If you work in media relations at a college or university, that sentiment has likely been a takeaway from some interactions with faculty members and administrators.

What members are thinking and sharing

What's the essence of your institution's brand? When Heather Swain, Michigan State University's vice president for communications and brand strategy, presents on branding in higher education, she includes a slide displaying ice cream cones with various flavors of ice cream. Why? "Our job as marketers is to project our university's flavor out into the world," she says.

Educational institutions famously undervalue the annual fund, perceiving it merely as a means to unrestricted funds, according to Lori Yersh, senior advisor to the vice president of advancement and external relations at Concordia University in Canada and an annual giving expert who has consulted at more than 120 educational and health care institutions in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

Rory Green is a second-generation development officer—both of her parents were fundraisers—and the founder of Fundraiser Grrl, a cheeky crowdsourced blog about the rewarding, frustrating, and downright outlandish things fundraisers experience. Through the GIF-driven posts, fundraisers both celebrate and gripe about their professional lives. Face palms, snark, and funny tales abound.

Social media is changing not only how people live but also how they grieve. In 2016, fans of David Bowie and Prince flocked to Twitter and Facebook to mourn the music icons' deaths—the artists became trending topics on various social channels—and to start the collective grieving process.

Between January and April 2014, three George Washington University students died by suicide—two within the same week. The incidents unnerved the institution's campuses in Washington, D.C. Lorraine Voles, GW's vice president of external relations, has directed crisis communications everywhere from the White House to mortgage finance company Fannie Mae during the 2008 financial crisis. 

In 2011, the Alumni/ae Council at St. Paul Academy and Summit School in Minnesota was nearly nonexistent. Other than holding monthly meetings and a lackluster fundraising phonathon, the council sponsored no programs or events; it did not follow its bylaws and had no reporting structure or processes for recruiting new members. Most of the 11 council members were suffering from volunteer fatigue, particularly the president. Few members attended meetings, which were unproductive. The council frequently discussed the need to recruit new members but never developed an action plan.

If you "love the idea of strutting the stage and being a TED Talk star," Chris Anderson doesn't want you to pick up his new book, TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. Go work on something worth sharing instead, writes the head of the nonprofit organization with a mission to spread ideas. Anderson and his team have worked with more than 1,000 speakers since he took over TED in 2001. And if you've watched any of the nearly 2,200 online talks, which are viewed more than 1 billion times each year, you might think every TED presentation is an inspiring success. Guess again.

Grinnell College alumni love talking about their alma mater, but that enthusiasm hasn't always translated into high reunion attendance. Advancement staff members at the Iowa college saw a way to increase alumni engagement by creating more opportunities to help out at reunion, beginning with revamped training for its 50th reunion volunteers. With better structure and more-detailed tasks, the program led to an overall higher level of engagement.