Key Takeaways Your advancement office doesn’t need to be told that alumni are central to its future. By almost any measure, institutions have gotten good at the alumni relationship they’ve chosen to optimize—giving. And it shows. In FY2025, alumni accounted for 23.2% of all funds raised by colleges and universities,...
Key Takeaways Your advancement office doesn’t need to be told that alumni are central to its future. By almost any measure, institutions have gotten good at the alumni relationship they’ve chosen to optimize—giving. And it shows. In FY2025, alumni accounted for 23.2% of all funds raised by colleges and universities,...
What evolutionary biology can teach us about the ruthless competition for rankings position Jason Cohen, PhD, Director of Research + Insights at Frankel In 1871, Lewis Carroll wrote an absurd race scene in which the Red Queen tells Alice: “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in...
The institutions achieving dramatic rankings gains aren’t just marketing better. They’re synchronizing operational excellence with strategic communication. Jason Cohen, PhD, Director of Research+Insights at Frankel Here’s an uncomfortable truth: most university rankings strategies fail. Not because institutions lack ambition or resources, but because they’re solving the wrong problem. Over the...
Key Takeaways Say what you will about the humble diploma, but students aren’t enrolling in college simply to display a credential for everyone to see (though it does look spiffy on the wall). Students are buying what that credential makes possible, which could show itself as a career, mobility, or...
Key Takeaways For higher ed teams, retention can feel like a number you’re constantly chasing. It’s a signal watched by prospective students and their families, ranking bodies, accreditors, and your own leadership. When the number dips, the pressure lands squarely on the people responsible for tracking and improving it, often...
Key Takeaways Every important business or marketing decision begins with questions. Who are we trying to reach? What do they value? How do they see our brand? Where are we strongest? Where is there room to grow? Which direction will give us the greatest opportunity? Good marketing research helps answer...
Key Takeaways Think about the last time your alumni email open rates took a noticeable dip. It probably wasn’t because thousands of graduates suddenly stopped caring about their alma mater. More likely, they had learned what to expect from your communications, whether it was another general update, another fundraising appeal,...
The cost of being everything to everyone shows up in three places: buyers can’t recall your brand at the moment of decision, the sale defaults to price because there’s no other basis for comparison, and the brand hits a ceiling it can’t charge past. That pattern holds whether you’re selling...
Key Takeaways Alumni fundraising didn’t always start as a transaction but as a response to a need. It can be traced back to Yale in the late 1800s, when one of the country’s leading institutions found itself under incredible financial strain, to the point that the university president donated his...
Most organizations, firms, and institutions have experienced some version of the same problem. Marketing reports look strong. Lead volume is up. Cost per lead is down. Website conversions are climbing. Acronym & Definition Guide Lead: A person who has shared contact information (like filling out a form) so your team...
