If you’re one of the 200,000 or so LSU graduates in the LSU Alumni Association’s database, chances are you recently received a postcard asking you to update your contact information.
Though the alumni association updates its massive database every five years or so, this most recent effort comes amidst a spirit of greater coordination and cooperation between the association and the LSU Foundation, which is gearing up for the public phase of a $1.2 billion capital campaign that will roll out in early 2019.
“This is something we should always be doing on an ongoing basis,” says Sara Crow Whittaker, a spokesperson for the foundation. “But there is a connection to the campaign because it ensures we have the most updated records.”
Under former LSU Foundation President Stephen Moret, the foundation, alumni association and Tiger Athletic Foundation commissioned a strategic plan completed in 2015 that helped lay the groundwork for the capital campaign, which is currently in its “quiet” phase, and also identified several key ways the university’s three main support organizations could improve their fundraising efforts.
The study noted LSU was leaving a lot of philanthropy on the table for several reasons. Among them: the LSU Foundation had only about one-third as many development officers as peer universities, only a fraction of the 200,000 alumni of record were being actively cultivated for donations, and the foundation and alumni association databases were not effectively synced.
In the neary three years since, the foundation and alumni association have made strides towards addressing those issues. The foundation has hired key fundraising executives, more development officers, and employees on its records team. The organizations’ shared database has also been tweaked to provide for greater efficiencies and collaboration.
The updated information collected from the alumni association through its current appeal should help make the capital campaign more effective when it launches its public phase in the first quarter of 2019.
No official date for the launch—or a campaign name—has been set, though Whitaker says details will be announced soon. The capital campaign will be the first to include all campuses within the LSU System.
