For $200, you can pay for one University of Maryland student’s orientation fees. A thousand dollars will buy textbooks for a year, and $8,000 will cover in-state tuition and fees at the flagship campus in College Park. Those suggested gifts, along with videos of students who rely on aid, are featured on a colorful Web site designed for the university’s “Keep Me Maryland” campaign.
The effort is a catchy twist on something many colleges are trying to do: raise money for immediate student-aid needs. “The economy has compelled a number of institutions to emphasize financial aid much more prominently,” says Rae M. Goldsmith, vice president for advancement resources at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Several other colleges, including Ohio State and Syracuse Universities, started campaigns that stress urgency, talk about the importance of even small gifts for students, and heavily use the institutions’ Web sites.
The “Keep Me Maryland” campaign grew out of a presentation Sarah J. Bauder, director of student financial aid, gave to the University of Maryland College Park Foundation’s Board of Trustees in February explaining that many students needed additional financial aid. One trustee ran with the idea of raising money to help students, the slogan was coined, and the effort began shortly thereafter.
At Maryland, appeals of financial-aid awards are up about 50 percent above this time last year, Ms. Bauder says. An extra $500 or $1,000 is often enough to tide over a student on the brink of leaving for financial reasons, she says. Maryland’s financial-aid staff reviews appeals and forwards the most extreme cases to Ms. Bauder. When other campus officials or faculty members know a student is struggling, those cases go to her directly. The challenge, Ms. Bauder says, is determining “how much do I have to give the student to keep them here, and not one dollar more?”
There simply isn’t enough money to go around, and she has to use it wisely.
So far, “Keep Me Maryland” has raised about $260,000, which is being distributed by the financial-aid office as it comes in. The university has not set an end date or a goal for the campaign yet.
This fall, Maryland didn’t meet the impossible objective of keeping every student, but Ms. Bauder is still pleased with the results. As of the first day of the semester, on Monday, only 34 of the 1,471 students who appealed their financial-aid awards did not come to campus, and 18 of those would have been new freshmen.
Fund-raising efforts like “Keep Me Maryland” help meet a real need, but they can also have other advantages from a fund-raising standpoint. Young alumni are often skeptical that their small contribution can make a difference, says Brodie Remington, vice president for university relations at College Park. But about 600 people who graduated in the last 10 years have contributed to this campaign, which he sees as a positive sign. And the university plans to go after young alumni and current students to participate more this fall. One idea is to give student donors raffle tickets that enter them to win the prize of watching a football game from a private box with a small group of students—and with appearances by university celebrities like coaches and successful alumni.
The university considered the possibility that a campaign that essentially says the institution may lose students because of money might cause a backlash, but Mr. Remington says that hasn’t happened. It helps, he says, that the university hasn’t raised tuition lately.
Emphasis on Urgency
Ohio State University, which also has held tuition steady, can make the same point in its fund-raising endeavor for students.
The university has taken a slightly different approach in its “Students First, Students Now” campaign. Its goal is to raise $100-million over two years. The campaign is featured prominently on the institution’s home page, and uses video stories of students who receive aid to personalize the effort.
So far, Ohio State has raised about $27-million for the campaign, which began in January. Unlike Maryland, Ohio State is taking many donations in the form of endowments. The university didn’t want to put any restrictions on the kinds of gifts people could give, says Peter B. Weiler, senior vice president for development and president of the Ohio State University Foundation. But like Maryland, Ohio State is pushing the urgency of its campaign.
And urgency is a good fund-raising strategy. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education has been hearing from its members that their donors are more interested in giving to support financial aid now, Ms. Goldsmith says. It’s the same mentality that leads people to give to the Red Cross after a disaster.
Syracuse University had a rapid-response campaign that ran from December 4 to the end of January to help students stay enrolled for the spring semester last year. That campaign, called “Syracuse Responds,” but nicknamed “Keep ‘Em ‘Cuse,” brought in just over $1-million and helped 426 students. The goal had initially been $2-million, but that was based on early projections rather than detailed research, says Brian C. Sischo, vice president for development. He sees the money it brought in as a success.
Response From Younger Donors
“What made it a bit unique was the turnaround time,” Mr. Sischo says. The university knew students had only a short window to make their plans for the spring. Because of the short time frame, the campaign was conducted almost entirely online, though one print piece was sent out right before the holidays. About 20 percent of the donors were alumni who graduated within the last 10 years, Mr. Sischo says. In comparison, only 3.8 percent of alumni donors to the university’s annual fund in fiscal year 2009 graduated in the last 10 years.
This kind of campaign worked well for Syracuse at the time, Mr. Sischo says. Donors are less likely to give to the endowment when it has suffered losses, and less likely to want to make a long-term commitment in an environment in which their own finances could change, so an immediate campaign is appealing.
The financial-aid office sent a letter to Syracuse students, and faculty and staff members, asking them to refer students who were struggling financially. That way, students who were too embarrassed to ask for help could still get it, says Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, associate vice president for enrollment, and director of student aid and scholarships. If a student was referred by another party and already had financial aid, the office might look at the student’s file and decide to award more money without even discussing it with the student. If the student did not already get financial aid, the office would make contact to get the needed documentation.
Ms. Copeland-Morgan kept track of the 426 students who received the additional money. She found that 85 percent returned to campus and 12 percent graduated. Most of the others have gone on leave for something like study abroad. Two or three students have not returned, she says, but for personal rather than financial reasons.
In the months since the campaign, the financial-aid office has been helped by additional federal money, as the maximum federal Pell Grant increased and the university got extra federal work-study money from the economic-stimulus package. The university also raised its financial-aid budget about 12 percent this year.
But the university still is getting a lot of financial-aid appeals, and Ms. Copeland-Morgan doesn’t expect that to end anytime soon. “It wasn’t like we solved the total problem,” she says, “but we were able to make a significant contribution to keep many of the students in school.”
One downside of fund raising to meet an urgent need? You can’t turn around and do it again. That would be like pulling the wool over donors’ eyes, Mr. Sischo says. But the development office is looking at other ways it can raise money to support need-based aid going forward, he says.
Ms. Bauder, in Maryland’s financial aid office, is optimistic that “Keep Me Maryland” will do more than help students afford to stay in college through tough times. She hopes it will refocus attention on raising money for need-based aid even after the economy recovers.
