Interesting in learning about the Best University Donor Recognition Walls?
Is your University looking for a University Donor Recognition Wall?
Today, most universities are looking to enhance their donor recruitment efforts, while simultaneously looking for ways to cut their operating budgets. Why? Because at the exact same time the cost of education has been rising dramatically owing to the rapid growth and advancement of technology (the amount and the cost of equipment required to, for example, learn to perform surgery today, is massively greater than it was even thirty years ago), states have been aggressively slashing the funding they provide for post-secondary education. While many of these budget cuts were necessitated by the recession, the sad reality is that most states have done little or nothing to restore the lost funding now that the recession is over.
• “Forty-eight states — all except Alaska and North Dakota — are spending less per student than they did before the downturn.
• States cut funding deeply after the recession. The average state is spending $2,026 or 23 percent less per student than before the recession.
• Per-student funding in Arizona, Louisiana, and South Carolina is down by more than 40 percent since the start of the recession (Louisiana is among the eight states that continued to cut funding over the last year).
All of the above leaves universities in a bind; unless they can effectively recruit donors, they will be required to either cut back on services and research, or raise tuition fees at a time when most families cannot afford them as it is.
One of the best ways to accrue more donors for your university, is by inspiring your audience. By thanking your existing donors for their contribution. By engaging and informing your visitors about your university or school. By designing and installing an interactive University donor recognition wall that will tell your school story along with your vision and mission. Interactive displays replace the standard static system which consists of endless rows of engraved plagues by using a dynamic, touch interactive interface that can display photos or even full profiles of donors, video stories about your organization on a time-line, and other multimedia content. Telling your university story in multimedia will inspire potential new donors and students alike.
While digital donor walls have what appears to be a high up front cost, they pay for themselves over time, as once one is set up, all staff has to do to keep it up to date is enter updated information using a user friendly content management system. For universities, which typically have many, many donors, not having to pay for engraved plaques for each donor can add up to a substantial savings over the years. And, of course, it’s faster and easier to implement a digital donor recognition system; you don’t have to send the information about each donor away, have a plaque made up, engraved, sent back, etc. You just upload the information into your own system and voila, you’re done—something busy university staff will most certainly appreciate.
There is no more embarrassing than missing the name of a major benefactor, misspelling his/her name or not mentioning a manager, or a major event. To avoid that, ensure that the Interactive Donor Recognition Wall at your University is equipped with an easy to use, content management tool that will allow people within your organization keep all the content including list of donors, bios, text, images, videos, etc, up to date.