C/O 1968

GTLorenzo

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,466
Yeah none of that money goes to sports, which I'm cool with. Let people spend their money how they like. However, there does seem to be a lot of confusion in general about how the different funds are split up and maybe the institute needs to be a lot more clear and transparent about that.

And none of that is going to go to the AA sadly

The AA guards their alumni list like it's their life blood.
They will never share it w gtaa.

The school gets tons of cash from research.


These are all factually incorrect. I was on my 25th reunion committee last year. The "big check" they present to Bud includes donations made to Roll Call, AT Fund, various colleges and programs from approximately 18 months prior to Homecoming to around 6 months after and can include multi year pledges and a portion of estate planning pledges. This also specifically includes donations to the AT Fund. So, this is not just a one time donation of $17 million. It is a multi-year amount that includes multi year pledges and other long term pledges, such as estate planning. That makes the check look bigger and better, but the event is also used to increase support and both one time and long term donations and pledges. Since I was on the committee, I used the AT Fund as a way to get classmates to donate to help the athletic programs, if I knew they were interested in them.

Definitely agree that we could do a better job with fundraising in general and athletics specifically.
 

Oakland

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,201
Location
Georgia
These are all factually incorrect. I was on my 25th reunion committee last year. The "big check" they present to Bud includes donations made to Roll Call, AT Fund, various colleges and programs from approximately 18 months prior to Homecoming to around 6 months after and can include multi year pledges and a portion of estate planning pledges. This also specifically includes donations to the AT Fund. So, this is not just a one time donation of $17 million. It is a multi-year amount that includes multi year pledges and other long term pledges, such as estate planning. That makes the check look bigger and better, but the event is also used to increase support and both one time and long term donations and pledges. Since I was on the committee, I used the AT Fund as a way to get classmates to donate to help the athletic programs, if I knew they were interested in them.

Definitely agree that we could do a better job with fundraising in general and athletics specifically.

Thank you for explaining that and thank you for what you did regarding donations. Can you give a guess of the percentage of your classmates that are interested in the athletic programs?
 

GTLorenzo

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,466
Thank you for explaining that and thank you for what you did regarding donations. Can you give a guess of the percentage of your classmates that are interested in the athletic programs?

So without the info at my fingertips, here's what I recall and a little about the process in general.

We received an email in the Spring of the year prior to our reunion year asking us to be on the committee. I presume this is based on prior donations, volunteering, years giving to Roll Call, AT Fund, etc., but not totally sure about that. In the Fall of the year prior to our reunion year, the 25th, 40th and 50th committees meet for two days on campus. We meet all together at first and hear from folks from the Alumni Association, we're given rosters of our class and a GT notebook (with yellow instead of gold trim, don't get me started....). Then Bud comes and gives a talk and presentation and we have a tour of campus.

The next day we break up into the various reunion committees and they give us stats on prior committees have done as far as monetary goals and participation percentages. For the 25th over the prior 10 years or so, the totals had been around $600,000 to $1.5 million as I recall (could be off a little, would have to go back and look). The highest year there was someone on the committee who was either very well connected or had made an early fortune and that was clearly the reason why they did so well as he made a big pledge and/or contacted like everyone in the class. The percentages of the class giving was VERY low on average for the reunion, somewhere around 14% to 16% as I recall. We all thought, "well that should be easy to beat" as all you had to do was to get someone to give $1 and they counted toward the percentage figure. We had a goal of $1 or $1.2 million and 20% participation. The Alumni Association people told us that would be tough.

Well, it was much harder than I imagined. We broke down the class by who you knew (from fraternity/sorority, clubs, majors, hometowns, high schools, etc.) and reached out to those people to donate. The lack of response really surprised me. I've been going to Tech athletic events since I was about 5 years old and have been giving to Roll Call since my Freshman year (bought those years back after I graduated), AT Fund since graduation, football and basketball tickets since graduation, etc. It's in my blood. The response I got from the people I contacted was minimal from a dollar perspective and worse, in my mind, in just a general response perspective. Now at 25 years you are mid to late 40s, likely have kids, maybe in or on their way to college, trying to save for retirement, etc., so I get it, but it was tough. We were in school for the 1990 National Championship and the 1990 Final Four. Lots of excitement on campus, but in the end, we raised around $900,000-$950,000 and had around 16-17% participation (again, off the top of my head), with some late donations.

In addition to my normal donations, I did a Roll Call donation and a 5 year pledge to AT. Nothing major, but more than I typically do, which counted along with my other AT Fund, Roll Call and other random donations given in that 18 month prior/6-12 month post Homecoming time frame.

In the end, I was really shocked at how low overall participation was. Maybe it was just that the 25th year is an odd time with people still working hard, kids, trying to save money for retirement, etc. 40th and 50th were clearly much higher and always are. I want to say 40th is usually around $3-$5 million and 50th is more like $5-$20 million (?), which make sense as all of these people are at retirement or have retired and are more likely to do larger, estate donations. I figured 20% participation would be easy, but it was not at all. I guess that is just Georgia Tech. Raising large donations is probably easier than small, but raising athletic funds is even tougher. I know there is a stat that GT's percentage of alumni donating to Roll Call is higher than any other school (or was at one time), but perhaps that is more older alums and not younger ones?

Whatever the case, we should work harder as an institute from both the Roll Call and AT Fund perspective to increase the participation percentage and amounts. My assumption is that this is just going to get worse as the current students seem less inclined to attend games and likely less inclined to give money. But, we'll see.

Hope that helps in understanding the process and where the totals are derived.
 

iceeater1969

Helluva Engineer
Messages
8,916
These are all factually incorrect. I was on my 25th reunion committee last year. The "big check" they present to Bud includes donations made to Roll Call, AT Fund, various colleges and programs from approximately 18 months prior to Homecoming to around 6 months after and can include multi year pledges and a portion of estate planning pledges. This also specifically includes donations to the AT Fund. So, this is not just a one time donation of $17 million. It is a multi-year amount that includes multi year pledges and other long term pledges, such as estate planning. That makes the check look bigger and better, but the event is also used to increase support and both one time and long term donations and pledges. Since I was on the committee, I used the AT Fund as a way to get classmates to donate to help the athletic programs, if I knew they were interested in them.

Definitely agree that we could do a better job with fundraising in general and athletics specifically.

You say that the AA shares its list of members with Gtaa?
Please give me source ( no name) so I can correct mine.

I will tell my source .
Gtaa Heisman contact

gtaa will call rep at usf gate 20 years at gtaa.
AA greeter at gt conference center and hotel - 18 home coming. AA lady said we keep that list in confidence +they dont need our list because they have big active donors.


The gtaa people at GTAA dont want the list for more begging. They want it to COMMUNICATE gt athletics ( tennis girls just finished in top 4 !) LOTS OF SMALL TOUCHES WITH NO BEGGING Increases awareness, etc.
 

GTLorenzo

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,466
You say that the AA shares its list of members with Gtaa?
Please give me source ( no name) so I can correct mine.

I will tell my source .
Gtaa Heisman contact

gtaa will call rep at usf gate 20 years at gtaa.
AA greeter at gt conference center and hotel - 18 home coming. AA lady said we keep that list in confidence +they dont need our list because they have big active donors.


The gtaa people at GTAA dont want the list for more begging. They want it to COMMUNICATE gt athletics ( tennis girls just finished in top 4 !) LOTS OF SMALL TOUCHES WITH NO BEGGING Increases awareness, etc.


I don't think I said that they share their list, but rather they count the donations made to AT in the Alumni Association totals. We were just given a list from the Alumni Association of graduates in our year and nothing that had anything to do with the Athletic Association. I assume they get their financials/contributions, but I have no idea if they actually get or share their roster of active or inactive donors. There must be some access to files, but I don't know what that access is.
 

iceeater1969

Helluva Engineer
Messages
8,916
I don't think I said that they share their list, but rather they count the donations made to AT in the Alumni Association totals. We were just given a list from the Alumni Association of graduates in our year and nothing that had anything to do with the Athletic Association. I assume they get their financials/contributions, but I have no idea if they actually get or share their roster of active or inactive donors. There must be some access to files, but I don't know what that access is.
Giving is seen as a Zero sum game by AA.

My wife writes for a consultanting company that conducts surveys and analyzes the data for Alumni giving.
 

Lavoisier

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
847
I was part of that class. About half of my donation is for Alexander Tharpe. That is rolled into the total. Can't speak for others but they count both funds in the total.

I was just basing what I said on the OP saying the $17million was for the Georgia Tech Foundation which is different from the AT Fund and isn't used to support athletics. I think they are using it to pay off the Biltmore purchase and other building costs.
 

g0lftime

Helluva Engineer
Messages
5,348
I was just basing what I said on the OP saying the $17million was for the Georgia Tech Foundation which is different from the AT Fund and isn't used to support athletics. I think they are using it to pay off the Biltmore purchase and other building costs.
They asked to include donations to the GT foundation and Alex-Tharpe when we made our pledges. They even included company matching in the totals. It would be interesting to know actual percentage of 17M that was pledged to Alex-Tharpe.
 

bke1984

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,143
They asked to include donations to the GT foundation and Alex-Tharpe when we made our pledges. They even included company matching in the totals. It would be interesting to know actual percentage of 17M that was pledged to Alex-Tharpe.
Good luck with that. There's not much mention of athletics in their mission statement

http://s2.gtf.gatech.edu/mission-statement
 
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