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Post by rgs318 on Jul 9, 2018 14:40:53 GMT -5
sader1970, I think that will be the spin. But HC will still be close to 50% (about 3% below last year).
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 9, 2018 17:32:22 GMT -5
BBC et al, In 2016-17, the number of alumni of record was 37, 130, and the number of alumni donors was 16,979. So even before all the hullabaloo about mascot and moniker, alumni giving was significantly below 50 percent. In 2017-18, the number of alumni of record is probably around 37,500. For those who overlooked my post, or perhaps have me on ignore, or need to see an optometrist, Alumni giving last year (2016-17) was 45.73 percent. www.holycross.edu/about-holy-cross/holy-cross-glancePerhaps, last year, the alumni were displeased that Mulledy got to stay, or that he was made to share a name, or that the honors for Fr. Brooks increased.
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 9, 2018 17:46:48 GMT -5
Phreek, not sure where you are getting your numbers but I just looked at a semi-official report.
Last year, 49.8% (which matches my recollection) and "rounded up" to 50%.
This year: 46.7%. So, a presumed 3.1% hit and no way to round that to 50%.
Alums Donors this year: 13,252 Last year: 14,304
$ This year: HC Fund $9,586,354 Last Year: $9,715,764
Other giving this year: $21,441,558 (Luth's? Smith?)
Total Giving this year: $31,297,912
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 9, 2018 17:51:47 GMT -5
Phreek, not sure where you are getting your numbers but I just looked at a semi-official report. Last year, 49.8% (which matches my recollection) and "rounded up" to 50%. This year: 46.7%. So, a presumed 3.1% hit and no way to round that to 50%. Alums Donors this year: 13,252 Last year: 14,304 $ This year: HC Fund $9,586,354 Last Year: $9,715,764 Other giving this year: $21,441,558 (Luth's? Smith?) Total Giving this year: $31,297,912 My numbers are from here. www.holycross.edu/about-holy-cross/holy-cross-glanceHoly Cross Alumni of Record 37,130Alumni donors 16,979Total Alumni Donations to the Annual Fund $10.4 million_________________________In the semi-official report, the number of alumni appears to be significantly undercounted. In 2016-17, the alumni donor percentage is 38.5 percent: 14304 / 37130. _______________________________
Further edit:
In 2016-17, contributions to the annual fund (and used in operations) were $8,463,000.
Non-operating contributions were $24,235,000
If contributions to the annual fund exceed the amount used in operations, those monies are available for use in a future year (HC may stick the overage in the endowment). For budgeting purposes, HC would use contributions to the annual fund in 2015-16 for operations in 2016-16.
Contributions to the annual fund in 2015-16 were $7.753,000.
Non operating contributions in 2015-16 were $30,868,000. Luth is probably in here, at least in part..
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 9, 2018 18:11:19 GMT -5
Phreek, we have different numbers and I am sure you are shocked, SHOCKED, that Holy Cross could have different numbers.
I don't think I am at liberty to link where I am getting my numbers but here is what I see:
LY:
34,078 alums, 16,963 donors for 49.8% participation
CY:
34,420 lums, 16,073 donors for 46.7% participation
I am pretty sure my recollection is correct that the folks in Advancement Office used my numbers to say that they achieved 50% alumni participation yet again last year.
I think you mentioned previously that the numbers could/would be skewed depending on whether they count the current graduating class or not. I do see that the Class of 2018 has 59% participation the current year.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 9, 2018 18:31:49 GMT -5
sader1970, I don't know how one could be off by 3,000 in the number of alumni of record. AFAIK, this is the number of living alumni. With notice of the death of an alumnus/ae, the number of alumni of record is reduced by one.
I suppose its possible Advancement only counts alums for whom it has an email or valid residential address. But that distorts the 50 percent claim, unless other schools do similarly.
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Post by CHC8485 on Jul 9, 2018 18:48:27 GMT -5
Most (all?) schools do it. Especially if you say, please take me off the list and don’t ask me for a donation again.
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 9, 2018 19:03:16 GMT -5
8485 is correct that an alum who says “don’t contact me” does not count in the base number.
An analogy you might appreciate: if someone stops looking for work, they are still very much unemployed but don’t count in the unemployment rate.
However, in the instant case, it probably doesn’t look good for any college or university that has a lot of alums who don’t want to be contacted.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 9, 2018 20:01:13 GMT -5
8485 is correct that an alum who says “don’t contact me” does not count in the base number. An analogy you might appreciate: if someone stops looking for work, they are still very much unemployed but don’t count in the unemployment rate. However, in the instant case, it probably doesn’t look good for any college or university that has a lot of alums who don’t want to be contacted. By that rationale, the base number would decrease because supposedly numerous alums severed ties with alma mater over this past year in that they don't want to be contacted or solicited in the future by HC. If one eventually scrubs those individuals from the alumni rolls, the Office of Advancement alumni donor percentage goes up. That said, deceased alumni continue to annually give to the college (either through spouse / family, or through some provision in their estate. I don't know how HC records, from a percentage standpoint, gifts from the dead.
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 9, 2018 20:28:34 GMT -5
Holy Cross has always not counted the "do not call" alums from the HC Fund alumni base, not just this year but in past years. That said, I don't know how many of the no-counters has changed from one year to the next and definitely don't know how many more might have asked to be removed from the list in the past 6-12 months.
The long string of 50%+ years has always discounted the "do not call" alums, otherwise, the College would never have actually reached 50%.
I learned this perhaps 10 or so years ago when I first became a Class Chair. It always struck me as "cheating" but I was assured that every college uses this same methodology of counting so the playing field was level.
P.S. Crusader/Liew would not have affected this year because the alumni base is set at the beginning of the fiscal year. Alumni deaths, and we've had a few in my Class this year, does not change the base number but would the following year. Close to 100% sure that any alum asking not to be contacted anymore after Crusader/Liew still counts in the denominator until the next year.
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Post by bringbackcaro on Jul 9, 2018 21:29:36 GMT -5
P.S. Crusader/Liew would not have affected this year because the alumni base is set at the beginning of the fiscal year. Alumni deaths, and we've had a few in my Class this year, does not change the base number but would the following year. Close to 100% sure that any alum asking not to be contacted anymore after Crusader/Liew still counts in the denominator until the next year. That's a bit ridiculous that the participation rate would only be negatively affected for one year.
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 9, 2018 22:17:03 GMT -5
Let me try one more time.
Any alum, who for whatever reason, does not want to be contacted by the College can request that they no longer receive communications/solicitations. My understanding is that once that is done, they no longer count as a potential donor. While obviously still an alumnus, they would no longer count in the base number of possible alumni donors. If the College has no contact information, I don't believe they count as a potential donor either.
However, I know with 100% certainty that a Class goal for the Holy Cross Fund is determined each year based on the number of Classmates who are potential donors (i.e. not the ones who no longer wish to be contacted/solicited). Once the goal is set for participation for the Class, that number remains for the fiscal year even though some alums will die before the fiscal year is over and may not have given or if an alum decides they do not want to be solicited/communicated in the future, the Class participation goal remains the same as does the base number.
As a hypothetical example, say a Class has 400 members and the Class participation goal is set at 240 (60%), that 240 number of alums is the goal even though 10 classmates die during the year. If 25 alums get ticked off for whatever reason during the year and say they no longer want anything to do with the College, the Class goal is still 240 and the base number remains at 400 until the following year. In the following year, from the 400 members, the 10 who died and the 25 ticked off alums would be subtracted and the base number for that next year would be 365. If the HC Advancement staff and Class Chairs agreed they still wanted to get 60% of their Classmates to donate, the new goal would be 219 (60% of the new 365 base).
My understanding is that process applies on a macro level for the entire HC Fund.
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 9, 2018 22:22:23 GMT -5
mm67, the point of this exercise is that certain foundations give grants to Colleges and universities if they achieve high levels of alumni giving as it is an indication of satisfied alums. In addition, I believe a number of college rating services use alumni giving as one of their rating factors on how good a school is. While I haven't checked it lately, the most famous of those, USN&WR, used alumni giving as a factor and certainly a "point of pride" that HC has touted for years that our alum participation rate was among the best in the country.
So, some here may have an interest in how this is all calculated since it has a bearing on the College's reputation.
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 9, 2018 22:32:12 GMT -5
P.S. to further complicate this, I have seen the base number actually increase (someone rising from the dead!? ). How this happens is, an alum who the College had lost his/her contact information reaches back out to the College and says they want to be put on the contact list; or someone who requested they not be contacted/solicited changes their mind; or, someone decides that they were affiliated with another class and now want to be affiliated with the Class. Example, we had a few guys who because of hepatitis outbreak in '69, graduated in '71 instead of '70. They graduated in 1971 but the College allows them to pick the Class they feel they most affiliate with. Some chose '70 and some '71. You also have "ex-men" who can belong to a Class even though they did not graduate. We've got a couple of those guys too. See? Simple!
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Post by Xmassader on Jul 9, 2018 23:14:40 GMT -5
sader1970–Thank you for your explanation of the alumni/ae giving % denominator. Even though I am a class agent for our class, this was the first time that I had heard that those who were disaffected with the College and asked not to be contacted were deleted from the denominator in calculating the alumni/ae giving %. Even if that is a standard practice among all colleges and universities reporting the data, I find it troublesome. Seems to me the calculation should be (living alumni/ae contributing/all living alumni/ae) and then, if the % is 50+, that’s worth crowing about.
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Post by HCFC45 on Jul 10, 2018 0:36:58 GMT -5
This exercise proves, beyond a doubt, just one thing: ' Statistics don't lie, Statisticians do"! !
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 10, 2018 5:45:09 GMT -5
I went to the class of 1960 donor list (picked because this class is getting up there in age). The class, as of July 9, had a 61 percent class participation for 2018.
In the list of class of 1960 donors, 17 posthumous donors are listed. A quick look at the donor list for 2017 for this class indicates that posthumous donors in 2017 were also posthumous donors in 2018, so posthumous donors are not always the recently deceased.
Inquiring minds demand an answer: how are these 17 posthumous donors counted with respect to inclusion/exclusion in the number of alumni denominator?
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Post by rgs318 on Jul 10, 2018 6:13:33 GMT -5
I went to the class of 1960 donor list (picked because this class is getting up there in age). The class, as of July 9, had a 61 percent class participation for 2018. From this info, might we assume that giving the Holy Cross Fund can help one to live a longer life?
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Post by alum on Jul 10, 2018 6:28:32 GMT -5
sader1970–Thank you for your explanation of the alumni/ae giving % denominator. Even though I am a class agent for our class, this was the first time that I had heard that those who were disaffected with the College and asked not to be contacted were deleted from the denominator in calculating the alumni/ae giving %. Even if that is a standard practice among all colleges and universities reporting the data, I find it troublesome. Seems to me the calculation should be (living alumni/ae contributing/all living alumni/ae) and then, if the % is 50+, that’s worth crowing about. If there is an industry standard (a "generally accepted accounting principal" of sorts,) HC ought to use it and report exactly the way every other school does. I know that there are industry-wide standards as to how pledges, planned gifts and future grant payments are reported, so I would assume that are similar ones for annual fund percentage giving.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Jul 10, 2018 7:27:25 GMT -5
sader1970–Thank you for your explanation of the alumni/ae giving % denominator. Even though I am a class agent for our class, this was the first time that I had heard that those who were disaffected with the College and asked not to be contacted were deleted from the denominator in calculating the alumni/ae giving %. Even if that is a standard practice among all colleges and universities reporting the data, I find it troublesome. Seems to me the calculation should be (living alumni/ae contributing/all living alumni/ae) and then, if the % is 50+, that’s worth crowing about. If there is an industry standard (a "generally accepted accounting principal" of sorts,) HC ought to use it and report exactly the way every other school does. I know that there are industry-wide standards as to how pledges, planned gifts and future grant payments are reported, so I would assume that are similar ones for annual fund percentage giving. I caught on to the creative math of the "alumni giving rate" many years ago and always wondered whether other colleges used the same methodology. Of course this discussion may end up like the ongoing debate about game attendance where some posters believe that HC always grossly exaggerates attendance figures while other colleges are scrupulous about reporting only the true turnstile count.
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 10, 2018 8:20:54 GMT -5
My understanding, and I could be wrong Phreek, is that when a widow makes a donation in the name of the deceased alum, the gift goes both in the numerator and denominator. If no gift made, which is usually the case, they are excluded from both the numerator and denominator going forward.
We had a recent death of a classmate who had not made a donation yet this year but his widow made a gift right before the deadline. I am not at all sure he was going to make a gift this year because of events but there was a huge turnout of Classmates at his funeral and suspect that positively influenced his widow.
XMass, Class Chairs get into the weeds more than Class Agents and I asked a LOT of questions when I became the former and still do as Class Correspondent (my definition is “Class Chair without the responsibilities” 😂)
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Post by rgs318 on Jul 10, 2018 12:24:52 GMT -5
Beautifully written and very true. Thank you for making my day with your moving post. It brought back so many memories that the rest of my afternoon is now shot.
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Post by Tom on Jul 10, 2018 13:09:56 GMT -5
Holy Cross has always not counted the "do not call" alums from the HC Fund alumni base, not just this year but in past years. That said, I don't know how many of the no-counters has changed from one year to the next and definitely don't know how many more might have asked to be removed from the list in the past 6-12 months. The long string of 50%+ years has always discounted the "do not call" alums, otherwise, the College would never have actually reached 50%. I learned this perhaps 10 or so years ago when I first became a Class Chair. It always struck me as "cheating" but I was assured that every college uses this same methodology of counting so the playing field was level. P.S. Crusader/Liew would not have affected this year because the alumni base is set at the beginning of the fiscal year. Alumni deaths, and we've had a few in my Class this year, does not change the base number but would the following year. Close to 100% sure that any alum asking not to be contacted anymore after Crusader/Liew still counts in the denominator until the next year. This assumes that these people not giving because of Crusader/Liew also request never to be contacted again. It sounds like "I'm mad and not giving" keeps you on the list and the denominator
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 10, 2018 13:22:26 GMT -5
Yep. Just telling someone “I’m not giving for (fill in the blank reason)” doesn’t get you off unless you specifically tell them never to contact you again. Heck, otherwise we would probably be hitting 90%-95% participation every year. I think if you want to get off the list you basically have to say this:
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Post by nhteamer on Jul 10, 2018 13:54:25 GMT -5
#sad #unnecessary
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