Alumni Donations

UMBER OF ALUMNI DONATIONS STABILIZE BUT REMAIN LOWER THAN NATIONAL AVERAGE BY CAITLIN HOLTZMAN & OLIVIA STANZL

The rate of Ithaca College alumni donations is stabilizing at a percentage lower than the national average. Between 2010 and 2019, the percentage of alumni who donated dropped by about half. In 2010, the rate was 12.2%, and in 2019, it was 6.4%. Wendy Kobler, vice president for philanthropy and engagement, said the percentage was stabilizing between 6.2% and 6.4%, but for the 2020 fscal year, the rate was 6.2%. While the national average rate of alumni who donate back to their colleges is only 8%, Ithaca College still falls below the average. The last year the college had an alumni donation percentage above 8% was 2015.

The college uses initiatives like Ithaca College Giving Day and the Cortaca Jug games to encourage students to get alumni, friends and family to donate. Before the 2019 Cortaca Jug game, Ithaca College and SUNY Cortland held a Cortaca Jug Giving Challenge in which Ithaca College won with 938 gifts and received a $150 donation from SUNY Cortland. During Giving Day there are leaderboards among the fve schools at Ithaca College to see which can bring in the most money. Last Giving Day, which was held May 4, 2021, raised over $1 million. There were 3,459 donors who donated a total of $1,856,451. In May, Kobler said she did not expect the number of alumni who donate to decrease.

The college also held a Giving Tuesday challenge Nov. 30, 2021. In order to generate more alumni engagement, Kobler said the college reaches out to alumni through direct mail and email solicitation.

Linda Sauter Velto ’88 said that she was a consistent donor to the college but that the changes made by the Academic Program Prioritization (APP) process have caused her to question if she wants to continue donating.

The APP process began in September 2020 with the creation of the Academic Program Prioritization Implementation Committee (APPIC) by President La Jerne Cornish, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at the time.

The APPIC created “The Shape of the College” document, which outlined its recommendations and was released to the campus community Jan. 13, 2020. Cornish and former President Shirley M. Collado approved it Feb. 24, 2020.

The college is currently in Phase Two of the APP, which involves restructuring parts of the college, like moving the Department of Theatre Arts, which was in the School of Humanities and Sciences, to the School of Music. Phase One included the ongoing cuts of 116 full-time equivalent faculty positions and 26 majors, departments and programs.

Sauter Velto ’88, a graduate of the School of Music, said the loss of graduate music programs has contributed to her reasons to no longer donate.

“It doesn’t make the school as attractive,” Sauter Velto said. “It doesn’t allow there to be as many graduate assistants to teach the undergrads, and you don’t have the graduate students there as examples.”

She said that at the moment, she is still uncertain if she will donate again, but she also said that she wishes she saw more outreach to alumni from the college.

Emma Whitford, reporter for Inside Higher Ed, said donations made by alumni fell by about 2% in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, she said Ithaca College beat that 2% decrease despite COVID-19. In 2020, total

Ndonations to colleges fell from $49.6 million to $49.5 million. “At the very beginning of the pandemic, experts were worried that the uncertainty of the stock market and personal fnances would severely slow donations to colleges, and, while it varies by institution, that didn’t really pan out,” she said via email. Stella Rivera ’19 said that even if she did have the means to donate, she also would not due to the APP process. “It’s also frustrating to see the administration tout that the college is such an amazing school and that they have all these top-rated programs,” Rivera said. “The people that make those programs work are the teachers. … They are what makes all of the programs incredible.” She also said she appreciated the IC Alumni Against Austerity (ICAAA) group for giving alumni a voice. ICAAA was created in January 2021 in response to the APP. Since its creation, the group has held meetings to discuss the APP and created a portal that allows members of the campus community to submit complaints. Rivera said she does not want to donate to the college because of Collado’s rocky tenure. Additionally, she said she believes decisions are made at the college in a top-down way with little input from alumni. “They don’t care about the voices of alumni,” she said. “They don’t care about what we have to say.” The COVID-19 pandemic may have also impacted alumni’s willingness to donate, because campuses were closed, meaning colleges could not host on-campus events for alum“They don’t care about ni. There was no in-person Alumni Weekend in 2020 the voices of alumni. or Senior Splash for the Class of 2020. The colThey don’t care about lege was closed for Fall 2020 and classes were what we have to say.” held remotely. Spring 2021 was held in a hybrid -Stella Rivera format, but visitors were not allowed on campus. The college was fully opened for the 2021—22 academic year. Sarah Grunberg ’08, former lecturer in the Department of Sociology, said that in recent years she has not donated to the college. “Because of the lack of transpar- ency … I didn’t feel like the decisions to cut programs and faculty were fscally responsible,” she said. “I just chose to put my money elsewhere.” Grunberg said she gave back to the IC Alumni Action and Worker Support Fund, which is a fundraiser started as a way to help faculty members who were cut by alleviating some fnancial burdens. “There were so many people who were in need as a result of the cuts,” she said. Grunberg said that she would donate to specifc programs if she knew where the money was going and if there were changes in leadership in the Ithaca College Board of Trustees. “I guess that would make me feel a little bit more willing to donate back to the institution if I felt that the board was a transparent board that actually represented the members of the community,” she said. Grunberg said she also has felt like there has not been the best alumni outreach. “You can’t ask alumni to give to an institution that does not care about alumni,” she said.