We are bragging about setting records with donations from 2800 people. Estimated to have 170k alumni, that’s about 1.5% engagement.
When I graduated that number was 2200 or 2500, not exactly sure which. We had 120k alumni. We added 50k alumni and a measly few hundred donors.
Our leaders are complete failures and they pat themselves on the back. This is what not holding yourself accountable looks like. Good gig. Go to a ton of games, fly to national championships, conference in Vegas, half a million dollar salary, and produce absolutely nothing the general public cares about. Dream job.
You do realize that the younger alums do not give as much as older alums. That means that as the University gets larger that the percentage that is able to give endowed gifts becomes less. In this case it doesn’t really matter what the total number is, but only what the total amount given is. If one hundred people each give a million dollars the absolute numbers of givers is moot. It’s all about the absolute $$$.
That’s the most small minded way to think about it possible.
If we had 25% alumni engagement donating a measly $200 each we’d more than double donations to $8.5MM.
Relying on “large” donors is a losing proposition. In this case, large is a pretty big stretch considering the total dollars here. You need to engage more people and show them that they are getting something for their money. Presumably accountability leading to wins leading to pride in revenue sports.
2800 people? That’s it?
I would love to see numbers for our peers in the G5 cause that just seems ludicrous.
Either the entire college sports donorship (market, thing, normality, I have no idea what to call it) is WAY smaller than I expect or that is some inferior performance by our athletic foundation.
I would love to know what percentage of our alumni donate to the university.
Geez, I would expect us to get 2800 donors if we were playing D3 sports.
That’s just pathetic.
What percentage of those of us “bitching” about it are “Endowed Donors”? One can set up Endowments in a number of ways and it doesn’t take away from your heirs. It’s not that difficult.
Small minded? I don’t think so. More like realistic. The old adage is 20% give 80% of the $$$. That still stands. Go to any church and audit their books. It is the older 20% that does the giving. Sorry to burst your bubble.
I feel you but this is like 1.5% engagement according to the poster above.
I still think it’s pathetic.
The story of 49er athletics is lots of folks bitching and complaining but not many stepping up to help.
Mikes biggest failure has been on the money side. If you can’t fund raise you can’t pay coaches and staffs and market and typically you have to have the money before winning. That means selling a vision. Mikes has done a way better job of engaging city leaders and heavy hitters and being public at games at tailgates than his predecessor but it hasn’t yielded any significant results. We just keep raising donor levels and ticket prices.
clt would like an iptay model, they have 21,000 donors likely giving the minimum amount
I remember back in the good ol’ days when we could make fun of IPTAY by saying it stood for:
But no denying it’s been an effective CU fundraising tool for 90+ years.
No those donors haven’t made any provisions in their will so their $40mm doesn’t count. 
It also does not help we are tapping the same base of people for collectives, capital giving and normal giving. For a base that sucks at giving and leadership that sucks at fundraising we cant lift that much.
The hill is getting steeper too. Folks like me that are disengaging due to changes in the landscape. I’ve talked to other GJ level + donors that are close to throwing in the towel on it all.
Would not surprise me if half of the IPTAY members are non alumni. App has a harder time raising money than we do.
Do we do any engagement with new alums? We’ve relied on the same old donors (like me) for decades instead of cultivating alums over time.
You need Walmart and deep pocket non alumni fans to compete. You don’t get those without winning in the 2 major revenue sports. 
& 
dilemma.
I don’t think comparing us to Clem and his son is useful. They have a waiting list to get into better seats at their 81k stadium and fight for national titles. That’s apples to nuclear missiles.
For the average alum who donates, they are all waiting on winning in football and basketball. Yes, basketball did well last year, but not making the ncaa tournament is a season that just seems average at best. Football is the major cog in all this. Win there and the corporate folks will want their brand associated with Charlotte. Until then Mike Hill has to convince people to invest in what can be, not actual results. It is a tough sell, but that, imo, is your number one priority. Without the $25 million dollar matching offer from the state, correct me if I’m wrong, we could be looking at no tower or additional seats for football. That’s a bad look for Hill. You need influential people in that position. It just feels like we are sputtering along.
Our budget is plenty big enough to be competetive at our level. We just don’t allocate well and we’ve made abysmal hiring decisions in revenue sports. Decisions that - shocker - have lead to exactly the type results you’d expect shitty hires to lead to. It’s almost like it’s by design.
Our revenue in 2022 was 41 mil. That puts us slightly ahead of Marshall, FAU, FIU and Buffalo and behind Hawaii, Nevada GA St, Coastal, New Mexico, Cal Davis, North Texas, VCU, Utah State, Wyoming and 13 mil behind ECU. And 21 mil of our 41 is student fees. Ranked by revenue we are #79. For comparison the top 49 schools are above 100M, top 22 above 150M, top 5 above 200M.
To get to AAC average we need to increase that to at least where ECU is. To actually compete in the AAC we need to get above 60. Right now we are at the bottom of the league a long with many of our CUSA transplants.
Should we be better than we have been? Yes. Do we have enough to really compete in the AAC? Especially where we now also have to also buy talent? Absolutely not. Everything comes down to financial resources more so now than ever. The days of sustained winning on a shoestring budgets are gone.
Honestly I don’t know how you sell anyone on investing in this given that any momentum any given year will likely be fleeting since rosters will get destroyed year to year. How do you convince any new larger donor or corporate donor to be a part of something so unknown year to year? It used to be at our level success would mean finding a new coach. Now it means finding a new team. We didnt even dance last year - we just had a solid year and boom the team is gone.
As a recent alum I have not had a single person reach out to me about anything. I know we are not a professional organization but I have been at minumum cold-called by every sports team I have bought tickets to before in the area