Fundraising at a University and Its Relation to Athletics
If you follow the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, besides the retirement of the Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski, the story of the tournament was of a 15 seed, one of the lowest-rated teams in the tournament, and their run to the Elite Eight. That school is Saint Peter’s University. The small Jesuit school in Jersey City, New Jersey beat many more successful, long-standing bluebloods of the sport along their amazing journey during the tournament. It was great fun to watch and also to root for.
As it relates to philanthropy, this streak had a tremendous impact. In a normal month, Saint Peter’s would normally raise just slightly more than $500,000. In the span of the two weeks during Saint Peter’s success in the tournament, they had commitments of more than $2.5 million. Advancement professionals at the University indicated that they were literally working 24/7 to answer questions, facilitate gifts, and in some cases, receive the largest gifts some individuals had ever made in their own personal giving history. In addition, crowdsourcing fundraising opportunities jumped exponentially.
You might think this was an anomaly. It wasn’t.
Dr. J Douglas Toma was not only a dear friend of mine but a leading author on the connection between athletics success and other tremendous opportunities for a university. In his book Football U: Spectator Sports in the Life of the American University, Toma chronicles multiple occasions where universities have done well on the performance courts/fields of basketball, football and realized increased admissions applications and significant increases to philanthropic gifts. There are also anecdotal stories of universities selling as much as 10 times the amount of sweatshirts, T-shirts, and other merchandise after an enormous win on the courts or fields of university athletics. Toma posits, correctly in my opinion, that athletics can have a great positive effect on the overall university, including financially.
It goes to show that the old adage that people want to “be proud of where they came from” and
“want to be affiliated with a winner” are generally pretty true. This is just one small example. I’ll be interested to see what Saint Peter’s reports out regarding admissions this spring as well as ongoing fundraising opportunities over the next year. If the science and data hold true, they’ll see dramatic increases in both.
