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Click & Gift: UNCSA starts online giving
Dec 05, 2008 (Winston-Salem Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Put that checkbook away.
The UNC School of the Arts has introduced online giving at the school's Web site (www.uncsa.edu), UNCSA's trustees learned yesterday during a meeting on campus.
Ralph Womble, the vice chairman of UNCSA's board of trustees, called the news "a big step forward" for the school's fundraising operations and added, half-jokingly, that "we're jumping rapidly into the 1990s."
Actually, experts say that online giving didn't really begin to pick up speed until 9/11 began to make it fashionable. It has been growing rapidly since then.
"As more people are doing one thing (like shopping) online, it's easier to get them to do other things," said Michael Solomon, the director of communications for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the newspaper of the nonprofit world.
But UNCSA and other small schools in the UNC system have been slow to adopt online giving. When asked why UNCSA did not adopt online giving earlier, school officials say they didn't have "a truly functional Web site" until 2002, they have had five advancement heads since that time, and there were "many priorities during this time of transition."
In any event, online giving is now a crucial part of UNCSA's efforts to raise more private money from alumni and friends of the school.
"It's a wonderful way to engage donors, particularly younger donors," said Suzanne Hilser-Wiles, UNCSA's chief advancement officer. "It's one of those very basic things that we were missing in our current development program that we're glad to (have)."
"It is a good follow-up to written pieces," she said. "It has been proven that a combination of mail and e-mail is really what works best."
Hilser-Wiles said she wants to implement a "regular calendar of solicitation," which would include mail, e-mail and telephone calls.
"Then we'll start to test: How often should we be doing those appeals? Very sophisticated fundraising programs will test things like that," she said. "Having a regular program of solicitation is what, in fact, increases your percentage of givers, the number of gifts (and) the size of gifts."
Online giving at UNCSA started Wednesday. Online givers can give to what is called "The Whole School Fund." Portions of a gift can be earmarked for a particular school, such as dance or drama. Gifts from new donors and alumni donors who have not given since July 2005 will be matched by a gift to the William R. Kenan Jr. Scholarship Endowment Fund.
In other business, it was announced that the terms under which UNCSA must match a $5 million grant from the A.J. Fletcher Foundation in Raleigh have changed. UNCSA must now come up with $2.5 million by July 1, 2010, and raise the rest by October 2011.
Ken Keuffel can be reached at 727-7337 or at kkeuffel@wsjournal.com.
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