Welcome, everyone. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education is pleased to present this online webinar Connecting alumni and Donors with the student experience. My name is Ann Weller and it's my pleasure to introduce our speakers today. Marissa Dienstag has experience working in both the student Affairs and University Advancement departments as the advisor to the Colorado State University Presidential Ambassadors. She showcases her passion for student development while highlighting the positive impact of private giving through student engagement. In addition to advising at CSU, she currently serves as the associate director of the University Events and Ceremonies and is the Student Advancement Program Manager. Marissa holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Central Florida and a master's degree from the Ohio State University with close to 20 years of nonprofit experience. Bri Ross is an alumni relations and development professional who has a passion for creating and supporting a culture of philanthropy. Bri is currently the director of Alumni and Student Philanthropy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Worcester. WASPs. Worcester. Worcester. It's like. So my boss said at the other day, it's like a Mr. with a W so Worcester. Mr. Worcester was Worcester polytechnic institute. Yeah. Here we go. Let's do third time's a charm class. Let's go. Okay. With close to 20 years of nonprofit experience, Bri Ross is an alumni relations and development professional who has a passion for creating and supporting a culture of philanthropy. Bri is currently the director of Alumni and Student Philanthropy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, WPI. She created the Student Alumni Society at Nicholls College in 2005, which ignited her passion for student leadership and philanthropy. In her current role, her main responsibilities include developing, managing and stewarding a portfolio of leaders Leadership annual donors, leading the reunion volunteer program, advising the Student Alumni Society. Along with managing special fundraising projects, she holds a bachelor's degree in communications from Suffolk University, a master's degree in organizational leadership from Nicholls College, and completed a professional fundraising course at Boston University. Welcome, Sunbury. Thank you. Thank you. So as Ann had mentioned, my name is Mercedes Dag. I'm at Colorado State University, located here in Fort Collins. So just to give a little bit of a background about each of our colleges, just because we're going to be talking a little bit about the differences between larger versus smaller universities and institutions. So this kind of sets the groundwork up where we're both coming from. So Colorado State founded in 1870. It is a land grant institution. Currently we have eight different colleges, plus a grad school, which is our ninth college. 74 majors and 125 concentrations within those majors total. We have roughly about 32,760 students, give or take, with that 20,000, 28,000 on campus. And then here are just some of our accolades over the last couple of years. So I oversee the presidential ambassadors as the advisor. It started in 2006 and really our kind of motto is leading through gratitude. So it's an opportunity for wonderful students to say thank you, interact with donors, with alumni, with friends of the university, and act on behalf of the university, on behalf of the president. And we have on the student body. Currently, we have 15 members because it coincides with what number president we're on. So we're out of 15 president, 15 members, and we have anywhere between three and four leadership positions every single year. It is a closed membership group just because it is such a small group. And we do have graduates and undergraduates that are eligible for the program. So with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Bree. Hello, My name's Bree Ross. Unlike Marissa, with her 32,000 students in Colorado, we're a much smaller population over in Worcester, Massachusetts. Even though I am originally from Colorado, I want to go on record and just say that I'm originally from Colorado. So Worcester Polytechnic Institute or WPI is located in Worcester. We were founded in 1865 and many, many years ago. We have 50 programs that include science, engineering, technology and social sciences, humanities and arts in management. There's about 4700 undergraduates and about 2200 graduates in total. And we also have Ph.D. candidates as well. Our school is based on project based learning. So all of our students across all of the disciplines have to take projects. So their junior year they do something called the entire qualifying Project IQ, and most of them travel outside of the country to do that. And then their senior class project is based on their field of study as well. So it's very project heavy school. And then those are some of our information from the U.S. News World Report that we're very proud. So I advise a group on campus called Student Alumni Society or essay. Yes, that was us with our mascot Gumby. After we did one of our major traditions on campus during new student orientation called Old Bridge Crossing. So we are most recognized, as you can see, by our logo and our picture as a red and white striped rugby team. We don't play rugby just for the record. We do not play rugby, but we do wear rugby. So we were founded in 1983 and we have remained strong ever since. We are the keeper of traditions on campus. We do about 25 events per year on campus from URL bridge crossing. Like I said, to Founders Day to our mascot's birthday, we do. We have about 60 active members. During COVID, we saw that decline a little bit, as you can imagine, but we're still strong with about 50 to 65 members. We have nine leadership positions that are selected by their peers through a selection committee every December, and then we're open membership to all undergraduate students. So we are SGA funding. So therefore we have to be open membership. So SGA funded is Student Government association. The majority of our money comes from SGA. We do have a small pocket of money that comes from university advancement. However, it is not quite as large as what we get from SGA. So our presentation is about learning objectives. TIME So these are the three learning objectives that we hope that you will gain from this presentation. So understanding the importance, understanding the importance of including students in an alumni and donor engagement plan, we feel that it is imperative that alumni and students have opportunities to meet and network with one another. There's many, many benefits that we'll talk about throughout this presentation. I have a list of campus partners that student organizations can collaborate with to implement these engagement opportunities. We'll go through the list with you. And you might have some you might have some organizations or departments on campus that we don't have listed. So there's there's numerous opportunities to partner and collaborate with you, with your campus, and then take away examples of donor alumni and student engagement opportunities that can be implemented at any institution. So while Marissa is a very large institution, I am at a smaller institution. So regardless of the size of your school, we're hoping that some of these ideas you can take into your own campuses. So one of our perspectives is to try to build our constituent group. So constituent groups from alumni and donors, also to students and students engaging with alumni and donors. The purpose is alumni connecting back to the university. So once they graduate, people move, their lives happen, they change. So we want them to stay connected to the university. That's one of our main goals. People that we do surveys on one of their surveys pretty much says if they are feeling connected to their university, they're more likely to support it with a gift. That's very important as a nonprofit institution to see involved. So volunteer opportunities. We are currently rebranding our volunteer opportunities on our campus. People want things to do with their alma mater. They don't want to just read about it. They want to be involved in it. So stay involved with your university and then receive firsthand stories and experiences as a fundraiser. That is imperative when you're bringing students to alumni. The students tell the story. We can tell a story, but it's much more meaningful and impactful when it comes from directly from the students and then encouraged to give back in multiple ways. So tying talent, treasure and testimony. So Marissa actually taught me all about testimony. So do you want to talk about testimony? Because I was smitten with this? Sure. So I think time, talent and treasure are something that every university really holds near and dear to their heart when they're talking about alumni. One of the things that our alumni association added was this idea and this concept of testimony. Testimony. So where alumni, friends of the university students, they go out and they speak about all the positive and wonderful things that their university, that their alumni association, that their foundation has to offer and it's really just that wonderful, positive word of mouth that gets out there and that stimulates giving back, that stimulates recruiting new students and so on and so forth. The list goes on and on. So that's really what the testimony is. And at Colorado State in our alumni center, we actually have a little it's kind of like a photo booth, but it's a story booth where people can actually go in that are visiting and give their testimony, answer a couple of questions just about their experience, either as an alumni, as a student, their favorite tradition and so on and so forth. So that's something that maybe you can add if you would like to your mottos, but that's something that we call the years at Colorado State. So thrown, bring it back to Bri. So my obsession is with the for two years now. I would like to think more for that. See the little things you can learn from working with your colleagues across university advancement. So also just to just to continue on. Speaking of continuing continuing to build the current brand, you'll know we are continuing to build the current brand within the university. Alumni and students also do that. So it's also understanding the current university trends. Clearly things change on campus based on decade, based on years. So keeping the alumni engaged with what's currently happening, whether it's building projects or whether it's financial aid, scholarships, you know, new presidents, it's continuing to keep them updated on what's happening on campus and then recognize the areas of need for donations. So we are currently in the process of building a new academic building. So we do our best to keep them updated through various social media channels, emails, phone calls in terms of the progress of that building as well. So the purpose of engaging alumni and donors and students all together is to create a lifelong community, whether it's from the student perspective or whether from the alumni side. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Marissa to talk about the student side of things. Yes, thank you. So there those are all the wonderful things that alumni can gain from being involved with students, being involved with the alumni association. However, there's so much that the students can gain also from those interactions with the alumni. So one is students can gain a substantial amount from just interacting with alumni and donors. They get that it enhances that natural student to the alumni transition. So being able to connect with the alumni, they can actually work with that transition a little bit smoother. Next is it enhances maybe career exploration or provides opportunities for career exploration. When students have the opportunity to meet, chat, get to know alumni, get to know what they're doing, and just get to know a new industry. Next, it provides just and networking and building meaningful relationships with alumni. So even going on beyond just that career exploration actually get to network with alumni from multiple industries, from multiple walks of life, getting to learn their stories, getting to learn in their experience, and just really I mean, university advancement is all about building those relationships. So why not get the students involved in that wonderful process? The other thing is just building a culture of philanthropy and engagement within the university so that those who are connected as alumni, those are the individuals who tend to give back. So let's start a little bit earlier and those who are really connected as students, you get to connect with alumni, see how alumni are giving back. Maybe even students will find that they're really motivated by that culture of philanthropy that they're seeing. So maybe they'll get a little gift here and there. Maybe it's their time, maybe it's their talent, maybe it's their testimony. But that way we can get that education. We can get that culture building up. While they're currently as students. And then the last thing is students really can get educated about the university alumni offerings. So once you graduate it, if you learn what the alumni have to offer you as a student now, you know how to continue to engage with the alumni association, with current students at whatever institution you're at. And it really just allows you to stay involved and, as he had mentioned, stayed within that family and that culture that you all have created from the beginning for you. Is there anything else you wanted to add here or move on to that next section? That's perfect. Now, you summed it up perfectly, Marissa. So now I'm going to talk about Key, key campus partner collaborations, and we have a list that we're going to share with you. Marissa and I brainstormed on some of the opportunities in terms of departments that you could meet with organizations, student student activities. Clearly is an important one. Student Affairs There are many, many departments that fall under student affairs at all different colleges and universities, even private schools as well. So going into that, we partner a lot across campus. SASE is known to collaborate and partner. We have such a large group on campus. We're probably one of the top five largest organization student organizations on campus, and we have a huge recognized brand with our red and white Rugby's so a lot of a lot of departments do want to partner with us. So some of the examples are Greek organizations. We do partner with Greek organizations or Greek organization is phenomenal. They do a Greek week in the spring every single year, and they host an event which is dates with Gumbi. So, yes, Greek organizations have put a time on our mascot's calendar to take them out on dates. Some of the stories are hysterical in terms of I'm getting a dozen roses, which he probably gave to me, which was lovely on different types of activities. One one fraternity actually sang and did like a melody of songs for our mascot, which was great. So we do fun activities with different organizations, but then we also do serious activities as well. So we own the mascot, as I said. So marketing get or it reaches out to us a lot for different types of photoshoots, testimonials, videos, things of that nature. We partner with government and community relations. We have greeted local officials, even state officials, to campus, giving them campus tours. You just kind of the friendly, smiling faces on campus for the student body. We do a lot of work with athletics. We do a weekly athletic update, which has the scores for all of the teams as well, is a highlight of some of the students that are that you top student athletes for the week and we just do a lot of admissions work as well. So whether it's going to various career fairs or attending the student activities fair, we do a lot of work for incoming students as well as current students and also alumni events as well. So there's a lot of different campus partners. And depending on what your organization does, Reza, do you have anything to add to that one? No. I think the biggest thing, like you said, every every organization has different offices, different groups. If you have individuals that are not on this list, even better, no partnership is a bad partnership, I think mostly, but really, truly no partnership is a bad partnership. You can gain exposure, you can gain just alumni interactions. So the more collaborators you have on the campus, the better that your institution will be and the stronger connection you'll have with those alumni. Agreed, Agreed. So now we're going to talk about in-person events and the engagement opportunities that that we have to offer. So this is pretty much the section where we tell you what we do, and this is how you can bring alumni and students together. So bring the students to alumni, and I also do alumni to students. So I do a lot of donor visits. I take students in, I take them on campus, and then I also take them off campus. One of my favorite stories just happened two weeks ago. I brought a she was a junior at the time to meet with an alumna in New Hampshire, and we were driving and it was great. And we do this series called Humans of WPI, which is a similar model. It's modeled after Humans of New York. It's so incredibly well received across our campus. So we do that. And as she was graduating, she wrote her Humans of WPI story and she wrote all about the time that I took her to meet with the alumni from 1986 and about all the stories that she shared when she was a student and how all of the activities have changed greatly from 1986. Let me tell you, in 96 was a wild year. So she had a she had a really good time. And she shared that with all of her colleagues or all of her peers. So now I have like a gathering of students who are like, take take me on a visit with you, which is great, but not always reasonable. So donor visits are really an important factor because, well, we can go on a donor visit and share the news of campus and get, you know, trying to get the alumni excited. There's no better way of doing that if you have the right student with you to actually engage with that grad. I can't tell you how many times I have received thank you notes and emails from alumni. Thank you for bringing so and so with you. I learned so much about campus. It's one thing to read about it. It's another thing to hear about it from a staff member. But to hear it from the student is a completely different story. So any time that I feel that there is a really good potential, good connection, I will always try to bring a student with me. Not during an ask, don't do it during it. So regional college networking events within the industries as well, industry conference and lectures depending on your major, depending on what profession you're going to be going into. And then also project centers. So like I said during my introduction, a lot of our students go away to different project sites across the world. So they've gone to we had receptions with alumni and students in Panama, Dubai, Japan. So we do a lot of project centers. And then that is a way of bringing the alumni in those areas to also meet with students who current students who are juniors. And then there's also many virtual options. Given COVID, we've had to revisit a lot of our offerings for how we connect alumni with students as well. So with that, I am going to turn to the private tours over to Marisa. Thank you. So another way of just again, connecting alumni and students together is really utilizing maybe that opportunity of a donor or an alumni as a prospective student, or maybe they haven't been back to the university in a number of years and they want to see new construction that's happening. Being able to tap a student who is personally impacted or affected by areas of interest of that donor or donors prospective students is a really wonderful way of just again, building that connection, building that network, building that personalization where that donor or alumni feels like they still matter. They're still part of the family. As we have mentioned in the past, They get to hear one on one stories and have that connection directly with the student and so it's high engagement, it's shared interest. So again, you probably don't want to necessarily pair students with a private tour with an alumni who might not have any connecting interests. However, you never know. Once they get talking, they could have an interest, they could have a connection. Your university right there is the first connection that they can make. But if you can tailor it a little bit more, then it just builds that conversation more. It builds that networking more, it builds the connection. And so specializing those tailor alumni experiences, it allows, as I said, for the story sharing. And then also the big thing that we'll kind of mentioned a couple of times is that now they're getting the student perspective. Like we had mentioned, they could talk to a staff member all they want, but until they really hear how it is from a student's viewpoint, that's when you really get those wonderful connections. And so, as Bree had mentioned, we'll talk a little bit about football games, whether you're a larger university, smaller university or institution. A lot of people all the way from like two to 3 to 1. A lot of people have football games or sporting events of some sort. So the way that Colorado State utilizes the presidential ambassador to really build connections is actually in our presidents. So it's a way where the A's, they have an opportunity to do registration, see that wonderful smiling face as soon as a donor, an alumni walk in, they check in, they see a student, and then we actually have the students help escort them up to the president. So that suite so that way they actually have about 10 minutes with each donor. So really, again, build the connections, share their stories for alumni to get the current perspective of students to share about the history of your university once they're in this suite. We have a couple of other presidential ambassadors again that will greet help however they need, but really just be an extension of hosting of the president just because the president can't be everywhere at every single moment. So it's really getting those wonderful students to be there on behalf of the president or having a provost, depending on how many suites or who's in the suite that you're hosting. And then throughout the game, the presidential ambassadors just utilize that time to just network. So going back to all of those reasons why it's beneficial for alumni, donors and students, just networking and building those relationships throughout the game, you can have a wonderful conversation with a four hour long football game and then as I had mentioned, there are students are just really an extension of your college's leadership. And then I'll just kind of hit on a couple more things real quick. And Bri, if there's anything you want to add, feel free to just jump on in. But gallows are another way. A lot of times people just like invite the donors and then they sit down at a table and they just talk to other donors or other alumni. But being able to again, tap students to have that personal connection. So you have like an engineering table, maybe you have an engineering student there. So again, talking about their perspective, talking about what's currently happening, the current needs of the students, the current perspectives of the students. It just adds another level of diversity to that conversation to just hear what's going on right now at your university. They can also serve in a lot of other roles similar to the President's suite. They can be your welcome individuals. They can be the directional people. They can one. If you distribute gifts at the end of the night, they're the ones you can say thank you and distribute the special gifts at the end of the night. And then another way we use our students a lot too, is again, people are out here from students what's currently happening right now. And so if you have some speakers, maybe bring in a student speaker who's personally impacted by those gifts that that specific donor dinner, scholarship, dinner or what have you, it just really highlights that extra bit of gratitude, an impact from the individual who's being impacted. Do you have anything with my galleries or anything that I talked through? Yeah. No, you're perfect for us. Wonderful. And then the last part that all kind of talk about with just in-person opportunities that you can have with your campus is homecoming. And so there is so many things that I know everybody has going on during their homecoming week. So as much as you can utilize your students and your students, it makes that even more special because now they're interacting with young alumni a little bit older alumni, donors, friends, community members of the university. And so to showcase your amazing current students, just again, build that connection, builds that little bit more of that tradition that's happening. And then these are just some ways that you can bring those students into the pictures because we know that stuff. There's only so many staff members. So if you can have something more personalized from students, please do so. So whether you're hosting tailgates, if you're individual colleges or affinity groups or hosting tailgates, maybe tap some students their private tour is a lot of people are coming back for the very first time since they were students. So maybe offering some private stories where the students are the ones hosting those. Again, networking. Now you have shared traditions between many different generations of your college graduates. Just again, stories sharing as much as possible, building that affinity for university. And then if you do just have any other alumni gatherings, think about maybe bringing students included in all those gatherings. So as I mentioned, colleges, affinity groups, things along those lines. So do you have anything else for homecoming? I know you all do a lot more. So we our homecoming. First of all, Marissa, where can I get one of those hats with the horns? I'm going to find it. I don't even have one. And you don't mind? Those are super fun. I think I might need one. I can pretend I graduated sine. So we are homecoming where we have alumni weekend and homecoming. Our homecoming is very affinity based, so we try to we work with our archives in terms of identifying affinities that would be celebrating a reunion. So that's where we use a lot of our homecoming. And then we try to pair the alumni that graduated from those different affinity programs with the current students. So it's a it's a beautiful marriage when they all come together. So speaking of alumni weekend, one of my very favorite because it is like 60 hours of work in a matter of like two and a half days, It's fun. It's a lot of fun and it's exhausting and I sleep for days afterwards, but it's time. So our students play a huge role in alumni weekend. I honestly believe that we would not be able to do our alumni weekend without their help. So each year we we do interviews and we select two students who will leave the all of the student volunteers. So we incorporate Student Loan Society, our student philanthropy ambassadors, and also our call center students. So and we open it up to any other, you know, staff or alumni who may know is current student on campus to volunteer as well. So they serve in a variety of different roles and they can be they can check in. So we kind of take over the campus center during alumni weekend. We do. As you can see, I hope we never do this again. By the way, it's so much work. But what we do is we have packets for every single grad who has registered with name tags and gifts and maps and everything you can think of tchotchkes go on and so when alumni come in, they pick up their envelope with a smiling, friendly student who will be there to help them answer any questions within their packet. So the first interaction that alumni have on Alumni weekend is really with our students, which is phenomenal. So they help with the registration and the check in process. They also help with logistical and event support as well in terms of if we need signage. So parking signs this law is full or you need to park here for this event. The students will move around in their all volunteer roles and they'll move around the signs for us. They'll ride the we do a cute little trolley around campus, too, so they'll ride the trolley to make sure the trolley driver knows what stops to make. So they do help in terms of logistical and event support. Like Marissa has said before, they really are an extension of our office. We wouldn't really be able to function without them. They also attend events, so they'll attend receptions. They will meet and greet key key donors at various various places and various events as well. They will network again. I encourage all the students. If there's someone that you notice standing by themselves, I encourage the students to always go over and make them feel comfortable. Some of these people may not recognize each other after so many years. So I think that's it's it's kind of working off of one another as well. So the students are like, Oh, I know someone I just met from 1980, so they kind of make that that introduction, that reintroduction to that person as well. And one of my favorite parts, very clearly my favorite part is our students get up in front of I would say, I don't know, about 150 alumni and their guests and their families, and they sing our alma mater on stage. They know it by heart. We practiced all of our general body meetings. We practice the alma mater. Please don't tell them that. I do not know it by heart tone. But we sing the alma mater and all of the guests stand out. We printed on our our wrote where we printed on it, so all of the guests can follow along with it. But our students do a phenomenal job. They are not choral singers by any means, but they they really knock it out of the park. So it's really great. And some of the other things, the smaller roles that they do is they carry their some of the classic banners. We have a reunion parade, so they'll carry the class banners for the classes as well, who would rather walk than carry the banner. And then they also help with on the bottom left, you will see they help the president as well with her, president of the state of the State of the Union address or State of the College address. So they help her with that as well. So that's alumni weekend. And then we also like rest. We do a lot of events. So we have a hall of luminaries event which we started back in 2017, which goes to all of the I like, I hate to say cream of the crop, but those who are incredibly significant in their careers or what they have achieved. The Chair of Student Alumni Society speaks. She has each year, so it has been a few number past few years. She has is she you know, she does the welcoming and then she does a speech, a speech on the founders. So she has had a big part in that. She's pictured 2019 chairs pictured on the top left. We have student liaisons as well. So I interviewed some of the current SRS members to serve as student liaisons. So the students who were selected have served as kind of an escort for the honoree and their families. We utilized a lot of our buildings and so we wanted to make sure that people never got lost. So we had an escort who went around with them. They actually sat with them at dinner as well, served as kind of a table hosted in terms of what what's happening on campus and kind of was just a guide for them who answered any questions that they may have. It was a perfect opportunity to engage with as many alumni as we could. We've also done an evening of gratitude United States spelling error on my mistake and evening of gratitude, which is one of our signature events that is really for scholarship recipients. And we invite a scholarship speaker to come speak. And we had a very powerful speech a couple of years ago about a student whose father had passed away and received a scholarship, and he was able to his family was able to sit with those family. And it was just a it was a very beautiful event under very unfortunate circumstances, but it was very moving. They were the students attended the reception and the dinner together and then the interaction with alumni and guests. So again, they talk about what their experiences are, what life is like on campus right now. So moving forward, we do a lot of events, so I apologize. So moving forward, we do WPI Labs Day, which is one of my very favorite days. So I love saying thank you. I am of the mindset that you cannot say thank you enough. So our students created postcards. We have two different versions. One is called Crimson and grateful because our colors are crimson and gray. So we're crimson and grateful. And then we have another postcard that is the grateful goats, because goats are our mascot. So on this day in 2020, before COVID February, we sent over 500 postcards and they went to first time donors, which was remarkable sense. We always want to retain those donors. So it was we had sample of messaging for those students, except a lot of them didn't utilize it. They came up with their own, which was actually great. I did have to throw some away based on spelling and grammar, so just make sure you proofread if you do this. We did. I love WPA messages, so students, if you see in the top picture, you can see there's a pillar with all these hearts. Students wrote what they loved about WPI. So it was anywhere from, you know, making new friends to studying their discipline to professors names or, you know, sometimes it was just the woman who works at the counter, at the at the campus center. I mean, there were just such special messages as we put them all over the pillars in the campus center. So it was a very positive day. We did study video messages to donors. Thank you, donor messages. We individualize them for our top donors, which was amazing. We had I think our open rate for those was around 85%, which as we know, is unheard of. So they were very personalized, very customized. And then they sent they were prerecorded them and sent them that day. And so it was it was very well attended. So we take over the campus center. Like I said, in 2020, we we include it our mascot's birthday, which we've always done separately, but we figured why not merge them together? So we had this big massive balloon arch. As you can see with our step and repeat. And students got to hold two little signs and comping. Our mascot wore a tuxedo shirt, wore a birthday hat. So the whole WPI loves it was a very festive, fun environment. There was never a dull moment in the campus center. It was really just a great time and it was a wave celebrating WPI, but also a way of educating them on through, you know, doing the donor thank you cards and things like that. They understood that they were they were there for a reason as well. So going into giving day, see, there's great book out postcards of we did a passport of activities again, took over the campus center that we're campus center. I hope they don't like us right now. We just keep taking over. So we partnered with University Advancement again and we took over the Kennedy Center. We did thank you cards similar to what we did with WPI Love's Day. We did A Wheel of Philanthropy, so we put snacks on there and we ask students question to win some prizes. Like Marissa said, we're trying to build a culture of philanthropy on our campus as well. So we had philanthropy facts like, you know, what percentage of students received financial aid, things like that. So we want to make sure that students are understanding the importance of giving back before they leave campus. So the we love philanthropy was actually I was uncertain that it would be a big hit, but it was a huge hit. Either they really wanted to learn or they just wanted the prizes. I don't know. Regardless, it was a great it was a great success. Similar to pin the tail on the donkey that you played when you were in grade school. We did pin the horns on Gumby, so we did a huge cutout of our mascot space. We cut out horns and then we spun the students around and tried to get them to in the horn on me. It was just something fun that we thought we would try. The students got a kick out of it. Even the staff had a really good time with it, made for some really fun photos. And then we also did photos. So Assayas has the Instagram photo, as you can see in that bottom picture. So we did a lot of photos. We love to take photos at WPI, so we did that with cute little sayings. We held up the goat and then also we encourage students to make a gift. So whether it was a gift to that athlete, the athletic team that they supported or a student organization or even a campus department that they were part of, we encouraged to support in some way. We were requesting five or $3 minimum to make some sort of impact. We got a couple students who were making a dollar. However, we call that a success. Any student who makes a gift, any any inning, any dollar amount, it really is successful because they're starting to understand at a very at a very young age in their philanthropic career, the importance of paying it forward. So with that, I promise I want to stop talking. So and if you're tired of me, you can never be tired of your free. Yes, you can ask my husband. Hey, so we do senior celebration. This event continues to evolve. So if you're in a place and if you're in an institution where your events continue to evolve every year, we're right there with you. This was a collaboration between gold, which is graduates of the last decade. And yes, the audience consisted of the Alumni Association, Board of Directors, the Gold Committee, which there's about 18 of them, and then also seniors. We made an appearance, makes an appearance at a lot of things. The whole purpose was to have the gold chair and the chair welcomed them into the ranks of alumni. They received some WPI swag as alumni. However, we started to see the numbers dwindle as the years kind of went on. It kind of became the event, kind of became stale. Even though we had a chocolate fountain, the student students just weren't really coming as they had in the past. So you know that was we were reimagining it for 2020 and then COVID hit. So then we really had to reimagine it. And we didn't do it this year. We did it where it was, you know, pick up. We did a WPI alumni Koozie for two cruises per senior. And then also we did like an ice cream social this year simply because due to all of the policies and, you know, restrictions, the state restrictions due to COVID. So we will be reimagining that for 2022. We're not sure what that's going to look like. However, we do want to celebrate the seniors. We feel like it is incredibly important to do so. We're just not sure exactly how we will manage that. So if you have any suggestions, let me know. And with that, we are now going to talk about virtual event and engagement opportunities, and that's humorous things. Me So yeah, so feel free. I mean those are just a numerous ideas of what you can do on your campus as you hear Bri talking, they made it their own. They made it very individual. They made it very individualized to their university. However, there are ways that you can do that. Take those ideas, find ways of students and alumni to interact during those special occasions, during those traditional times on campus. So, yeah, hopefully you were able to get good ideas flowing there. Less than three. You mentioned we're going to talk about some virtual engagement opportunities. So what we have found and I'm sure would have a lot of people around the country are on the want to see the world have found is that while in-person engagements are amazing and there's that wonderful connection, you're able to hug and share and experience. What we're also finding is that during this time, there are a lot of opportunities with alumni, with donors who don't have the opportunity to come back to campus. But now we're actually engaging with them virtually. And in just one on one conversations that we would never, never have had if we only did in-person events. So I think this has been a really eye opening experience for a lot of universities or a lot of just different colleges, high schools, anybody trying to connect back with their alumni, their donors, what have you. So one of the things that our alumni association did at Colorado State is they actually did alumni career connections. So they tapped me, saw if we had some presidential ambassadors that were either wanting to go into certain industries to see if they lined up with some of the individuals, alumni, donors that they wanted to bring virtually to CSU. And we basically had two students at every single session. It was between 45 and 60 minutes. It happened monthly for this entire year and then pre-scripted questions so that way the alumni could know and prepare their answers. We had the students being able to like, prepare the questions so that way everything would be able to run smoothly. It typically happened over a lunch hour, but again, make it your own. And then we also had it live. So it was a live thing that people could engage in. People can tap into, they can ask questions. They could always just come back later and then watch the prerecorded as what career or industry or what have you. But I think the key there that made it so special was we tried to get students that could relate to whoever the alumni was that we were bringing back, so that we had the students had a couple of follow up questions because something really pique their interest then. Now again, you're building those connections, even though it's virtually you're creating stories, you're creating the alumni and student connection, right there, and you're really just able to have just a wonderful time over that virtual medium and you're able to tap into individuals that you might not have been able to tap into because they weren't able to come back to your campus. So the other thing that our alumni association did, that, again, a lot of the presidential ambassadors or a couple of other students kind of helped out with was just they were hosting different special events or special guests or special topics every couple of weeks. And again, try to bringing them the student perspective at all. You can either interview the student at the student host, but some of the topics that we talked about were maybe meeting with various offices on campus. So if you wanted to share like what currently is going on in your student diversity offices, maybe you have a student, current student interviewing, maybe the EVP of that office or directors of those offices just to again, share with the world like, hey alumni. This is what's happening on your campus. Other thing is Admissions did a really great job of really taking campus tours and making them virtual, and they made it personal. And so they were doing that. They had like a little GoPro students were walking around campus and it was great. And again, it's that personal experience for these students because everything was individualized to whoever the tour guide was. They were able to bring in their stories. And again, we've had so much construction, like I'm sure a lot of universities and institutions do. It's a way to show the rest of the world your alumni, your donors, like, Hey, this is what's happening on campus from my perspective as a student, here are all the cool facts that I like to visit. Maybe this is one of your spots too. And you were a student here and again, virtually trying to build that connection, building those stories. We also had a virtual film festival. This was really, really interesting. And it's a way we had predominantly our alumni staff hosting these. But it's another great way where if you can get students involved a little bit, that's awesome. As well. And then another topic that a lot of times that the alumni association did was traditions. And so they had this whole ritual like sharing traditions. So every couple of weeks they'd have a new CSU tradition that they would showcase whether it was our oval. And that's kind of like our actually the picture right behind me right now. But whether it's having like a student, like talking about all the importance of the oval in our tree fund and all that stuff, or whether it's a mascot and we're showing off our mascot or a bunch of CSU pride in general. And then they've also done some really fun ways of tapping into other areas of interest. So Travel Fort Collins is a big beer town. So we've had like get to know like brewers around town where people can then go pick up beer and then come back and be engaged in that experience. Also like food, like cooking and stuff like that. So again, all these things, CSU, some of them we had students, some we didn't. But it is a really great opportunity and we noticed that when students are engaged now, all of a sudden you had so many different dynamics coming into play and it's just so much fun and so exciting. And then when you get that special topic with a student, the alumni, the host, the staff are all engaged. It's just absolute magic right there. So I'm going to go ahead and turn it back over to Bri. I love that word magic. I always miss the staff always laughs at me because I was like, When you bring alumni and students together, it's like magic. And they're just like, You got to just shake their head at me. But I'm like, Really? Trust me, it really is magical. And I do have that. I had a while back was have asked to do a circus reunion wraps alumni weekend is huge for us. I mean we welcome over a thousand people to campus, but we work really closely with some of the classes. I had started this program before COVID and then COVID hit. So we the purpose was to serve attend a reunion of reunion meetings, which we did every month, and that person would get to know them and also serve as the liaison to the campus. So they would ask that student questions. It was it was the point of contact for them. And outside of just, you know, alumni activities that we were planning. So this was Karen. Karen was on credit Will be now a senior, but she served as one of the reunion reps is what we're calling them. Who needs a better name So don't hold me to the reunion reps. So she served as one of the reunion reps. She's actually still in contact with her class, so she was working with the classes in 1980 and 81. She is still in contact. I hope we can get Karen to work again as the reunion and reunion rep for the upcoming reunion classes. But it really was just that extra touch with you. Reunion committees is just like have a student serve as the liaison to them. So she she emailed back and forth with them if they had questions on what was happening on campus. One of the gentleman knew one of his colleagues was applying to WPI. So she answered a whole bunch of questions and then was going to try to separate campus tour. That didn't happen, but they hopefully she'll come. So it's just another touchpoint that I think students have that opportunity to, you know, build their network. I stress the importance of networking as much as I can with the students. It doesn't matter what profession you're going into, what company you're going into, somebody knows somebody. It's a very small world. So whether you meet someone in an elevator, they could potentially help you with a job. So always, you know, put your best foot forward. I'm introduce yourself as many times as you can and then just build your network as often as you can. So with that, we're going to talk about in person to virtual event and engagement opportunities. I'm one of the ones that we had that we typically do on campus is alumni panels. So we used to have at least two alumni panels on campus pre-COVID. They were in person. We had an alumnus or an alumni hosted each table, so we had seven alumni come back to serve as a host. We did it based on a major or even profession in some cases, because not everybody goes into their major. And then we limited the event to 48 students, which it was very well done. We had three panelists and then they spoke about their time at GI, and then they spoke about things like, you know, how they got started in their career, words of wisdom. Now that they were, you know, ten, 15 years into their career, I amazing opportunity for these students to hear from some of the most successful alumni we have. And we clearly had to revisit that given COVID. So we did some panels like I'm sure many of you have done as well. It was great, though. It really was. We worked with the Frontline fundraiser Sorry, Major Gift officers. As I'm a fundraiser, I work with them often and I worked with them to say, you know, who do we need? Who's in your portfolio that we need to cultivate a little bit more, or who in your portfolio would be? This would be great, a great engagement opportunity to put in front of students. The it was a very working with them was absolutely amazing. A further enhances your relationship with the major gift officer team but it also allows the alumni who maybe need just that extra special touch to get them to maybe come to a gift agreement or sign a pledge document. The students had an incredible opportunity to meet with some of these panelists. We also did one in back in March for our award recipients who clearly we weren't able to celebrate in person. So we invited them to host a panel of students discussion. It was a huge turnout, wonderfully successful due to the attendance. We will definitely be continuing that once life resumes back to normal. So and that's all I have to she and we're still talking about alumni panels as well. But Martha has a wonderful gratitude week that she's going to talk about. And this is another idea I think I'm going to copy and steal just because I, I love saying thank you. And I think gratitude is so incredibly special. So back to you. Marissa. Wonderful. Yes. Borrow way. That's why we're doing this is honestly, I think all the programs all around the country are so successful. A lot of times just because we're able to just share information and borrow from each other, because I think if we're all successful, then every alumni just loves their university, wants to come back and wants to donate and create new buildings and create new opportunities for students. So we borrow as much as you want. Absolutely. Because most of what we do for Gratitude Week, honestly was borrowed from a lot of other universities as well. So with our Gratitude Week, I think we have a lot of similarities to what BRI has done for WTI Lovers Day and for her giving day. We do. We typically in the past we've had things like the passports, like she had done, where students go around the experience and they learn about different philanthropy around campus and impact and all of that. We have students thank you letters to donors Again, please watch those, reread those. You don't want to send some of them out, so dedicate a good chunk of time for that. So we did do a lot of that and I think we are going to bring some of that back. However, one opportunity that we had for this year, we didn't want to not have Gratitude week. So what we decided to do is we wanted to make it a little bit more donor centric, where before it was really all about students and talking to students and talking to students. And yes, we would mail donors the thank you letters, but we didn't really get them involved. So what we did, and again, the COVID has given us an opportunity that will probably keep but we decided because we had our presidential ambassadors, we have one from every single college represented. So what we did is we worked with our development team and we identified a couple of donors that they wanted to have a couple of super chip opportunities with. And we held in-person Zoom meetings honestly, and we recorded them and they were all interview based and it was an opportunity for the students to get to hear donor stories. And again, it wasn't like our highest level donors. It was sometimes just the alumni or sometimes it was faculty donors that we had. And it was just really unique, really just special, I think, for the students, because they were able to talk with someone in an industry they were interested in or something they were passionate about. And then what we did throughout that week is we prerecorded all of the videos of all the professional staff, all of the donors, and we released it during Gratitude Week. Every day we released a different video because we had a different theme. Now, the other thing that we wanted to kind of hit on with this too is great. We asked the donors, the faculty donors, why do you give what are your hope for? But then we also found students and say, Hey, you're impacted by X, Y, Z, And we kept it very thematic every single day. And so we would have one video in the morning of a donor of the faculty, and then we'd have one video in the afternoon of students talking about their impact from receiving that, whatever that topic was of the day. And so we had both sides of the story every single day. And as I mentioned, the presidential ambassadors loved being able to interact with the students and talk about how they were positively impacted by these gifts. And then they were able to talk to the donors about why they give or maybe they were positively impacted as a student, and that's why they give now. So we really wanted to showcase that after talking with students, I think they want to do something similar again. So now our Gratitude week is going to be twice as much work as when it was just virtual or just in-person because they want to do both, which is wonderful. That's why we do it over a week long. So biggest things I gained is looking back at all of the people you can collaborate. We collaborated with our central social media team, our central communications team, all of the colleges that we tapped for to see if they had donors. We also talked to some of our student affairs office. So again, we wouldn't have been able to do this event that we wouldn't have been able to do nearly any of the other events if we didn't have those contacts, those relationships on campus and off campus. And I think that's probably one of the biggest things you can learn from this, hopefully, is just build relationships with alumni, with donors, but then also build relationships with various offices and staff members on campus. So that way you can just really have as much of a reach as possible and you can really share stories across the board that are just wonderful and meaningful and you can get students involved in every aspect. So you have a current perspective. So with that, Bree, do you have anything else now that was so well said? Marissa I was well, and I remember when I started with, you know, I started volunteering with Keith a long time ago, and I remember everyone used to say it's copy and steal everything. And I hated that. I was like, We don't steal it. We we borrow it. And then someone came up with copy and share everything. And I was like, That's so, so much nicer. And it really I mean, it really is so I mean, I love these way. I love what Casey does with the webinars and their, their conferences. I just think there's so much that we should be sharing with one another. We're not in competition with one another where we're helping each other. So in the spirit of gratitude, I think it's. Oh, in the spirit of gratitude. Thank you. So Marissa and I, we love people. So if you have any questions, you can email us. Those are our emails. We're happy to help. Any questions? Just like you, we had to reimagine a lot of our programing during COVID, and we're going to have to reimagine again if things open up and go back to normal. So let's cross our fingers. Everything will be back to normal soon. So yes, please let us know if you have any questions. Reza, I know that. Fair. Thanks so much, everybody. Let us know if you have anything. It's. Thank you so much, Marissa and Brie. This concludes the webinar. Today's program is Copyright 2021 by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. With all rights reserved for additional case on demand webinars, please visit. W w w okay. Stop or slash on demand.

CASE

webinar

Connecting Alumni and Donors

Marissa Dienstag

Bri Ross

student development

private giving

student engagement

alumni relations