By Maureen Procopio

This blog post is about our 2019 study: “Achieving Best Practice in Student Success Advancement Programs” … a timely topic as our advancement offices are (re)examining the importance of student success in fundraising priorities. We interviewed four public research institutions (three of which are AAU institutions) about how their advancement units interact with other areas of campus to achieve student success. We learned that student success is achieved in many ways, but some themes emerged.

Key observations:

How will advancement professionals contribute to achieving student success, especially in the post-pandemic higher education landscape? These study observations may help you as you consider what you might do differently.

1. Enrollment management, student affairs, and financial aid speak a different language from development. Partnering effectively will benefit from building this vernacular and understanding.
2. Enrollment management counterparts sometimes didn’t see themselves as part of the fundraising process. Recognize that this thinking may exist with your campus partners and consider ways to make changes and build productive partnerships.
3. Institutional student success programs are pride points and are an important part of student success programs. This study benchmarked the programs, outlined below.
4. Microgrant programs have been shown to increase graduation rates by double-digits and also decrease time to graduate. The availability of crisis funds is crucial in today’s pandemic, helping our students offset unexpected expenses.

Applying Best Practices to our Work

Tactical Approaches for Advancement

The institutions structured their student success fundraising teams differently but had similar tactical approaches that we were able to tease out as best practice suggestions.

• Assigned DOs: Dedicated centralized development officer(s) who raise funds for student success programs across multiple units can create efficiencies among staff and other resources, and build internal expertise.
• Communication: Encourage regular, intentional communication between development officers and student success program staff to build a strong partnership. Map out the points of contact among these partners.
• Donor Funding Brochure: Create a predetermined menu of student success funding opportunities for donors to select from. The list should be developed in partnership between development officers and student success program staff. This is a great place to include microgrant funding opportunities.
• Stewardship Considerations: Include student success program stakeholders in the stewardship process through thank you letters from program directors and program participants, newsletters describing the impact of gifts, and invitations to program events.
• Capitalize on Institutional Expertise: Each institution had a colleague who had previously served in an enrollment management role or had a long-standing point of contact within advancement, which served to be instrumental in bridging communication between enrollment management and advancement. This was the case with all institutions we spoke with.

Overcome Language Challenges

The effective communication flow between fundraising and enrollment management units was the result of an experienced liaison who spoke the language of both units and understood each unit’s mission and how they each impacted the other. This person acted as a resource for development and enrollment colleagues alike, providing policy guidance, and sometimes conducting training for colleagues.

 An Example of Helping Development:

One institution shared the example that “first-generation and low income” has a different meaning to donors than it does when translated to a scholarship. “We share in the investment of these scholarships,” the Director of Student Financial Affairs stated when she explained why it’s important to assist development officers.

Building an understanding of terminology and “lingo” between the development and enrollment management worlds is recommended as it not only helps processes move along more efficiently, but it also aids in more effective fundraising.

Solutions:

• Intentionally identify an employee in each unit to take on the role of expert and coordinator of information between the two areas. This will help in building the knowledge base between the two units resulting in successful scholarship administration.
• Who has expertise and experience that already exists in development and student affairs or financial aid? Is there an employee who can share information and processes, find opportunities, and quickly overcome challenges (or avoid them)? Formally recognizing this as a position expectation can incorporate accountability to ensure the sharing of information and limit the loss of these assets due to attrition.

Benchmarking Institutional Student Success Scholarship Programs

Elevating student success as an institutional priority will likely be on many administrators’ minds right about now. Each interview from this study touched on institutional scholarship programs on each campus as a vital part of the student success plan. The ideal programs exist on a continuum of tuition support to infrastructure for all students. The matrix below outlines the initiatives that each school was able to bring to their programs.

Comparison of Student Success Initiatives:

• Student advising services is the most central of needs for all students and is built into the programmatic infrastructures for all of the institutional scholarship programs except Institution A, a highly decentralized institution. Their academic advising appears to be linked to programs within units.
• Institutions B and C have campuses geographically located near state borders that draw students from out-of-state. They recognize them as a part of their immediate communities of need.
• Institution D’s scholars’ program is the only one of the four programs that covers room and board.
• The UO’s PathwayOregon offers full tuition and advising for in-state students while experiencing the sharpest disinvestment from the State of Oregon.

Steps to Student Success

How can we narrow the divide between enrollment management and advancement? Capitalizing on natural connection points is an important first step. Making a concerted effort, and relying on staff who have lengthy tenures to build partnerships between enrollment management and advancement will work now, but what is a long term solution?

A review of literature, formal phone interviews, and consultation with industry experts affirmed the divide between the two units – “Advancement is an afterthought.”  Don’t be an afterthought. Lead the way. Start with these steps.

1. Assume that student success programs will elevate as a priority at your institution.
2. Learn the financial aid, enrollment management, and student success language and lingo.
3. Share information and build relationships between areas on your campus that participate in your institution’s mission to achieve student success.
4. Find someone who could be a bridge for communication for advancement. They could be right under your nose.
5. Interested in learning more? Connect with Maureen Procopio for a copy of the full study: Achieving Best Practice in Student Success Advancement Programs: Partnership & Communication Between Campus Stakeholders

As always, reach out if you have questions about this topic or study. I welcome your comments and questions.

A huge thank you to my former partner in crime, Carl Bell, who was integral in conducting this work on student success.

By Maureen Procopio
Senior Director, Campaign Strategy and Institutional Benchmarking
University of Oregon Advancement
541-346-2061