Bob In USA Today: Smart-Thinking Senior Gift Programs Are Stopping All The "Stuff" It's not about benches and fountains anymore in senior gift programs. Read Bob's quote in USA Today about evolving ideas for unrestricted senior gifts. Go To The USA Today Article
Annual Giving Vs. Giving Annually Fundraising and Philanthropy Magazine Australia August, 2007 Here is Bob's article from the August, 2007 issue of Fundraising and Philanthropy Magazine in Australia. Download A pdf Copy of the Article
CASE Releases New Bob Burdenski
"Online Annual Giving" CD-Rom...
Audio and handouts from Bob's 2006 presentation. Order It Here
Bob's Monthly E-Newsletter Archives
Review and download pdf past issues of Bob's monthly "Latest Departures" annual giving newsletter. Click here to review past issues.
Bob Burdenski Online Speaker Series CD-Roms Available From CASE
Online Annual Giving Success: On November 18, 2004, Bob hosted a CASE Online Speaker Series program that featured examples of online annual giving fundraising. Joining Bob were Lorna Lodholz, director of annual giving at North Carolina State University, Shawn Dailey, associate director of annual giving at Kenyon College, and Barbara Daines, associate director of alumni relations for the Stanford Business School Alumni Association.
More than 200 schools, colleges and universities participated in the seminar - one of the largest CASE web seminars in their history. The audio and handouts from the seminar are available from CASE at their web site here.
Innovations in Annual Giving: On April 14, 2004 Bob hosted a CASE Online Seminar that featured excerpts from the book Innovations in Annual Giving. His featured guests were Laurent DeJanvry from the University of California at Berkeley, and Mari Aylin from St. Olaf College, who both discussed alumni surveys they've used to understand annual giving behavior at their schools.
More than 100 schools, colleges and universities participated in the seminar. The audio and handouts from the seminar are available from CASE at their web site here.
2nd Annual Giving Book To Feature "International Departures"
Bob's second book for the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education will feature innovative annual giving program ideas from schools outside the United States. The featured schools will include the University of Durham (UK), INSEAD (France), The University of Warwick (UK), the University of Melbourne (Australia), The American School of London (UK), McGill University (Canada), the University of Portland, and the Indian Institute of Technology (India).
For many countries, annual giving in support of education is an entirely new concept, requiring focused strategies that effectively make the case for gift support and instill in students and alumni a giving culture. Can schools in the U.S. learn some lessons from their colleagues abroad? The book will be completed in 2006.
Innovations in
Annual Giving:
Ten Departures
That Worked
by Robert A. Burdenski
Published by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Annual giving is the foundation of most successful fund-raising programs, yet many institutions don’t have a strategy in place for turning “interested bystanders” into “impassioned philanthropists” and instead rely on anecdote rather than data to make important decisions. A new book published by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, Innovations in Annual Giving: Ten Departures that Worked, profiles 10 annual giving programs that consistently gain first-time donors, cultivate loyalty, and persuade existing donors to increase their gifts over time.
Annual giving programs are institutions’ yearly solicitations of alumni and other friends and supporters. Aside from the total dollars raised during these appeals, the percent of alumni who donate is widely considered to be one measure of alumni loyalty.
Annual giving has long been thought to be the first level of the “Donor Giving Pyramid” because it is the basis of other, larger gifts, Burdenski writes. However, the traditional pyramid overlooks the stages that annual donors go through on their way to becoming major donors. Burdenski has developed an “Annual Giving Pyramid” to express the steps through which annual donors progress:
- Ongoing Institutional Affinity - Learned Culture - Initial Gift Support - Sustained Giving Relationship - Increased Donor Value - Qualified Major Gift Prospects
"Innovations in Annual Giving will provide those managing mature annual funds in the UK with a host of ideas and a broad focus to consider how they may wish to take their programmes forward." Hamish Stewart Head of the UCL Annual Fund University College London
"The book was a quick read with lots of ideas to get us brainstorming. It made us realize that good programs do not happen overnight and that a long-range plan is needed, especially in bringing along our alumni giving participation." Sue Bunning University of Southern Indiana USI Foundation
"...Bob Burdenski 'gets it'...his whip-smart book is framed by this sensibility and the great ideas inside will take you 'inside the looking glass' to applications in your own program." Larry Lafferty Director of Development, Annual Giving Programs & Special Campaigns Ohio University
"A great mix of proven best practices and new, creative approaches to annual giving. Some excellent examples of new initiatives that have had a measurable impact on fund-raising results." Maureen Coleman Annual Fund Director University of Rhode Island
"Besides the furor of new ideas it has generated, the book itself has become invaluable when approaching the many different academic units that we support and offering alternative options to the standard approaches." Laura Lucas Tim McLaughlin Mizzou Annual Fund University of Missouri
“An institution inspires feelings of affinity in its donors, teaches a philanthropic culture, and instills a progressively loyal and generous giving habit,” Burdenski writes.
Burdenski focuses on annual giving programs at the Universities of Iowa, Rochester, Michigan, California at Berkeley, and Southern California; Kansas State, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon Universities; Reed College; and Phillips Exeter Academy. The programs were chosen because they all have been successful and have characteristics that can be modeled by other institutions.
Kansas State University’s program, even in this high-tech age, continues to rely on a yearly phonathon manned by hundreds of student volunteers. The program is legendary for the loyalty it has inspired: Most recently, the phonathon raised nearly $2 million from more than 20,000 alumni donors. “For institutions that face limitations on automation and other resources, or are simply looking for a good profitable time, the K-State program is a role model,” Burdenski writes. The University of Rochester, on the other hand, is an example of how annual giving programs can be integrated with the Internet, moving beyond simply providing a giving page on the university’s Web site to full-scale solicitation of many alumni via e-mail. “The Rochester Fund now sends e-mail messages that provide donors with periodic updates on how their gifts are being used. The kind of stewardship that used to be cost-prohibitive is now easily and inexpensively available via e-mail,” Burdenski writes.
Innovations in Annual Giving is likely to help elevate the image of annual giving programs, writes Adrienne A. Rulnick, senior director of development and alumni relations at New York University, in the book’s foreword. “Bob reminds us that exemplary annual fund programs succeed in turning donors into philanthropists identified and primed for major gift cultivation. When these goals are achieved, annual giving attains a position of respect and influence within an institution, making a critical difference.”
