Hats Off to Donors

I wanted to share an idea I had in my role as Sr. Director of Development and External Affairs at Oregon’s Law School. In order for the idea to make sense, I want to provide some background.

I am relatively new in this position, having come across the country from to take the job a little more than 1.5 years ago.  My initial assessment was that, on the whole, the law school’s alums were not engaged – and that was NOT their fault, it was ours. By engaged, I don’t mean just not philanthropic, I mean involved, interested and aware. One part of the problem was that my office ignored the current students. While it is true these individuals will be unlikely to make a six-figure gift in my tenure at the law school, if not my lifetime, my assessment told me we needed to start changing the culture. My office needed to start engaging with this group, connecting them with alums who felt good about the school and helping them to understand the impact private giving has on the school.

Thus, we’ve hatched “Hats Off to Donors,” which is to be a student-focused celebration of our donors, and the impact these donors have made on the Oregon Law experience. Amid the festivities, we are planning to share exactly how these donors have made a difference. As part of this event, we are asking students to sign thank you notes to all those who have donated in the past year (there were more than 1,000 individual gifts).

We need this event to be successful, which means we need to ensure attendance. We have about 440 law students, and I want at least 25% of them there. So, that means free food and drink. Because we have a limited budget, we also need to ensure that we get the count for catering correct, so people need to RSVP. The problem is that students don’t RSVP. Trust me. They don’t.

As it turns out, our students need a bit more incentive than free food and drink.  So, because I have extra money in my budget (I’m very frugal…or cheap), and because I am personally passionate about reducing our student’s debt-load, I wanted to give away money. As it turns out, it’s nearly impossible to do…unless I hire them for a special project. To hire someone for a special project, I have to have some sort of formal application process – something to which I think students are proverbial allergic. So, how do I make it easy for students to apply? Here’s what I came up with!

I am offering 4 awards of $500. To be eligible, I will ask our students to explain on Twitter in 140 characters or less what they would be willing and able to do to help us thank our donors.  The tweet will need to include @Oregon_Law and #hatsoff.  I asked them to be creative, and said we will choose 4 student tweeted suggestions and they will each be given $500 in exchange for implementing their idea(s) about thanking donors.  Oh, and they have to be present to win.

Tune in next week for the results!