Episode 59: Fuel for the Future: Fundraising Strategies for Higher Ed Institutions

Lori: Welcome to Elevate Your Event, your favorite podcast for transforming fundraising events. Join us weekly for expert tips and creative ideas to make your next event a standout success. In this week's episode of Elevate Your Event, we will join Lori Mackay, who is a panelist on a discussion around Fuel for the Future, fundraising strategies for higher ed institutions. Enjoy.

Colleen: All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our panel. My name is Colleen Carroll and I serve as the NXUnite lead here at Nexus Marketing and will be your moderator for today's session. Our topic today is Fuel for the Future, fundraising strategies for higher ed institutions. I'm really looking forward to hearing from this group of panelists. To begin with our introductions, I'd first like to introduce Justin Ware, who is the chief consulting officer and co-founder at First Name, a video-driven, personalized donor engagement software and service. Their top services include digital development officer programs, authentic student video ambassador programs, and the Mercury Technology platform to scale personalization. Justin, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Justin: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Colleen: Also joining us today is Catherine Earhart, partner and co-founder at Fairlight Advisors. Shakespeare was her passion at University of California, Los Angeles, before Catherine set out to become a literature professor. Her mentors encouraged her to join the workforce to gain experience. That is when she landed at Charles Schwab, where she found a new passion for educating people about investments, the stock market, and financial planning. Catherine followed that career trajectory for 25-plus years working for Empower Advisors, Berkeley's Global Investors, iShares, and BlackRock. Her passion now continues through founding Fairlight, where she helps nonprofits, foundations, and endowments invest to achieve their mission. Catherine, thanks for being here.

Catherine: Good morning, or good afternoon. Thank you.

Colleen: Also joining us is Lori Mackay, Director of Marketing at Handbid. For the last six years, Lori has worked as a fundraising software event expert assisting multiple nonprofits, including educational institutions, and effectively utilizing fundraising software to maximize their results. Whether it's implementing new software solutions or providing valuable insights on best practices, Lori is passionate about helping nonprofit organizations achieve their mission through innovative technology. Lori, thanks for being here.

Lori: Thanks for having me today.

Colleen: Finally, joining us is Brooke Battle, founder and CEO at Swell Fundraising, an online fundraising and event management software for nonprofits. Brooke loves fundraising events and believes that they can play a powerful role in a nonprofit's branding and fund development strategy. She founded Swell in 2012 to help raise more money for good causes. Brooke, thanks for being here.

Brooke: Thank you.

Colleen: All right, it is time for us to jump in and get started. And Justin, I'm going to have you start us off with our very first question. How has the landscape of higher ed fundraising evolved in recent years and what emerging trends are you most excited about?

Justin: Yeah, that's a really good question. And I think from our perspective at least, and the work that we're doing and what we're seeing, it has a lot to do with the role that omnichannel engagement plays in donor engagement, in warming, in solicitations, stewardship. And that's really for all levels. I think sometimes when we hear omnichannel engagement, we think just annual fund, just a new donor engagement center or something along those lines. And certainly it has a very powerful role in that place. We've seen some really incredible things and we actually take time to use all the channels to warm audiences in between solicitations. All up to leadership annual giving, even major gift giving. I'm really excited about some of the things that I'm seeing, some of the roles that are opening up in the major gift space that recognize even the very best gift officers really can't be in front of a donor in a meaningful way every week, nor would the donor or prospect want a gift officer in front of them every single week. However, you can do a lot of things with video, with personalized video, with storytelling, with authentic video. The role that authentic video plays is really a game changer. We've seen as many as 54 times the number of people who will watch an authentic student video to completion versus something that might come from a leadership position -- to quote a client, "some of those stuffy university videos." So I think really pulling the mask off, humanizing your engagement through authentic content, video taking the lead, but really focusing on a coordinated omnichannel strategy at all levels -- annual, leadership annual, major giving -- is something that we've really seen take shape. And we've been really proud to be at least a small part in that development over the past couple of years.

Colleen: Justin, thank you so much for starting us off. Catherine, I'm going to bring this over to you. In terms of endowment management practices in higher ed, what emerging trends have you seen and what are you most enthusiastic about?

Catherine: Yeah, what's been really interesting from our perspective, since we manage the investment side, is really the donor activism and student activism around what the endowment is invested in and also transparency at the endowment itself. So we've noticed that some universities and higher education institutions have been pressured to divest from fossil fuels and other industries that may be harming the planet. And the challenge with that is that in some cases, UPMIFA, which is the regulations that surround management of institutional funds, have said that in some cases divesting is a violation of UPMIFA. So that's been an interesting trend that we've seen. And I think donors are starting to ask questions. They're also asking questions about who is managing the investments. And in some cases, some of the well-known universities have declined to state who is managing their investments. I think donors are caring about whether there are opportunities for emerging advisors or diversified companies to manage the investments, or is it going to be the same large institutions. So those are some trends that we've been watching here at Fairlight Advisors.

Colleen: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Catherine. All right, Lori, over to you next. How have you seen the landscape of higher ed fundraising evolve and what are you excited about?

Lori: Well, I think we can all agree with the pandemic and then the dip a little bit with financial strain on individuals and donors. Over the last couple of years, I was reading an article on LinkedIn that what's kind of exciting for us -- and it's something that we've seen in our space and fundraising software -- is just that re-engagement of donors across the board, especially in the secondary ed market. And I think I was reading in one of the articles that it's anywhere between 10 and 12 percent increase in donating to secondary education institutions, depending on what you're reading. And so that's exciting for us. And what we love and, of course, what we're excited about at Handbid is that digital platform opportunity that educational institutions can be utilizing to reach out to their alumni base and really increase their stretch and their flexibility and their year-round fundraising efforts. Of course, for us here as software people, we're really pumped about digital fundraising.

Colleen: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Lori. All right, Brooke, I'm sure you can guess what question's coming your way. Thoughts on the landscape of higher ed fundraising and the trends you're excited about.

Brooke: Sure. Just to distinguish from all the great things that have already been said, which is what I love about these panels. So the recent trends in education -- yeah, Lori noted the increase in giving. And I think that higher ed institutions have been, thanks to the pandemic, a little faster to adopt some technology. Whereas pre-COVID, it was really tough to get past -- they all have a core system and they were very wedded to those core systems. So that has loosened up a little bit. Higher ed is always a slow one to change, so that has loosened up a bit. I think it's very exciting for the sector. Another thing that I'm not sure if it's exciting or not, but I think it's exciting, is the removal of the alumni giving percentage metric by U.S. News and World Report. I think that's a mixed bag for development offices, but that's a recent change that's pretty dramatic for annual giving and development offices. And then finally, the major trend, which goes to that growth, is how much of that growth is from foundations and high-net-worth individuals. And the vast majority of that funding is restricted. And so that's a big trend. And I think as things become more politically divisive, that's something that also is going to need to be watched. I think that frees development offices to truly be fundraising, which is different than targeting alums. Affinity for your institution comes in a lot of different forms, which is what Justin mentioned. And so I think that's kind of an exciting thing to be free of.

Colleen: Thank you so much. Lori, I'm going to have you start us off with our next question. What strategies have been successful in engaging alumni across different generations and demographics?

Lori: Thank you. So this one's an exciting one for us because we had a podcast episode about two weeks ago and we were really zoning in on fundraising through the generations. And we had some really cool statistics about the different generations. Because everybody is looking at the boomer generation and then the millennials, right? And then the Gen Xers are kind of being skipped a little bit. I'm a Gen Xer, so I don't really appreciate it. But one of the things that we found completely fascinating is understanding the demographic of the donor. First and foremost, you need to understand what generation they're coming from and what fuels their philanthropy. And so with the millennial donor, we just had the podcast about it. They're like the most giving generation right now. They're giving to the most organizations. There's 72.2 million millennials and 84% of them are donating to three or more organizations. So they're wanting to spread their philanthropy out a little bit more. Gen X is the lowest as far as how many there are, but they're usually supporting around four organizations. And then the boomers, of course, are donating to almost five organizations. So they're splitting it up. But 84% of millennials are donating, which is a really high percentage, 59% of Gen X and 72% of boomers. So they're on their way and really not dismissing any generation, but also just opening up your fundraising efforts across the board for all the different generations and how you can be reaching them.

Colleen: Thank you, Lori. All right, Brooke, over to you. What strategies have been successful in engaging donors across generations and demographics?

Brooke: Sure. One of the hard parts about higher ed fundraising, of course, is that a person's affinity for your institution can come in so many different ways. The strategies we've seen -- obviously, we've seen athletics be an incredible unifier for giving across the board. We've seen athletics fundraising completely transform institutions. And it transcends generation and demographic a lot of times. Peer-to-peer fundraising has been very effective in markets that a college is trying to open up. And the third thing that we are directly a part of -- to the extent that someone is running alumni engagement events, we've helped them connect through technology. Accessing different groups through hybrid technology, live streaming events -- it has helped them to be able to connect both outside their geography and across different wealth categories, particularly if the entry cost is high. We had only one college doing hybrid events pre-COVID. We've been doing hybrid since 2012. And now almost all of their fundraising events are hybrid and reaching different demographics. And they have all universally been surprised by how many people from outside their markets are participating now. Those are the ones that we're seeing working -- campaigns that speak to the affinity of a group that transcends demographics and generational affinity.

Colleen: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Brooke. All right, Justin, over to you, strategies for successfully engaging those various generations.

Justin: Yeah, I want to go back to Brooke's point about the U.S. News and World Report participation changes. And I think it is a mixed bag because on one hand, we're seeing, candidly, a lot of divestment in annual giving. And that's unfortunate because I think investment is necessary there. But I do think the way that you approach it needs to be so much different than what we've done in the past. Again, we're talking about the affinity-based outreach and really understanding alumni and non-alumni donors and what they're interested in and communicating along those lines. We can be better about looking at alumni outreach, especially at the broad-based level, and moving away from "as an annual giving director, I have eight campaigns a year and I've got to make sure I get those campaigns out to this many people." We really have to break that down and think about who we're communicating with, what matters to them, what have they told us through event-based outreach, through digital outreach and engagement. There's so many things that we can learn by paying attention and showing them that we're paying attention and listening. I think that's one of the big changes -- we've gone from that mass, somewhat generic outreach of "you must love this institution because we have your email" and moved towards, "here's what you've been telling us through your activity, through your behavior, and here's how we're going to engage with you based along those terms." Much more segment-based, much more personalized, even for the annual fund donor. And again, that's probably the good piece of the changes. It's not just at all costs, just get everyone you possibly can to make a $10 gift. Think a little bit more about your strategy and your engagement, what you're doing, how you're finding the right people to move up the pipeline. I just hope that the industry continues investing in broad-based engagement.

Colleen: Thank you, Justin. Catherine, I'm going to bring a different question over to you. What strategies have proven effective in growing and sustaining endowments for educational institutions, particularly when it comes to engaging alumni donors?

Catherine: Thank you. Yeah, I think when colleges and universities prioritize spending to better direct the donors to programs that are critical to the longevity of the institution -- when the endowment priorities are set, your universities are more likely to see impact, which will encourage donors to give more. And I love this quote by James Tobin, a Nobel Prize-winning economist from Yale. He invented this term "intergenerational equity," which really should be the guiding light for all endowments. Basically what he said was that the stewards and trustees of the endowment shall protect the interest of future beneficiaries against the claims and actions of the present. And so we interpret that as maybe rather than looking at it myopically as "any gift is good" -- that might really be more self-serving to the donor, like changing the name of a building or getting a facility that's not really needed -- being able to protect the organization against that kind of behavior and really focusing on what's needed, which could be more financial aid, increased programs that would prepare the students for the future. I think what's also fascinating is donors still want to restrict donations very narrowly at times. I think it's Yale that has something like 8,000 managed accounts, which means those are different types of restricted funds, which can become quite unwieldy. It almost is like the tail wagging the dog. So really having the priorities set at the top level so the planned giving officers and the major gift officers can really help focus donors and steer them where the needs are greatest.

Colleen: Thank you so much, Catherine. All right, Brooke, I'm going to have you start us off with our next question. How do you recommend personalizing engagement and stewardship efforts to create meaningful connections with donors?

Brooke: Well, this is a very short answer. It's segment. It's just data. Everybody knows the answer to this one. It starts with a great data segment. And this is where technology does need to scale what you're doing and how you're doing it so that your team isn't siloed, that you're not carrying information that isn't shared across your team. And that's where technology really ensures that you have the information you need to personalize that engagement. And I think video and what's happened in video to personalize engagement is really tremendous. So I'm just going to stop there because I think others on the panel may have a lot more to say about that. Just have the data and segment.

Colleen: Perfect. Thank you, Brooke. Justin, I'll bring it over to you. Thoughts on personalizing engagement and stewardship efforts to create those meaningful connections.

Justin: Brooke, you said it. It starts with data. Personalization is only as good as your data is going to be. Any technology is only going to be as good as the data you put into the technology. So that is really important in this age of personalization where our audiences -- alumni, donors, prospects -- expect personalization. You have to start with good data because otherwise, you can go in the opposite direction and an attempt to personalize can become a mistake. And that's probably worse than not personalizing at that stage. AI can help with that. There are various tools and platforms that, given good data, can help you better create personalized outreach, helping you write emails, things like that that matter to the donor and the prospect. Sometimes, though, it's not technology. Sometimes it's a program and it's a process that you build. For online giving days, for example, we have this thing called a large gift protocol where we want to make sure we get a deeply personalized message from a student to everyone who makes a gift over a threshold -- $250, $500, $1,000, whatever that threshold might be set at. The goal is to deliver about three, four, five hundred personalized videos over the course of the day. It goes a little bit more than just saying the name of the person -- it might also talk about the fund and the impact of that fund, what's taking place in that particular area. Until we get to using deep-fake technology, which I haven't seen yet in this space, you still need people to be able to have that level of personalization. So it is definitely something that can be enhanced with technology, but also processes and how you're training and the programs you're building.

Colleen: Thank you, Justin. All right, Lori, over to you. Thoughts on personalizing engagement to create meaningful connections.

Lori: At the risk of being repetitive, Brooke, I would agree. It's about the technology. It starts with the donor data moving into the technology. Where I could expand a little bit more on what Justin was saying is that concept of impact reporting. Keeping your donors informed throughout the year and throughout their engagement about how their contributions make a tangible difference to the university or the organization. And over-communicating to them about the impact and the personalized impact that those have over time. So it's really just coming back and keeping that constant communication against segmenting. And then the other concept that I've seen work -- because this is where I've been living for all these years -- is donor-centric events. So there's always your fundraising events, but also having community-building events that aren't necessarily fundraising-based but are just building your community. That adds that little bit of personalization among the common theme of the university -- they love their alma mater if they're alumni, or they love the research that maybe a different department is doing. Just keeping the bonding amongst the donors themselves. I think it's a really cool way to increase personalization.

Colleen: Thank you so much, Lori. All right, Catherine, over to you. Could you share some insights on the importance of personalized stewardship for endowment donors in particular and how it can contribute to long-term relationships?

Catherine: I think the other folks on the panel are better suited to answer this question, but I will say as a recipient of outreach from my university and from my kids' universities, I'm really noticing the lack of personalization. It's sort of like "dear parent," and you're like, well, do you even know me? I'm the parent of a sophomore, not a freshman. That kind of personalization. It just feels like you're already spending money on the university and they're immediately coming after you for contributions without any sort of personalization. So I've noticed that both as a parent and as an alum, we still have a long way to go.

Colleen: Thank you, Catherine. We're actually going to stick with you for this next question. In your role of endowment management, where do you see the opportunities for technology to really enhance our work?

Catherine: I think from a technology perspective, what we've seen from the investing side and matching investing with donor stewardship is there are some systems that are really able to make the connection between what the donor cares about and how the endowment is being managed. And I think we're going to need a lot more granular detail about what's important to donors as we continue to steward and manage the endowment. And that's hopefully where AI can come in. There are programs that can do an assessment of somebody's capacity to give. But I think understanding how they're investing today and what their values are -- that's something that I think we can get better about communicating to them about how we're stewarding the endowment. But again, the programs and the technology are not quite there yet.

Colleen: Thank you so much, Catherine. Brooke, I'll have you answer this question next. How can we identify where technology can best support our higher ed fundraising?

Brooke: Sure. This is actually sort of jumping off the last question. To the point about data -- Catherine, you mentioned getting the "hey, parent" email. Because every development officer at a college that I speak with has inherited a big system. And every campus has a big system that's legacy. And it is almost hard to right the ship at this point for a lot of people. So you've got to find a way to become an expert in what you have and to correct that foundational piece. There are a number of platforms -- Handbid would be this way, Swell would be this way -- where we can feed new data into your systems. So if you're Salesforce-based, we can feed new data into your systems to help you get that updated in an automatic way. So that would be a strategic way to help you automate some updates into your core system by using some smaller platforms that can feed new data and update data for you. My second thing is -- technology really belongs everywhere. There isn't anyone's job that is not touched by technology. So I'll bring up just some basics in higher ed. LinkedIn -- getting your young alums as they graduate to get on LinkedIn so you capture them there in those simple ways. Hybrid events and getting people on campus if you can through technology. And then be careful of where you send your donors. A non-technical person selecting technology could really inadvertently send your donor to a place where they don't want to be. There's some will-planning platforms where you're not being a great steward using some free platform. So I would always say be careful of free, be careful of where you're sending your donor, and do your homework with regard to their privacy policies, because the boomerang on that could be really devastating, particularly talking about the kinds of donors that Catherine's talking about.

Colleen: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Brooke. All right, Lori, over to you. Thoughts on where technology can best support our higher ed fundraising.

Lori: Yeah, to speak to what Brooke was saying as well as Catherine -- you understand your donors, you understand who they are, what they're giving to. That protects you and protects them from unwanted outreach. What I loved about what Brooke said is look at the technology you're currently using and then look at those partnerships and integrations that technology is utilizing. I know us at Handbid, as well as I'm sure Brooke and others, we have trusted partners that are vetted that help to increase your donor database, updating information, tracking donor activity over time. And then utilizing those trusted partnerships -- most of the tech companies you're working with have trusted partners and relationships. So use your educational mind as a secondary institution and go out there and educate yourself because there is so much out there right now. There are organizations that we have partnered with that literally go out for secondary institutions and find and collect and update donor data. We don't do that at Handbid, but we trust people and we know those people and we have built relationships over time. So find those holes in what you're utilizing. And the other thing is, you're a secondary institution. You are amongst the youngest, most brilliant minds. Ask them. Ask your interns, ask your assistants, ask the different people in your department what are we missing, what would be a cool technology to see implemented. We're big on the live stream hybrid events as well. We think you should increase your donor reach -- they don't have to be on campus or on site to donate to your organization. So ask and educate yourself and find those holes and fill them.

Colleen: Wonderful. Thank you, Lori. All right, Justin, final thoughts on where tech can support our higher ed fundraising.

Justin: Yeah, just like Catherine said with thousands of restricted funds controlling or dictating a development strategy, don't let the tail wag the dog. Figure out and determine your strategy. Understand what you want to do and how you want to do it, because like Brooke said, there's technology for everything. And there are different ways of doing giving days, different ways of doing omnichannel outreach. We value video in a big way, and text and email and social media. If you're looking to have a really strong peer-to-peer component, you might want a crowdfunding or a giving day platform that really elevates the online ambassador experience. Do you want to do team-based fundraising online? There are better tools for that, as opposed to something that's more driven by matches and challenges. Whatever you want to do, you can probably find technology to do it. So really make sure you're being intentional with your strategy at the top. How you want to engage people, what your priorities look like in the year ahead, what your staff looks like, the skill sets of your staff -- all of those things that you would use to outline the strategy. Do that first and then go shop for the technology. It happens all too easily where we're really excited about a piece of technology because it does some cool things, but those things are not what you necessarily want to do in the year ahead.

Colleen: Thank you, Justin. All right, Brooke, I'm going to have you start us off with our next question. What advice do you have for higher ed fundraisers looking to build strong, sustainable fundraising programs that will support their institutions well into the future?

Brooke: Don't let the U.S. News and World Report change what you're doing, which Justin said. I have that same worry. I think it offers an opportunity for institutions to change their approach to annual giving, looking at community, affinity for a college. Affinity for a college isn't just because you went there. I have a high affinity for my children's colleges. When somebody's good to your children, you love them. So there are a lot of connections to a college. And I do think that frees this up. I think there will be a tendency for institutions to cut back there. So I would say continue to build that foundation. And the other thing is there's a real focus right now on high-net-worth donors, and be careful of that trap. Over the long term, that will leave you in a place where you've run out of new names. So keep building that strong individual giving foundation.

Colleen: Thank you, Brooke. All right, Catherine, over to you. What advice would you offer to higher ed institutions looking to establish and nurture robust endowment programs?

Catherine: Absolutely. One thing that we encourage all of our clients to do is to have a very diverse finance and investment committee. Stewarding the endowment -- many of them are donors as well, and you can fall into the trap of a strategy that isn't necessarily working and everybody's afraid to say something. And I think having diverse opinions, diverse people, diverse thoughts will allow you to think about your strategy more holistically. And being able to impose term limits, because that forces the committee and the trustees to adopt different ways of thinking. There was a university near my location that had a long-serving trustee who was very passionate about the investment strategy, and it wasn't serving them. It wasn't transparent. It wasn't liquid. They weren't a big enough endowment to really warrant this type of strategy. Yet his name was on the donor wall, so everybody had a difficult time standing up to him. I would encourage folks to not get caught in that trap. And there are very generous donors who may have only been giving their $50 a year to the annual fund, but they're actually going to leave their entire property to the university upon their passing. And that's something that is hard to identify unless the planned giving officer is really doing that continual outreach. So as Brooke said, don't just focus on the high net worth. There may be those who are giving just a small amount but will provide their legacy to the university.

Colleen: Thank you, Catherine. All right, Justin, over to you. If we want to build those strong, sustainable fundraising programs, what do we need to do?

Justin: I'm echoing a lot of what's already been said about continued engagement, but it really is true. And I would encourage you to find ways to stay in front of your donors in non-intrusive ways. For more than a decade, we've been using the phrase in workshops: make sure you leave a window or maybe a door open to your institution for passersby. Give them the opportunity to see what's happening, to see the impact of donor activity, to see the impact of the institution. When they're ready, when they're in the neighborhood, when they're ready to talk. For us, that has meant producing hundreds if not thousands of unique videos every year so that every week on Facebook there is something new, every week in Instagram or the stories there's something new for the passersby to see. It's warming. It's omnichannel warming. And that's just really important. I'm really heartened to hear everyone talk about the value of engagement and broad-based giving and growing that pipeline because it's true. I'd really hate to be the VP 10 years from now taking over an institution that has completely foregone the base right now, because it's going to spell trouble for a lot of institutions if they're not doing that work.

Colleen: Thank you, Justin. All right, Lori, final thoughts on how our universities and colleges can build those strong and sustainable fundraising programs.

Lori: Yeah, and I'm just loving this conversation because it speaks to my heart. It's not about just focusing on those major donors or those major givers, but it's also giving that wide breadth of opportunity for anybody who comes across any portion of your university to be able to find something that speaks to their heart and then to also be participating in the future of something like a university. It's what I love about the university system that's a little bit different than a lot of other fundraising organizations -- legacy. You have a legacy in most universities that most organizations would love to have. And so you really have history that you can be tapping into. So besides what all these other panelists have said, I think beyond that, just really communicating well with people that are current donors, prospective donors, people like me who go to sporting events. I might not have anything else to do with CU other than CU football right now, but I love CU. And if I can see other opportunities and things that CU is doing, I am looking at that as a donor opportunity as well. So affinity to a university, as Brooke has been saying, comes from all different levels and all different ways. Just make it easy for people. We talk about technology -- it shouldn't be hard to figure out how to donate to your university. It should be easy. Do you have it easily put on your website? Are your searches in Google efficient for people to be able to give and to get involved? And then have that follow-up with communication. And of course, I'm always going to advocate for community and relationships. And I think that's how you keep people involved over time. Are you engaged throughout the year? Are you providing those testimonial videos that put a face in front of you that you can watch? Something that's changed a student's life or an alumnus's life, the storytelling in fundraising. And I think that's unique in a university where you have so much story and so much history to pull from. It's like a marketing director's dream. You have content after content after content. So use it and open up your breadth of knowledge for people.

Colleen: Thank you, Lori. All right, we had a question submitted about how we see AI driving changes in personalized outreach. I'm going to even broaden it to just how you see AI impacting our higher ed institutions and fundraising. Justin, can I have you start us off with this question?

Justin: Yeah, I mean, we use it all the time. It creates so much efficiency. We do so much script writing, for example, and writer's block is a real thing. And we're not writing entire video scripts with AI, but we're getting started. We're writing a script, we're running it through AI to get new ideas for how to be more succinct. We're taking meeting notes from a previous meeting, creating the next agenda for the next meeting. And there's obviously the concern of it replacing some jobs. And that's real. But I think if you really lean into it and start using AI to be more efficient and to really enhance and bring your creativity to the next level, I think it would be a really powerful tool to make you even more valuable in your role. So yeah, we use it all the time, from the basic ChatGPT to Jasper for script writing. It allows you to really create scripts and emails and agendas that you might get stuck on for half an hour, 45 minutes, so you can just run them through one of those platforms and you've got a really good starting point.

Colleen: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Justin. Any other panelists want to jump in here?

Brooke: The only thing I would add to what Justin said that we are really tuned into is privacy related to AI. Making and helping you do your job faster, great. Our programmers love it. It has sped up their work in an amazing way. I would just say if you aren't on it, try it. My fear is somebody thinks they aren't tech savvy and they're not trying it. You're getting behind every day that you don't use it.

Colleen: Great point, Brooke. All right. Brooke, why don't I have you start off with our last question. What do you see as the future of higher ed fundraising and how can schools get ahead today?

Brooke: The thing about higher ed -- there's a real have and have-not situation going on in the higher ed community with regard both to admissions and fundraising. If you're not in the "have" category right now and you feel like you're in more of the "have-not" category, then I think that's going to put additional pressure on you going forward. The way to get ahead of that is to have a really strong connection to your decision makers and make a 10-year game plan for how to become a "have." The second thing is that giving and what's happening in higher ed is becoming more and more politically divisive. And again, that's going to hit giving in an interesting way. What I love about the kind of broad-based giving we're all talking about is you don't tend to hit that with athletic giving and these other things. So there's a strategy you can use to continue to build your base without hitting those targets. And then finally, recognizing that the trend in restricted giving isn't going to be reversed. So begin to think about how to segment giving in your college and realize that people just giving to a college is an abstract idea. Giving to a kid, giving to a program, giving to a dorm -- I know we hate that as fundraisers. We really love a nice big unrestricted gift. But I would say lean into that in a way that is really healthy financially. There's a real conflict between your financial team and development, and begin to have that conversation if you aren't already.

Colleen: Thank you so much, Brooke. Justin, same question over to you. What do you see as the future of higher ed fundraising and how can we get ahead today?

Justin: Yeah, well, what I hope is the future -- really big picture here. I'm so passionate about higher education in general. And we have those things -- the political divisiveness, the struggle with students seeing the value in it, prospective students and the admissions and enrollment space. But I really hope that we help elevate all of higher education to help people see the importance and the impact it has and how it's a driver of so much growth and progress. And I think if we really communicate that well and if we bring more people into the fold, we open up the conversation, we make it more diverse, we engage more communities in philanthropy for higher education. At the same time, helping people see the value -- yes, the educational experience, but the research and all the work that takes place at all the amazing land grants across the country. I hope that fundraising is part of the movement here that really reestablishes the importance and the greatness of higher education and increases the accessibility to everyone.

Colleen: Thank you, Justin. All right, Lori, thoughts on the future and how we can get ahead.

Lori: Well, as we were talking about AI and so much technology, there's one thing, at least for now, that AI is always going to be missing, and it's going to be that personal component. So maybe potentially looking as we go into the future of fundraising, whether it's universities or any kind of fundraising, is going less from a dollar-centric approach to more of a human-centric approach. Increased storytelling, increased tapping into the rich history that most universities already have. So just focusing on a little bit of that human-centric approach and a little less on the dollar in and of itself. I think that would be my biggest suggestion moving into this next season, especially as you're addressing different generations and different demographics and understanding their motivations towards giving.

Colleen: Thank you, Lori. All right, Catherine, thoughts on the future when it comes to our endowments and how we can get ahead.

Catherine: Two things really. One is transparency -- transparency for the trustees stewarding the endowment, transparency inside the organization, as well as transparency with donors. If the stewards of the endowment have a window into what's happening on the development side and vice versa, so that the two are really connected when they're talking to donors, especially as the other panelists mentioned, this increasingly political climate around giving to universities. Having that transparency of what's going on between the two organizations is critical. The other one is storytelling. But I think there's a component to the storytelling around how the investments are being managed and whether or not it makes sense to spend more of the endowment. The growth of university endowments has been 325 to 450 percent over the last 30 years. And we know the names of some of the very large mega endowments -- they're upwards of $41 billion and they could essentially fund the entire first year for many freshmen. So the question is, if an endowment is earning on average 9% but they're spending only 5%, are we spending enough? Will donors look at that and say, you guys have so much money, why am I giving to this general pot? Why don't I further restrict it? Which again creates other problems. So I think as the stewards of the endowment, as the development committee, should we be showing our donors that we are spending more, that we are taking the profits from the endowment and putting them back towards the university in a very meaningful way.

Colleen: Thank you so much, Catherine. All right. With that, we have reached the end of our panel. I want to give a huge thank you to our panelists. I hope you'll have a nice rest of your day.

Lori: Hi, everyone. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this panel discussion regarding Fuel for the Future, fundraising strategies for higher ed institutions. If you enjoyed our show, please take a moment to leave us a review. You can find us on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Don't forget to subscribe for more great content. And if you're a fan of video, check us out on YouTube. Until next time, happy fundraising.