UNIVERSITY ADVANCEMENT AND MARKETING

2005-06 PLANNING

 

Division:

University Advancement and Marketing

 

College/Unit:

 

Advancement

Department:

 

Advancement

 

Significant Areas of Success:

 

·        Fund Raising Efforts

Ø      FY04 cash gifts totaled $3,223,853 (excluding extraordinary cash gifts of $200,000.)  This signifies a 26% increase from FY03 (excluding extraordinary cash gifts.).

Ø      FY05 cash gifts, as of December 31, 2004, total $1,974,575. This represents a 2% increase over the first two quarters of FY2004.  Overall goal for the fiscal year is $4,200,000. (excluding extraordinary and in-kind gifts.).

Ø      Acquired 52 new donor society members and established $1,000,000 giving level club, The Woodbridge N. Ferris Society.   The target for FY05 is 75 new donor society members with the current status at 66% of goal.

Ø      Established 13 new scholarship/programmatic endowments.

Ø      Created 9 new planned gifts.

Ø      Assisted the Dean of Optometry and optometry faculty in campaign development to fund new optometry building.  100 % participation in giving from the dean and the optometry faculty with current gifts totaling $175,000. Faculty raised $200,000 in 5 day phonathon.

·        Initiated a performance-based major gift program.

Ø      Increased the number of face-to-face visits with a FY05 goal of 125 personal visits for full-time planned giving and development officers.

Ø      Built the quality of the database by counting only visits documented with call reports entered in Millennium.

Ø      Established protocol for prospect assignments.  A central clearinghouse has been established in the Associate Vice President for Advancement office with monthly prospect management meetings.    

  • Realignment of staff, programs and resources has established a sharper focus on        advancement priorities, more effective utilization of resources, and better accountability.

Ø      Centralized fund raising efforts in the Associate Vice President for Advancement office.

Ø      Focused the director of planned giving exclusively on the identification, cultivation, and solicitation of planned prospects (transition made 03/05.).

Ø      Established manager of prospect research position to oversee donor research component. (transition made 02/05).

Ø      Created a full-time development focus for assistant athletic director.  (transition @ 5/1/05).

 

Ongoing or Proposed Significant Activities:

 

  • Increase Fund Raising goal

Ø      Increase annual cash gifts to $3,850,000 (excluding extraordinary cash and in-kind gifts.)

  • Acquire 80 new Donor Society members
  • Development Officers will host a minimum of 3 intimate gatherings per year at the President’s home with major gift prospects.
  • Establish and monitor performance expectations

Ø      Development officers will be required to document 175 face-to-face visits during FY05-06. The FY04-05 goal is 125.  Strategies to move prospects close to solicitation and closure are necessary.

Ø      Utilize Millennium to create monthly performance activity reports.

Ø      Establish methodologies and reports for longitudinal tracking.

Ø      Continue to provide development officers with training and professional development that enhance the quality of information.

  • Practice prospect management more systematically

Ø      Place more rigor in current major gift analysis and discussions.

Ø      Focus strategies on moving prospects closer to Ferris and a major gift commitment.

Ø      Continue to design mechanisms for engaging deans in process.

Ø      Continue to encourage the use of current protocol for prospect assignments.

  • On-going development of major and lead gift prospects continues with the President and Vice President of University Advancement and Marketing.  Through this process development priorities, prospect assignments, and leadership engagement will extend and strengthen endeavors to announce the public phase of capital campaign in 2009.
  • Expand S & E for full-time planned giving director activities $17,000. 

Ø      With a current base budget of $15,000, minimal contact with planned giving prospects will continue.  This budget accommodated planned giving activities when director allocated 10% of her time to this effort.  With exclusive focus on planned giving, a travel and marketing budget is critical to enable the director to communicate with prospects and to spend significant time out of the office making face-to-face visits. The planned giving director will also be extending Ferris’ reach related to planned giving by cross-training the development officers.  Development of joint prospect management strategies with major gift officers will be implemented along with freshening up of planned gift marketing materials.

 

  • Establish the general fund S & E for newly established office of prospect management  $8,000.

Ø      Research and prospect management at Ferris is undeveloped.  With a full-time manager in place, on-going professional development is currently in place.  While development officers are expected to document strategy for assigned prospects, no systematic tracking occurs to support follow-through and accountability.  Plans include:  to streamline the research request process; develop a flow chart outlining the research process from request to report delivery; incorporate the use of millennium prospect world/module by July 1, 2005; move to a more proactive approach with research component; expand prospect tools beyond the Prospect Information Network system.

Ø      Campaign readiness requires a research function that can use internal and external data to identify prospects for discovery calls; find potential among alumni, parents, and corporations and foundations.  The system should be able to feed suspects to major gift officers and support a systematic prospect management process.

  • Create full-time position – Director of Corporate/Foundation relations.

Ø      Ferris does not have a central corporation and foundation relations program that proactively identifies and engages corporate and foundation prospects.  This function has stopped short of being executed in the colleges.  As a result, no one in the central development operation is doing work with Michigan’s top 50 companies and looking closely at family foundations.  No attention is focused on identifying opportunities for Foundation directors to become more involved in opening corporate doors.  This position would be able to actively engage in developing strategies for advancing Ferris’ philanthropic agenda with corporations and foundations.

Ø      The Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations would be responsible for managing and coordinating non-contractual, non-governmental philanthropic gifts and relationships with corporations, foundations, and other organizations.  The CFR director would work closely with deans, other senior officers, and advancement staff to identify priority projects and to match them with the interests of local, regional, and national organizations.  The office would act in conjunction with prospect management as a clearinghouse so that fund raising contacts with corporations, foundations are strategic, coordinated and designed to yield the best results for Ferris State University.

  • Established S&E for Assistant Director of Athletics - $15,000.

Ø      As of May, the Assistant Director of Athletics will focus solely on development efforts for the Ferris Athletics department.  Up until that point, the Assistant Director’s responsibilities include marketing, game management, and development.  There is currently no funding in place to cover development activities.  The budget that has been utilized for this position is being absorbed into a newly created position in the marketing area.

  • Continue to provide and facilitate development opportunities for the Optometry building and the Jim Crow museum campaigns.

 

 

 

Division:

 

Advancement & Marketing

College/Unit:

 

 

Department:

Alumni Relations, Annual Giving and Advancement Services

 

 

Significant Areas of Success:

 

  • Alumni & Advancement Outreach and Participation:

Ø      Conducted 32 events/activities with nearly 4,000 (3949) alumni and friends participating.  2,169 (approx. 55%) were first-time participants.  These included:

Florida Alumni/Emeriti Luncheon  Graduation Fair (spring & fall)               Spring Reunion

Alumni Golf Outing                        Pistons Opening Night Outing               Lions Preseason Outing

Hometown Tour                             MSU Hockey Reception                        UofM Hockey Reception

Bulldog Athletic Luncheons           ’67 HVACR Alumni Reunion                Ford-Ferris Alumni Recp.

UREC Alumni Reception               NAI Auto Show Outing                         Backpack to Briefcase (7)

Online Community Chats (6)         GR Rampage Outing                               ’04 Holiday Reception

’04 Donor Dinner                          

Ø      Initiated, collaborated and/or supported other campus departments on 12 other major campus events that welcomed more than 11,000 participants.  These events included:

Homecoming                    Football Frenzy                                   MCO Alumni Recp.

Hockey Hat Trick Extravaganza Basketball Fan Fest                               PGM Alumni Recp.           

Honors Alumni Picnic                 Welding Tech Alumni Golf Outing    Rx Alumni Golf Outing

Construction Golf Outing             Football Golf Outing                            Hockey Golf Outing

  • Annual Giving:

Ø      FY 05 cash gifts, after the first two quarters, total $1,974,575.00.  This is up 2% from the same two quarters in FY04.

Ø      FY04 cash gift totals for the fiscal year was $3,223,853.00 (excluding extraordinary cash gifts of $200,000.00).  This is up 26% from FY 03 (excluding extraordinary cash gifts).

      Alumni & Advancement Services:

Ø      Added two new staff members, Jolene Tassoni (data entry/part-time), Paula Rushford (assistant to the advancement services account/full-time).

Ø      Improved accuracy of all constituent contact data in millennium database by 3.8% to 79.8%. Contact data for just the graduates currently 84.6% accurate.

Ø      Implemented a process to track endowments and annual scholarships and to communicate progress with donors.

Ø      Changed the “Make a Gift to FSU” link which included several clicks in internet navigation to reach a four-part online giving screen, to “Make an Online Gift Now” prominent graphic from the primary “Alumni & Giving” ferris.edu page, that with one click, leads to a single page giving screen that is very simple to complete. 

Ø      Launched Bulldog Bytes e-newsletter in html format.

Ø      Installed the BLOX software to upgrade our alumni chapter sites within the online community www.ferrisalumni.org site. 

Ø      Began mailing Crimson & Gold to 265 (approx.) to alumni residing in Canada.

Ø      Re-designed and distributed donor society parking tags to all members.  New design applies to all societies, streamlining distribution and was more cost effective to produce.

 

Ongoing or Proposed Significant Activities:

 

  • Increase the general fund S&E budget for Alumni Relations $20,000.00

Ø      Charged with rousing greater alumni activity and support, we have thankfully doubled our staff (2 to 4) over the last four years.  As a result, we have successfully expanded alumni programming, awareness, participation and financial support Ferris (all demonstrated above).  We have achieved this, however, with no S&E increase in that time, and in fact, were cut $10,000.00 in FY04.  Despite every effort to be efficient and maintain quality, our S&E requirements continue to rise. As an example, last year, travel expenses to visit with alumni and conduct events have risen from $14,755.00 to 22,009.00 (49%).  Each year, we experience an increase of over 2,200 alumni (2%), who graduate, thereby expanding our communication expenses (print/mail).  As result, in FY04 we satisfied S&E deficits of more than $10,000 from other funds in our division, and this year, are covering deficits of more that $15,000.  This proposed increase will not only help us maintain our level of activity and service in the immediate future, but will allow us to continue to expand our offering over the next few years.

 

  • New Full-time Position – Advancement Communications Specialist

Reporting to the Director of Alumni Relations, Annual Giving and Advancement Services, the Advancement Communications Specialist would be responsible for writing text for:

Ø      Various alumni and advancement materials, including but no limited to annual appeals, special advancement projects case materials, event invitations, foundation newsletter stories etc.

Ø      Gift acknowledgement letters for donations $500 and above (approx. 600 per year).

  • Giving Goals

Ø      Raise annual cash gifts of $4,500,00.00 (excluding extraordinary cash gifts and in-kind gifts).

  • Conduct New/Ongoing Events

Presidential Bus Tour (ongoing) – 19 visits in four days (June 6-9).  Focus on touting our partnerships with community colleges, visits with alumni and community leaders, and host new student receptions for students/parents who will attend Ferris, beginning Fall ’06.

Ø      Traverse City Cherry Festival Outings (new) – We propose conducting two alumni and friends outings on Saturday, July 9.  One in conjunction with the Cherry Royale Parade, which will include a Ferris space along the parade route for our guests to enjoy some food and the show.  We propose entering the FSU bus into the parade along with some cheerleaders, pep-band and the bulldog mascot.  In the evening we propose a dinner at the Northwestern Michigan College Haggarty Center, followed by the fireworks display.  The Haggarty Center is located on the bay and has terrific view of the bay/show.

Ø      Ferris Fest Campus Open House (new – in collaboration w/ Student Leadership and Activities) – We propose expanding the current Ferris Fest concert/activities on the quad into a campus open house event to invite the regional community to participate in April 2006.  Activities would include demonstrations/workshops or exploratory opportunities hosted in/by every college, athletics and selected campus departments from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  A concert and activities on the quad from 2 p.m. – 6 p.m., with a major act performing at 4 p.m.  We would invite our regional alumni population as well as advertise to all community members to participate, especially marketing to families.  Guests arriving will receive a program outlining the activities for the day.  This would be true opportunity to showcase all of Ferris while demonstrating our interest in serving the community as a greater resource.

  • Continue Planning the Construction of the Alumni Welcome Center 

Ø      To date we have hired an architect/planner, examined other alumni centers (GVSU, Ball State and CMU), reviewed expectations and gauged the needs of all staff (including positions yet created), who will be operating in the facility.  We have selected a site (as noted in the campus master plan) and will begin examining it for the project as well as begin presenting concepts of the facility to VP Duffett and President Eisler within the year.  

  • New Full-time Position – Young Alumni & Parent Relation Program Coordinator

Reporting to the Director of Alumni Relations, Annual Giving and Advancement Services, the Young Alumni and Parent Relations Program Coordinator would be responsible for but not limited to:

Ø      Creating, planning and executing alumni events/activities and services target at involving graduates who have left the institution no more than 10 years. 

Ø      Coordinate collaborative programs to engage students with alumni and/or the Alumni Association.

Ø      Coordinate a parent relations program.

Ø      Advise the Student Alumni Gold Club.

  • Restructure Annual Giving Cycle

Ø      Annual Appeals will now be mailed in March (spring) and September (Fall) instead May and November.  They will also coordinate in message and design as well as coordinate with materials to inform alumni of our annual fall phoneathon. 

  • Conversion of Kendall Constituent Data to Millennium

 

Ø      This process is underway, directed by Pam Harvey and will be completed by July 1, 2005.

  • Launch the Online Annual and Endowed Scholarship Awarding System

Ø      We are currently testing the system with several annually funded scholarships awarded in the College of Technology this winter semester.  We hope to launch next spring for use on campus by everyone responsible for awarding endowed or annually funded scholarships.  Paula Rushford will ultimately oversee this system.

 

 

Division:

 

Advancement & Marketing

College/Unit:

 

 

Department:

Marketing and Communications

 

 

 

Significant Areas of Success:

 

Unit Reorganization

·        The reorganization of personnel in Marketing and Communications has resulted in the consolidation of writing functions, the creation of a Web team with similar interests and expertise, and the reassignment of a development professional to media relations, allowing us to better publicize the University.

 

Marketing

·        The Ferris 2004-05 search piece is one of the few in the nation known to include a Web card, used by approximately 10,000 prospective students to access Ferris’ Web site. It also won an award in a national marketing contest and has been attributed to an increase in applications for Fall 2005. Ferris is also the only known Michigan college/university with a digital viewbook.

·        New e-mail newsletters for parents of prospective and current students have been well received and are another means for providing useful information on the college selection process and Ferris to parents.

·        Collaboration with Admissions, Extended Learning, Ferris-Grand Rapids and Athletics has led to more strategic marketing decisions, resulting in an effective mix of newspaper, radio, television, magazine, direct mail, and Internet advertising. In addition, our expanded portfolio of University clients has enabled us to better shape Ferris’ identity by producing high quality communications with consistent messaging and graphics.

·        Our 2004 Summer School marketing campaign targeted to parents and students and promoted through direct mail pieces, posters, flyers, radio commercials,  newspaper advertisements and the Web contributed to a historical high in summer enrollment.

 

Web

·        In response to the President’s Planning Task Force on Communication to streamline the navigation for the Ferris Web site, the major second level pages have been redesigned so that links are easily visible and less cluttered. Keywords and titles are being added to the Web pages across the Ferris site to enable quicker and precise internal searches. The search box is prompted when the Ferris homepage is opened, allowing users to immediately enter a keyword and search without the click of a mouse.

·        To make the Ferris Web site more accessible to blind and visually impaired individuals, we contracted with Usablenet to obtain a Lift Text Transcoder that makes it possible for screen reader software to convert text into speech and read pages upon display.

·        The Web Calendars Project is in its final development and includes the redesign and improved functionality of the external calendars for the University, specifically the Arts, Cable 7, Student Activities and Campus calendars. The calendars will be sorted by categories and also by daily, weekly or monthly views, and the pages will be printer-friendly. Calendar links will allow users to learn more about an event through the use of photos, music, related links or “buy tickets online” buttons. The new calendars will have a username and password login screens, where authorized Ferris staff can add, edit or delete entries.

 

 

 

Ongoing or Proposed Significant Activities:

 

Marketing

·         Contract with a marketing firm to develop/test brand positioning line (tagline) and supporting messaging piece and to assist with the development and implementation of a University-wide effort to create a consistent message/identity as part of a truly integrated marketing program for Ferris.

·        Provide additional funding to convert the part-time communications specialist position to a full-time position as recommended in the UA&M reorganization plan to meet the increasing demand for marketing services from within and outside the division.

·        Develop a Request for Proposal (RFP) for printing, resulting in a single source printer who can provide printing for the University at discounted rates and cost savings to departments.

·        Develop and implement a plan for the annual review of University communication processes and communications (materials).

·        Add new features to the alumni magazine, Crimson & Gold, by developing service-oriented articles that offer advice from our faculty experts, conducting a reader survey, and emphasizing advancement-related pieces to peak more interest in our annual appeal and other giving opportunities.

·        Identify a means for sharing and rewarding “best practices” in marketing and communications professional development.

 

Web

·        Extend contract with Peak Positions of Traverse City to increase the rankings of Ferris and its academic programs on general Web searches, primarily with major search engines. Since we began working with Peak Positions in 2002, Ferris’ Web site has seen a significant increase in traffic, and we have been able to secure and maintain top keyword positions on Ferris State University. Prior to the search engine optimization campaign, the ferris.edu site was not being listed in the top 20 keyword search results for Ferris State and/or university name-related keyword searches on any of the major search engines.

 

News Services

 

·        Continue to improve and evaluate the News Services operation by completing the implementation of a hometown news release system; building stronger relationships with the news media through personal visits and regular communication; identifying faculty experts available to the media; and identifying reputation-defining stories that support our marketing messages.

·        Identify methods for further evaluating the effectiveness and readership of the FYI  newsletter.

 

 

Division:           University Advancement & Marketing

                        ____________________________________________________________

College/Unit:     University Advancement & Marketing

                        ____________________________________________________________

Department:      VP University Advancement & Marketing

                        ____________________________________________________________

 

Significant Areas of Success:

  • Assisted with the evaluation and reorganization of the division of Advancement   

& Marketing.

  • Attended significant number of outreach programs established with Alumni

Relations.

  • Assisted with the Foundation reorganization and the Foundation Gala.
  • Assisted with the Friends of Ferris activities and fund raising efforts.
  • Quantifiable goals were established in all areas of the division.
  • Assisted with work completed related to data gathered by Bentz Whaley and Flessner for University wide communications study.

·        Served on Investment Committee and Audit Committee of the Foundation.

·        Acquired three donor society members.

 

Ongoing or Proposed Significant Activities:

·        Assist with selection of consultant then who would develop a messaging

campaign for the University.

·        Assist with planning of numerous major fundraising and Alumni events.

·        Assist with second Annual Presidential Bus Tour.

·        Identify and solicit five major donors who with proud gifts supporting the  

philanthropic agenda of the University.

·        Establish specific fundraising goals for the division.

·        Continue to evaluate reorganization effectiveness making changes where

             requested.