With a massive AD hire upcoming, I think it’s a good idea to evaluate where we are, what’s going well, and what’s not.
Most of the higher ups at the school probably don’t read this page, but we know a few of them do. So if someone with leverage were to read this, let’s be productive: What would you like to see, and what needs to change? We all obviously want to win, but the “how” is the question.
For me personally, I’d like to see a movement toward long term sustainability. We don’t have history and tradition. We have to catch donors young, and find ways to keep them around. Long time fans have been nickle, and dimed, and price increased, and mandatory donationed to death. We have to find a way to bring in a new crowd and new money. Of the people I graduated and slept in tents outside Halton arena, none are currently donors. We all see each other from time to time, but there was never a real effort to keep us around if we didn’t donate enough money. The last 30 years I think we’ve run off more fans than we’ve brought in. If we could even get a simple way to donate 10 bucks and just get people on a list serve, I think that would be helpful.
I’d also like to see ticketing structure change. I know we are dependent on ticket revenue, but basketball has just crushed it’s own attendance. If we start selling out, it’s easier to win. When you win people donate more. I think we’ve almost attacked this problem in reverse.
First and foremost, we need to win in Football and Basketball. New funds need to be directed there.
Better donor engagement. For years, I’ve donated money and never heard a peep from anyone in the AD unless I’m the one initiating contact. Dropping a change to the pregame hospitality 3 weeks before basketball season was a kick in the nuts. To be asked to pay for a third pass after donating the amount of money that up until then was enough for my whole family was a crappy thing to do. And worse, to find out that a bunch of other people were told in August sucks. I’ll harp on that until the cows come home. As someone who has steadily increased donations over the years, even as others had stopped, it’s a horrible way to keep me engaged. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
On that note, you can’t yank a benefit then turn around and ask for more money like the $490/$4,900 fundraiser. Quit pissing off the donors you have left.
And like you noted, new donors need to be brought in. Corporate sponsors should make up a larger portion of the new donor base, but I totally agree that the base of individuals also needs to increase.
Shift the Junior 49er program back to the Athletic Foundation and let kids start earning priority points off their membership. Some of those kids will become students, and then alums, and hopefully donors.
I honestly don’t have the answers, but winning cures a lot of problems too. In hoops, I became a STH during the 1997 season (have been every year since), so I experienced some glory years when 6k in Halton was a “where is everyone?” moment but now feels like “oh, nice crowd” when we probably only get 3k for an average game. Price increases coupled to poor performance is a nasty combo.
It’s easier to capture long-term donors, though it’s my opinion only, when performance matches expectations…20 years of athletic futility in FB and BB is soul crushing for fans and donors.
I truly believe 49er Club folks work their butts off to raise money…but they’re like salmon swimming upstream running the grizzly gauntlet…others may have different opinions.
I do believe, however, that Gaber is committed to Athletics in a way Dubois never was, so I feel confident that the search is going to be conducted in a way that addresses the concerns related to fund raising in particular in this new NIL era.
Raise. Money. That has to be priority #1. Everything feeds off this. We need a leader who can sell a vision and get the CLT community to buy in and invest - before the winning. Chirs Fuller told me the problem with Charlotte is our donor base is just too small and too young and you can’t rush that.
Coaching hires, younger alumni, winning and everything else comes after that. Gimmick hires and ticket prices and mandatory donations have all been just attempted band aids on the lack of fund raising from new sources. Yes we need to do better with younger alumni, but they arent going to turn the ship right now. We need to grow them so they are there in 20 years.
What I am not certain of is what the profile needs to be. I think being well versed in college athletics is less important these days. Get an assoc AD that can be the college administrator and then get an AD that has pro level experience around sponsorships. At least that is what I am thinking now.
I’d almost tear down fundraising from the ground up. Rebrand it. There’s only about 1500 people left anyway, and quite a few of those are 49 dollar donors. Likely need organizational change anyway with that in the era of NIL.
To a degree they have internally with Beth Kriglers team taking over. Will be interesting to see if new leader is ok with fund raising bridging academics and athletics or if they want it to be separate. I see advantages both ways.
We were all young alumni once. I graduated 20 years ago. The excuse that our alumni base is young is fading into the distance. I’m about to turn 46. While young to many folks here, everyone I graduated with is hitting prime earning years, and little has been done to turn those prime earnings into donations.
Agree - I can’t remember his stats but it was something like 20% of alumni on average nationally donate to athletics. So you need a large alumni base hitting ages where they can donate. When I went to Charlotte in 1991 our enrollment was like 15k. We just weren’t graduating huge numbers of folks so the 20% (or whatever the stat was) just isn’t as big as what 20% will be now that we are graduating far bigger classes or the size of the alumni base in 20 years. So yeah I am not young anymore and neither are you but our classes sizes just aren’t that big either, young in instition years not individual years. Imagine the base in another 15-20 years with current enrollment numbers. I don’t think its an excuse - it’s just calling out the numbers. We also have done a piss poor job and getting the young alums we do have engaged. I have always been amazed when I take the ambulance to community events like open streets or the SP parade how many alums I run into that don’t have anything to do with the school but want to talk to me about whats happening. So there is interest.
Just some quick math. There were 4,350 seniors in 2005. If 20% of them donated to athletics, that would be 870 from that class alone. How many active 49er Club members are there? I’m guessing under 3,000.
I have no idea if that % was right. I think last I saw active members was under 2500. I think its a combo of things. Bad alumni management and numbers added terrible performance. Throw in lack of football for most of us during those years (key driver at most schools), constant league shifts and lack of rivals, poor marketing, and competition with the greater Charlotte area. When raising prices and required donations I know some folks have said for this price I can do X. Thats not necessarily going to be a things at all schools. Throw in the NIL and portal stuff and its a harder sell now than ever. I dropped my basketball tickets after 30 years last year. Felt weird, but just didn’t feel like it was worth the time and money. Would have helped if someone in my family wanted to go with me too.
I remember reading in the paper that when the board approved us for starting football President Bowles told our chancellor that we needed to get the city of Charlotte behind our football program in order to be successful. I believe he was 100% correct! I know we compete with other professional sports in the city. But, this is still Division 1 football, and in a pretty solid conference! Plus, we have so many alumni living in the metro area.
We need an athletic director who is going to be constantly engaged with city politicians and business leaders to help promote not just football, but all our programs. This will create more of a demand for tickets, and get business donations! If we are going to compete in this NIL world of college sports, we are going to have to get those donations from business.
Honestly it’s not much different from when were hiring Hill. I’m not going to try to rank them because they’re all extremely important and intertwined.
**increase fundraising
**win more in fball and bball
**increase merchandise availability and quality
Well a few things have shifted. Conference affiliation is much better and with it TV coverage, logo and marketing are improved - can still get better. AD has limited influence over merchandise availability and quality, thats mostly retailers. We have done what we can with making the mark easier and cheaper to replicate. Totally agree with your first 2 though!
I am just not sure what additional influence the AD can have over merchandise. Not that I think its great. It needs to improve for sure. Winning I think would help that immensely.