Hoop Club Non-Donor Discussion

[Admin]

With 40 days to go before the end of the 2004-05 Hoya Hoop Club drive, this thread is for posters who are not Hoop Club members do discuss their thoughts/ comments on why they do not, and to give any suggestions they would have for the club going forward.

Convesely, another thread will be reserved for those who do give to the Hoop Club.

This thread will be open through June 30.

[lichoya68]

im a hoop club donor but am putting this on to encourage those who arenot to make comments and suggestions ...as the hoop club is a very open group as far as im conderned which wants to get ideas, more people involved, and grow the hoya spirit and team support.. go hoyas IS IT NOVEMBER YET

[RBHoya]

Are current students encouraged to become hoop club members? Is there a reason to? Money is tight as it is; I manage to pay for season tickets and I'm hoping to scrape together the dough to go on a couple of road trips to away games this year, but I'm curious if it's worth it to join HHC as well. I'm particularly interested in the open practice... Any advice?

[lichoya68]

there \has been an effort to try to develope a student hoop club membership talk to the president al bozzo about it or email jennifer montgomery or allison rubin at gu. edu to ask about it they were trying to ask people what might interest students to join good thought

[GUHoya07]

RB-I've been a member of the Hoop Club since I came to Georgetown.

Its definitely worth it for me since Im such a fanatic and I just want to be as involved as possible and the open practice is really cool for someone like me, because you never really get to see your team practice.

And although it may be only an hour or so of practice time that you see its still worth it for me. The $25 mininum isn't that much if this is a priority for you. I would be a member without any benefits at all.

[DFW HOYA]

In the interests of disclosure, I have been a Hoop Club donor since graduation and will continue to do so. However, I am giving to other sports too, in some measure because these sports can answer a simple question much better than the Hoop Club has been able to.

Here's the question: "How does my gift make a difference?"

If you give to men's lacrosse and saw Sunday's game, you know alumni gifts have elevated the program, from travel to equipment to coaching support. If you give to football and see Georgetown standing toe to toe this season alongside Brown and Cornell instead of St. Peter's and Iona, you see the difference. The sailing team sends three squads to the nationals this weekend, and every gift has made a difference.

This is a question the Hoop Club needs to do a better job of answering. How does my $25 gift help Georgetown basketball? Does it matter?

How about $250? How about $25,000? If someone gave $10M tomorrow, will it sit in a bank account for 15 years or does it help get shovels in the ground?

In 1990, Hoop Club membership comprised almost 50% of donors to Hoyas Unlimited. It's less than 20% now. Why is that? In part, other support clubs have done a better job among its constituencies to help them understand how their gift makes a difference.

If the HHC could do a better job of explaining how gifts directly help the program, I think the response would be overwhelming. Instead, there are far, far too many people who assume "basketball has all they need", and with it, the gifts go elsewhere.

[jerseyhoya34]

DFW said:

If someone gave $10M tomorrow, will it sit in a bank account for 15 years or does it help get shovels in the ground?

My understanding is that the somewhat sarcastic request of $10M would be enough to get the shovels in the ground and the wrecking ball sent through McDonough. This is based on legwork completed last summer by members of this chat board. The question then becomes one of who... Who has $10M that can be donated at this time?

[DFW HOYA]

JerseyHoya34 said:

My understanding is that the somewhat sarcastic request of $10M would be enough to get the shovels in the ground and the wrecking ball sent through McDonough.

That's not sarcasm. Nothing gets built anymore without 100% cash in hand, but what eight figure donor would ever give money these days if there were no top-level commitment on this project?

[jerseyhoya34]

The sarcastic part is that they want it from a single donor. I would be willing to bet that the money is there if they wanted to get $10M on the table from a group of donors. I am well aware that they need the cash on hand, but I see the $10M request as a means by which to ensure that they don't get such cash more than anything else.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Jersey

The new MSB building was jumpstarted by a $30 million gift by Bob McDonough.

The Performing Arts Center was kicked off by gifts from the Gonda Family Foundation and from MBNA that were close to 8-figures.

The international law building and new fitness center at the law center were largely financed through major gifts from two Law Center alumni, at least one of which (and I'm pretty sure both) were eight-figure gifts.


Starting fundraising with a major gift is not unusual at all, and it is pretty much standard practice in non-profit/education fundraising. Of course it is easier to raise $10 million by pooling together a bunch of smaller donations, but without the major gifts (or a donor base in the hundreds of thousands) it's very difficult to have a bunch of smaller donations add up to a $25, $50, or $100 million project.

Whether or not GU has been aggressively working on major gift funding for McDonough -- it doesn't look like it. But I don't have too many millionaire friends that I can chat with to see if they've been asked about it.