responses 5

Responses:

Katlyn

At Binchley College, a goal set by the Office of Alumni Affairs is to improve the overall pledge fulfillment rate by 4% for the current budget year. The people the office will want to focus on to gather the most valuable data are alumni and present students. The best way to work towards this goal is to use a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. To improve the pledge rate, the office of alumni affairs needs to understand its alumni network better and learn why some pledge and others don’t. The office can employ qualitative research methods to provide detailed information about the context that emphasizes on the voice of the participants (Denison & Secolsky 2018). Binchley College could have one-on-one interviews with students and alumni to learn the reasoning behind why he or she would want to pledge to the school. Other helpful data can be compiled through the alumni networking and events the office host. For example, Harvard has a strong alumni network and office of alumni affairs that hosts countless annual events for all alumni and exclusive clubs for donors (The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2018). Organizing events such as this give researchers access to alumni to make observations and have interviews to gather data properly. These qualitative data methods result in the creation of an understanding of why students and alumni want to pledge and what they think the office could do to improve the pledge rate.

 

Following the gathering of initial data using qualitative methods, the office can focus on gathering numerical data to employ quantitative methods. For the school to improve the pledge rate, the office needs to understand the type of students that need to be addressed. Understanding the gender, income level, age, and other factors will help alumni affairs see what kind of alumni pledge and what factors impact that. For example, the school can use surveys and questionnaires send to alumni to gather the numerical data and create a target type of students. Through questionnaires, the school can learn what needs to be done to make that person pledge. Surveys are a fundamental tool that can be targeted at alumni to lead to a comparative analysis of the different alumni (Blackstone, 2014). Factors such as income level and job type could be a reason why specific alumni do not pledge, so surveying alumni will give the office a look at the bigger picture. Also, once a particular factor group of alumni is targeted, the office will have better insight into how to get them to pledge through one-on-one interviews previously compiled during alumni events. Binchley College alumni are one extensive network, but there are dozens of different types of people within that group will respond to different tactics the office employs to improve pledge rate. Learning more about the alumni through interviews and surveys will the college the necessary data to better address their target audience and work towards their goal.

Jessica

Due to economic constraints, funding for higher education is a problem nation-wide.  The Office of Alumni Affairs at any college or university has a very important job.  They can help to secure funding for their institution through alumni donations.  Naturally, an important goal for the Office of Alumni Affairs would be to improve the overall pledge rate from previous years in order to increase the amount of funds raised.  Conducting a program evaluation within the Office of Alumni Affairs can provide helpful information and guidance for improving many functions of the department, including its ability to secure pledges from alumni.

In order to analyze this goal effectively several pieces of data, from a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative methods, would be required.  First, statistics regarding the characteristics of current donors would be important to analyze.  Evaluators should collect data through surveys to discover the ages, genders, occupations, and locations of current donors.  This data can help evaluators to understand who their donors are.  Are there certain trends that come about from this data?  For example, are the majority of donors recent graduates or older alumni?  Do alumni who work in certain career fields contribute more than others?  Do more females or males tend to make donations?  Do alumni who reside closer to the institution tend to donate more than those who live further away?  Analyzing this quantitative data can help the Office of Alumni Affairs realize where they need to focus their attention to have the best chance or securing pledges. 

Qualitative methods in the form of formal interviews, informal conversations, and/or written artifacts can also be helpful in gaining deeper insight into who current donors are and why they choose to donate.  After determining the characteristics of current donors, the Office of Alumni Affairs will want to know the motivation behind the donations they receive.  Through verbal conversations or written answers to open-response type questions, the answer to the question "Why?" can be realized.  Why do alumni choose to donate or choose not to donate?  Does it have to do with their current financial situation, their personal experience at the institution, or the level of outreach from the Office of Alumni Affairs?  Do donors prefer to be contacted via telephone, email, mail, or in person at alumni events?  Through both quantitative and qualitative data collection, evaluators can collect useful information to help the Office of Alumni Affairs realize who their target audience should be and what they can do to improve their chances of securing donations.