What members are thinking and sharing

A growing number of college students aren't bright-eyed, newly minted high school graduates. They're seasoned adults with greater financial responsibilities, including a family of their own.

This report highlights trends in philanthropic giving within the sector, based on analysis done on data collected from 23 institutions in Australia and 1 institution in New Zealand, provided for 2013, 2014 and 2015. 

Once upon a time—in 2005, in fact—John Easom landed a job as alumni manager at the U.K.'s University of Keele. Easom had never worked with alumni before, nor had he worked at a university. He was a historian interested in international relations, and his only other colleague in alumni relations had a journalism background.

After a few volatile years following the financial crisis that ended in 2009, economic experts say the state of the U.S. economy is looking up. Financial markets have again reached record highs, and economic indicators are trending positive, but the average American family is less optimistic about its financial future amid concerns over college affordability. In a combustible election year full of populist rhetoric, candidates for both federal and state offices are decrying higher education's price tag and mounting student loan debt.

Emma Silva faced many challenges when she became the United Nations International School of Hanoi's first advancement director in 2011, but this was the biggest: helping her new community understand why the outwardly prosperous school needed to raise funds.

What members are thinking and sharing

SHHHH! Don't tell your faculty, but they are marketers.

Cross-campus alumni relations is a lot like space flight. You may have several satellites—your unit communicators and alumni and development officers—receiving and transmitting information with alumni, but without regular maintenance and care, you could be losing valuable data.

Have a project in need of funding? It's tempting to pitch large educational grant-makers like the Ford and Annie E. Casey foundations, but they attract a lot of proposals. Pursuing grants from smaller, regional, or lesser-known foundations, as Virginia's Radford University discovered, allows you to stand out in a smaller pool.