peer advisors in ACCESS. A gift of $105 would enable one of these peer advisors to tutor an additional student for 10 hours. A $6,000 gift will enable a peer advisor to support fellow students for an entire semester!

Thank you for considering a year-end gift to support our work. An envelope is enclosed for your convenience. You may also go to our secured website to give: sjsu.edu/giving. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like additional information on ways you can help your college and its students.

Warmest Regards,

Walter R. Jacobs
Dean, College of Social Sciences

P.S. Together, we impact the future of countless students. Please make your gifts today before the year-end tax deadline.

Yesterday I attended the San Jose Jazz Festival. In the main festival area I saw a couple of great high school bands on the “Next Generation” stage. In a loosely affiliated function, on campus SJSU’s African American alumni organized a BBQ that featured a jazz band. At the BBQ I was introduced to the community, along with other new African American administrators. There was also a presentation about a summer 2016 study abroad trip to Cuba, followed by an appeal for donations to help students make the trip. Overall the BBQ was a fun event, but afterwards my wife and I discussed a missed opportunity: the fundraising appeal did not provide any specifics about how much money is necessary to support the students, nor did it set suggested donation levels. While I can understand why the organizers were worried about being too pushy in asking for money at a social event — I’ve certainly experienced that before! — an appeal could have been crafted that set specific monetary goals at the event itself and afterwards via a soon-to-be-launched donation website. While any type of contribution would be welcome, of course, the appeal would be more successful with more information and targets for suggested individual and/or group contributions. I’ll have to keep that in mind as I start my own fundraising efforts later this week!

The blogosphere is abuzz this week about an Oxfam study that estimates that the net worth of the 85 richest individuals in the world equals that of the bottom half of the world population, 3.5 billion individuals. I won’t add any commentary about this extreme inequality (for that, see articles in places like The Atlantic, Slate, and the Huffington Post). I’ll just note that if anyone out there knows one of The Eighty-Five please urge them to share some of that wealth with universities to create more opportunities for our students!

We have reached the fundraising goal for the Social Sciences Kaleidoscope: $1200 to provide three $400 awards for students to engage external audiences about what they are learning & researching in the social sciences! Thanks to everyone who made a contribution and/or spread the word about the project. Next month students begin their projects, and I’ll post an update.

$760 has been contributed online to the Social Sciences Kaleidoscope, and we received a $200 check. So we are just $240 away from our $1200 goal! Students are submitting their proposals this week. Please help us reach the goal of providing three students with $400 each. For more information and/or to make an investment go to http://www.gofundme.com/UWP-SSK. Thank you!

The Social Sciences Kaleidoscope will be a web portal for social media channels students will use to engage external audiences about what they are learning & researching in the social sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. A call is out for students to participate in the spring 2014 semester. A committee will select three projects, and each student will receive $400 (to match what they get in the university’s Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program [URAP]). Students will use Vine, YouTube, podcasts, tumblr, digital stories, etc. to document learning and engage peers and members of larger communities. For more information, see our fundraising page. Please also consider making a donation; any amount helps!

If you are a reader who is not a dean but you are thinking about becoming one, a question I’d pose is this: “do you like meetings?” If not, you may want to drop a deanship from the list of possibilities, as we attend a ton of them. I have to admit that I not only like meetings, I love them! Well, the ones that are productive anyway, which is usually the case for the vast majority, luckily. There is a certain energy generated by connecting with others to explore ideas and check off items from to-do lists!

Today I have my first “Chairs, Directors, and Dean Group” (CDDG) meeting, where the dean’s assistant and I will meet with all of the department and program heads. When an associate dean is selected s/he will be present at these meetings too. At today’s initial meeting I’ll also strongly suggest the formation of a “Council of Heads” (CoH), where the heads will meet monthly without the deans. While a department chair at the University of Minnesota I attended monthly meetings with the deans, and monthly meetings with just the other chairs, so I’ll try to replicate that structure here at UW-P. Both types of meetings can be valuable, as in the CoH meetings the heads can discuss requests from the dean group, create initiatives to present to the dean group, and share best practices about unit administration, and in CDDG meetings we will discuss dean group ideas, engage initiatives from central administration, and discuss CoH suggestions. I’ll also meet at least once a month with each head to hear unit concerns and ideas, and engage in two-way mentoring: I’ll learn as much from them as they do from me!

Interestingly, one type of meeting format that I do not like much is the retreat. I don’t know exactly why…maybe because too much is usually crammed into them, and the temptation is to try to solve everything in one shot vs. beginning an on-going conversation? So today’s initial CDDG gathering is a 3-hour mini-retreat where we have some action items to decide immediately, but it also includes many other kickoff processes that we’ll engage over the academic year. The meeting is on campus, which also decreases the chances of it being viewed as a special activity. I’ll probably have to do a “real” retreat sometime in the future, but I’m confident that the mini-retreat will kickstart productive CDDG meetings.

Speaking of kickstarting, one topic on today’s agenda is the possibility of launching a kickstarter campaign to fund an idea. Stay tuned for more 411!

Yesterday I posted an entry about a fundraising workshop I was scheduled to attend today. The workshop turned out to be a rewarding experience, as I developed strategies that I can use once I start at UW-Parkside on July 1. The biggest lesson? I’ll need to develop a “vision story,” a “narrative that describes what you are working to accomplish and how you are working to accomplish it, shared in such a way that inspires others and motivates philanthropic support. It is specifically designed to use when speaking with donors/donor prospects.” A vision story contains a WOW statement (one-three sentences that capture an ambitious big picture), supporting themes, and inspiring examples. The WOW statement should be far-reaching, optimistic, compelling, unifying, and societal (how will the plan make a difference for society). The ultimate goal is to create a ROPI, a Return on Philanthropic Investment. The donor’s philanthropic investment (contribution) is gratifying if the investment [a contribution should not be called a “gift,” as that implies a one-time contribution vs. the creation of an on-going relationship] creates impact (the contribution makes a difference), meets expectations, and the donor is treated with respect as a whole person as opposed to being viewed as just a source of money. There is definitely a science as well as an art to philanthropic stewardship!

In the workshop we learned about the process of philanthropic development, donor motivation, crafting compelling vision stories, articulating compelling vision stories, building a philanthropic development culture, securing financial commitments, and creating meaningful ROPIs. The leaders closed the workshop with a note that although the philanthropic development process takes a lot of time and energy, it can be fun if academic leaders remember that the purpose is to create more opportunities for the institution and its constituents. I’m looking forward to the journey!

Today I am flying to Chicago to attend tomorrow’s Professional Fundraising Workshop for Deans, Department Chairs, and Aspiring Academic Leaders. At $750 a pop (for the “investment”) I was initially reluctant about attending, but decided to sign up since I had research/professional development funds that will expire on June 30. Also, while I was able to raise $112,000 as a department chair I’ll have to secure a lot more to be a successful dean, so any help I can receive will be worth it!

One of the specific topics I’m interested in exploring at the workshop is working with non-traditional donors, as people of color are 25% of the students at UW-Parkside, and 50% are first generation students. The new books Expanding the Donor Base in Higher Education: Engaging Non-Traditional Donors and Engaging Diverse College Alumni: The Essential Guide to Fundraising have given me some good ideas to discuss with the workshop leaders and participants.

I’ll also seek strategies for helping my soon-to-be department chairs raise money; it appears that this is not something they have deeply engaged in the past. Deans, chairs, and others must be more entrepreneurial than ever, as state, national, and global economies have created financial difficulties for many institutions of higher education.

The workshop is all day tomorrow, and on Thursday I’ll make a side trip to Kenosha to interview finalists for my dean’s assistant position. I’ll have to write about the interview process next week. On Thursday night I’ll debrief the workshop in part 2 of this post.