Engaging Former Student-Athletes in Giving Back
Ryan Diem play on the field and actions off it led him to being named 2008 Outstanding Young Alumnus at NIU.
Typically a sore spot for most development offices, former student-athlete giving has historically been poor at most schools. This occurs for many reasons. Perhaps the student-athlete did not have the exprience they felt they deserved, perhaps their coach is no longer at the school, or perhaps they haven’t been as successful as they hoped. Yet for most, it comes down to their experience at the university and how they view their time spent on campus.
Recently some headway has been made in former student-athlete gifts. Julius Peppers made a six-figure donation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill earlier this year, earmarking his donation to the Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
During this past weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting Ohio State’s campus and listening to various athletics department staff members speak to the my MSA class and answer questions. Pat Chun, Deputy Senior Associate Athletics Director of External Relations, offered some advice on the subject of student-athlete giving:
The recent gifts by student-athletes are fantastic. But, one of the main problems in my opinion is that former student-athletes are not being asked to give.
Former female student-athletes are an especially neglected group. We all know that many top female Exec’s are former student-athletes and a surprising number are not even approached by athletics development. Thoughts?
Thanks for the comment, Dr. Lawrence, I think you bring up a good point.
To address your comments about former female student athletes: There was a post on the National Collegiate Scouting Association blog that discussed the mentioned correlation between senior women executives and athletics. The site quotes an article written by former WNBA player Val Whiting that focuses on the characteristics shared by student-athletes and executives:
“Companies seek employees who can stand out in pressure situations, demonstrate leadership, and react positively to the instruction of superiors…It is no coincidence that more than 80 percent of the female executives at Fortune 500 companies described themselves as former athletes”
It is hard for me to speak personally about whether or not these former student-athletes are neglected when it comes to athletic fund-raising, but I trust what you say is true. To that fact, I say that approaching former female student-athletes (and all female alumni for that matter) will certainly be a key success factor for athletics development departments in the future. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, female students make up 58 percent of undergrad students at US colleges. In addition, the Women’s Sports Foundation website reports that women make up 57 percent of collegiate student-athletes. It is also important to note that both of those figures have risen dramatically since the 1970s.
These statistics tell me that the dynamic of university donor bases are changing. As the group of female students from the last 20 years continue to elevate themselves in the professional world, their support dollars will become more and more valuable to college athletic programs. I would also expect that the first group of universities that create an initiative to engage former female student-athletes will have a leg up on the rest of the country.
Thanks for bringing this topic to our attention, I think it is likely that we will dedicate a full post to this sometime in the near future.
http://blog.ncsasports.org/tag/female-executives/
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i21/21a03601.htm
http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/General/123/2008-Statistics–Gender-Equity-in-High-School-and-College-Athletics-Most-Recent-Participation–Budge.aspx
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[...] this year, we posted on former student-athletes giving back to their institutions. For the most part, these examples were of players who spent a long time at the school, allowing [...]