Carolina Counts on Engaged Alumni
Posted on Jan. 13, 2017John Hennessy — who retired last summer as president of Stanford — believes many institutions of higher education underinvest in alumni relations.
Douglas S. Dibbert ’70
“Alumni relations is the way you build that emotional tie,” Hennessy wrote in “Fundraising Lessons From Stanford’s $12 Billion Man” in a recent issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. “You build that knowledgeable alum who knows about the institution and remains engaged with it over many years. … And this is an investment you make today for the payoff 20 years from now.”
Two dozen years ago, the GAA staff moved from the Alumni House, which was next to The Carolina Inn, into the George Watts Hill Alumni Center, providing Carolina’s largest constituency our first permanent campus home. The GAA raised the $12.5 million to build and furnish the center, which became transformational in advancing alumni engagement. In addition to a host of GAA offerings, many noted below, the center is home to The Carolina Club, providing faculty, staff and alumni a dining venue with stimulating programing to encourage and sustain community.
The GAA’s richly detailed and carefully maintained alumni records, thought-provoking and award-winning communications, along with our engaging and also award-winning programs, foster the informed and involved Carolina alumni of whom John Hennessy speaks.
The GAA’s interest in and commitment to philanthropic support for our alma mater began when the GAA was founded in 1843 by then-Gov. John Motley Morehead (class of 1817) and 31 other alumni. The GAA then provided direct fundraising for Carolina, and an early GAA undertaking was to raise funds for a monument in recognition of Joseph Caldwell, the University’s first president. That monument remains in McCorkle Place.
In 1952, the GAA launched Alumni Annual Giving, ably led by Carolina’s second alumni secretary, the much revered J. Maryon “Spike” Saunders ’25. A few years later, the GAA transferred responsibility for the annual fund to the University.
The GAA has long valued its relationship with today’s students, and we know that it is the quality of their student experiences that determines how involved and supportive they’ll become once they are officially Carolina alumni. The GAA’s sponsorship of the senior class marshals, the Clef Hangers, the Loreleis, the Order of the Bell Tower — Carolina’s “tradition keepers” — and the Student Alumni Association provides a growing menu of student programing.
Somewhere each day, Carolina alumni have opportunities to participate in, contribute to or take advantage of an ever-expanding catalog of programs — community service and Tar Heel Service Day, alumni career services and the Alumni Advisor Network, scholarship support, game viewings, local Carolina Club gatherings, enrichment programs, alumni travel, Camp Blue Heaven, Homecoming, affinity and class reunions, awards, pregame events, the Bell Tower Climb, the Admissions Workshop, Beyond the Stone Walls, Dinner With Faculty, Think Fast and Consider This public forums, the North Carolina History Series and more.
Also, the GAA’s Tar Heel Network continues to provide advocacy on behalf of Carolina to elected leaders and works to preserve our generous state appropriation, which provides the equivalent of the earnings from a nearly $10 billion endowment.
Carolina’s philanthropic support has never been greater, last year exceeding $495 million. Annually, of all the financial contributions by our 317,000-plus living alumni, roughly 85 percent of gifts from alumni come from Carolina Alumni members.
But we are keenly aware that alumni expect and want to be more than check writers and cheerleaders. Alumni are not occasional campus visitors or spectators but engaged University stockholders who appreciate that today’s faculty and staff are working hard to preserve and enhance the value of our diplomas. Alumni are, can and should be student recruiters, advocates, financial supporters, advisers and loving critics.
Our Carolina community of students, faculty, staff and alumni remains special. Appropriately, we take immense pride in our University’s 223 years of unequaled commitment to learning, discovery and engagement.
Yours at Carolina,
Douglas S. Dibbert ’70
doug_dibbert@unc.edu
P.S.: Because the GAA is self-governed, each year our dues-paying members have the opportunity to elect most of the volunteers who serve on the association’s board of directors. For the first time, this year you have the opportunity to vote online for these board members, and we strongly encourage you to do so. You may vote in all of the races, regardless of where you now live and, yes, even if there are individuals whom you do not personally know. For those Carolina Alumni members for whom we lack a current email address, we’ll continue to provide you a printed ballot. The deadline for voting, by online or print ballot, is March 31. For more, go to alumni.unc.edu/news/gaa-board-elections-add-online-option.
