The third of Richardson and Basinger’s laws of fundraising was:
Law #3: Effective fundraising is a result from telling your story. Positive results only come from telling your story. However, telling your story once is not enough. You must retell it many times, in many different ways. In addition, the story you tell must be the real story, not a pie in the sky fairy tale, that has no basis in reality.
This post will consider how this fits into the processes of student recruitment, retention, and alumni development.
Recruitment: Effective recruitment is the result of effectively telling your story. You must convince prospective students that they will fit into the campus environment. The prospective students must see themselves as an integral part of the campus. Many prospective students want to see other individuals on campus that look like and act them. The institution must show students similar students, or be prepared to convince students that they can still fit into the campus setting. To do this, you must tell your campus story both in pictures and words.
In today’s world, static pictures may not be enough. You may need “moving pictures.” To reach today’s active, visual students, you may need to resort to active, video modes of story telling. However, in any video, the base story line is still of great importance. You must have a good, realistic story to tell. You can’t be successful in recruiting enough students by using smoke and mirrors. However, just a great story is not enough. You must tell it well by using an excellent video.
If prospective students do not feel comfortable before they apply, it is highly unlikely that they will complete the application process. However, the application is not the end of the process. It is only a milepost along the path. The institution must continue to convince the student that this institution is the college for them. The institution must listen to the new questions, and answer them promptly, properly, and effectively.
Retention: Effective retention is the result of effectively retelling, and telling your story anew. The institution must remind the student what it has done for the student in the past. It must keep the good experiences front and center in the minds of students. But, it must also point to the future, and let the students know what’s coming next. Students are people. Most people are more comfortable with the familiar. The only surprises that are welcomed are good surprises.
One other point needs to be emphasized here. If you stretched the truth in your story telling to prospective students, it will come back to bite you here. If students believe that you “lied” to them once, it is much more difficult to regain their trust. In addition, if students leave your institution with a bad taste in their mouths, they will tell that story to others. Overriding that type of publicity is extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible.
Alumni Development: Just because alumni were part of the institutional at one time and knew part of the institutional story, the institution can’t assume that they know everything about the institution. No one person can know the whole story. In addition, if an institution is alive, it is always changing. The story is new each day and each year. the institution must keep telling its evolving story.
Alumni are people. People like to be proud of their accomplishments and the accomplishments of their group. Institutions need to keep alumni informed of the good things that have happened at their Alma Mater. Pump up the alumni and they will help the institution tell its story.
Leave a Reply