Record Year Fundraising

[joey0403p]

www.thehoya.com/news/091807/news1.cfm

Latest from the Hoya on how much we collected last year. I can't believe they don't attribute any of this to the Basketball team making it to the Final Four.

Funny - typical - ridiculous.

[SoCalHoya]

I agree, clearly that had something to do with it. But to give the Office of Advancement some credit, they have been doing a LOT better with talking to alumni, etc. So I think it would be too much to consider the F4 run making up that extra $30MM.

[DFW HOYA]

joey0403p said:

Latest from the Hoya on how much we collected last year. I can't believe they don't attribute any of this to the Basketball team making it to the Final Four.

Nor should they.

That total is about 75% capital giving and research grants, 25% annual giving. Of the annual giving, most would have been collected or pledged prior to March and there was no effort to leverage the F4 as part of any giving campaign. Contrast that with Marquette, which raised $2 million in 24 hours during its F4 week:

www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=130399

Bottom line, the Final 4 passed without any significant bump to the overall numbers nor helped answer any of the open issues that surround the future viability of the program.

[strummer8526]

dfw said:

joey0403p said:

Latest from the Hoya on how much we collected last year. I can't believe they don't attribute any of this to the Basketball team making it to the Final Four.

Nor should they.

That total is about 75% capital giving and research grants, 25% annual giving. Of the annual giving, most would have been collected or pledged prior to March and there was no effort to leverage the F4 as part of any giving campaign. Contrast that with Marquette, which raised $2 million in 24 hours during its F4 week:

www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=130399

Bottom line, the Final 4 passed without any significant bump to the overall numbers nor helped answer any of the open issues that surround the future viability of the program.

...but not because it COULDN'T have spurred a significant bump. The University chose to let the opportunity pass while making virtually no mention of it in any sort of financially productive forum.

[hilltopper2000]

Not to throw any more cold water on this news, but this is far from a record for fundraising, even at GU. It is simply a bump after a few really poor years. As is obvious, if GU wishes to compete with the big boys, it will have to do much much better than this. Indeed, the numbers I've heard thrown around for the next capital campaign indicate much larger ambitions.

[joey0403p]

The Hoya called it a record year...I didn't do any fact checking. As for the Marquette fact... WOW. I'm surprised I would have thought the HHC would have gotten a big boost just from people wanted to buy tickets to the final four.

I understand the Office of Advancement has improved their communication with alums, and certainly much of the credit should go to them. I just think we could make (earn) a lot of headway with the F4 appearance.

[Deleted]

joey0403p said:

The Hoya called it a record year...I didn't do any fact checking. As for the Marquette fact... WOW. I'm surprised I would have thought the HHC would have gotten a big boost just from people wanted to buy tickets to the final four.

Were you on this board at all when Final Four tickets went on sale? A lot of people seemed to think that they shouldn't have to cough up even $1 above face value.

[ExcitableBoy]

cam said:

joey0403p said:

The Hoya called it a record year...I didn't do any fact checking. As for the Marquette fact... WOW. I'm surprised I would have thought the HHC would have gotten a big boost just from people wanted to buy tickets to the final four.

Were you on this board at all when Final Four tickets went on sale? A lot of people seemed to think that they shouldn't have to cough up even $1 above face value.

To be fair, most people we offended that they were coughing up money that wasn't going to the university. If the AD had said tickets cost face value but in order to buy them a substantial "donation" would be required, it would have been far more palatable.

[Deleted]

excitableboy said:

cam said:

Were you on this board at all when Final Four tickets went on sale? A lot of people seemed to think that they shouldn't have to cough up even $1 above face value.

To be fair, most people we offended that they were coughing up money that wasn't going to the university. If the AD had said tickets cost face value but in order to buy them a substantial "donation" would be required, it would have been far more palatable.

A fair point. But I'm sure if a donation had been requested, there would have been complaints as well. Just different complaints.

[hoyaLS05]

hilltopper2000 said:

Not to throw any more cold water on this news, but this is far from a record for fundraising, even at GU. It is simply a bump after a few really poor years. As is obvious, if GU wishes to compete with the big boys, it will have to do much much better than this. Indeed, the numbers I've heard thrown around for the next capital campaign indicate much larger ambitions.

So before 2004, when we totaled $105ish million in donations, we had a year in which we surpassed $130 million? When was that?

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Probably in one of the years during the last capital campaign (which ran roughly 1996-03). The last couple years were big transition years for Advancement, as they gained new leadership, and have been building priorities for the new campaign. The next few years will hopefully mean a serious pickup in the number and size of major gifts, which are really what drive these year-end figures.

[hilltopper2000]

There were years where we broke $150 million during the last campaign.

EDIT: Per the Hoya, the max during the last campaign was $146.

BTW: The $130 million figure is for the first year of the $1.5 billion campaign were are in now. I can't remember if the goal is to do it in 6 or 7 years, but either way, $130 million is way off the pace, which is too low to begin with anyway! My hope is that this is a target we can hit easily and GU will will end up closer to $2 billion in this time period.

For those who are interested in the issue of GU finances, the Middle States Review is now available on-line.

Here is GU's report: www3.georgetown.edu/admin/provost/documents/PRR%20Body.pdf

Here is the report from the external reviewers: www3.georgetown.edu/admin/provost/documents/PRR-External%20Reviewers'%20Response.pdf

And this is a very interesting financial analysis: www3.georgetown.edu/admin/provost/documents/PRR%20Fiscal%20Analysis.pdf

The take-away for me is that GU is doing much much better financially but is still far away from where it needs to be in order to compete. Faculty salaries and financial aid are not keeping pace. One interesting tidbit is that the undergraduate student body will exceed 7,000 in a few years.

[joey0403p]

Cam -

I was on the board when the F4 was going on, and I ended up purchasing tickets and going to ATL for well over a grand and well over face value. I agreed with most of the complaints about having to pay so much and how the university was screwing "regular" fans for the "rich" fans.

All I meant was that given that we collected (what I perceived) as so much during the F4 for those packages. I would have thought that along would have boosted our earnings. (probably not several million but certianly more than normal.)