Student Affairs Fundraising Part 2 - Guest Blogger CeCe Ridder

February 19 2009, 1:44pm

Last time, we began to discuss ways in which companies can benefit from funding your event. Now, let’s talk about where to begin. Your campus relations When seeking money for a program, there are a few places to begin. Large sums seem to be a better match for these ideas. 1. Meet with Career Services: whether you have an active career center or a small placement office, a career center can be a great place to begin to identify potential companies who might give money. If they recruit on campus, post jobs on campus, or hire a lot of students without much effort, you can approach them. Who doesn’t want good press? Keep in mind that you may also have to sell your career center director on the idea.

1. Hit up Development: many schools have an active development office in some sense. Some of them work more with alumni than companies, some do both. It can be an interesting concept to a development office if they have never thought of “selling” a program. Typically they sell scholarships, research centers, naming conventions (The Howard T. Residence Hall) and large programs. It usually does not involve departments like Student Affairs. Your job is to educate them on what you have to offer and to keep the dialogue rolling.
2. Ask Alumni Relations: if you have ever tracked students who attend your programs or utilize your services, there is nothing better to pair with an alumni database. Students who have been involved in a program or lived in a residence hall are a perfect place to begin because they can relate. If the alumni staff are aware of your programs, they can also match up potential high flying alumni with your programs. There is nothing better than being at a cocktail reception with an alumnus who mentions how much they love leadership - and then your alumni staff gets to make them happy by mentioning your program (now give your alumni staff that visual too).
3. Package Programs: try to find similar programs across campus or programs that fit together in some fashion and package them together. Perhaps your program is too small to speak to a company about, but you can put together a package that an alumnus or a company would get exposure multiple times. You can come up with creative ways to combine programs so multiple departments benefit. How cool is the Pamela C. Leadership Series or the H Company Coffee Night (which perhaps combines the residence hall programming and the student events center music committee)?
4. Go it alone: if you don’t get many hits from the career center, development or alumni do it yourself. Start small and open your eyes to local companies or businesses, notice those flyers across campus which might have a logo, alumni speaking on campus, or check the job postings yourself to see who is recruiting on campus.
5. Get a Champion: the best advice is to get a champion. You will get much farther if you get the buy in from your supervisors and as high up as you can go. That way, they can go with you to the other areas of campus to suggest partnerships or to ask for assistance. Check back on Monday, February 23 for Student Affairs Fundraising Part 3, we’ll discuss who should be involved in this process from your area.

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