Annual Giving focuses on broad-based audiences including alumni, friends, faculty, staff and parents. Given the combined size of the prospect base - approximately 160,000 - annual giving activities center largely on direct mail and telemarketing strategies. The program is highly centralized, allowing college-based Directors of Development and Development Officers to focus on gifts above $10,000.
The four major annual campaigns, which follow the academic calendar, include: Fall Constituent Mailer, Winter Mailer, Telefund, LYBNT (Last Year But Not This.) Additionally, staff annually works with departments and programs on campus to create small, targeted campaigns, produces about 15,000 donor recognition letters, and manages a first-time donor program.
Annual Giving targets the masses and strives to build a broad base of support. Historically, K-State led the Big Eight Conference based on percentage of alumni supporting their alma mater. When KSU joined the Big XII Conference, K-State's alumni ranked second behind Texas A&M. Currently, K-State is ranked third in the conference and in the top 10 nationally among similar universities. Nearly half of the 60,000 gifts received by the Foundation during a fiscal year are generated via Annual Giving projects. The most recent statistic available indicates 27.8 percent of K-State's solicited alumni made at least one gift during the last fiscal year.
The project includes about 65,000 personalized letters from the academic deans to alumni requesting support for the respective college. The letters are mailed early in the academic year and provide unrestricted revenue to the colleges. Revenue from the 1998 Fall Mailer has topped $349,000.
The project is mailed to about 110,000 alumni and friends and arrives about December 1. During the last two years, the mailer has included personalized mail labels featuring the Powercat. Average revenue during the past two years has exceeded $300,000. Unless restricted by the donor, gifts are undesignated and available to the Foundation Executive Committee to target special projects.
The KSU Foundation Telefund is the world's largest all-volunteer telephone campaign for higher education. While virtually every college or university uses the telephone to raise funds, most rely on paid callers and automated calling systems. K-State's Telefund has flourished based on dedicated alumni, enthusiastic student volunteers and an experienced campus network. Calls are placed from a bank of 80 telephones in the Hollis Telefund Center of the KSU Foundation Center. During each of its first 20 years, Telefund has set records for either pledges or participants each year and the combined pledge total for the first 19 years is $11,744,325 via 307,164 pledges. The 1999 Telefund produced a pledge total of $1,126,953 21,068 donors and 1,351 callers - all in 19 nights.
The fiscal year solicitation cycle closes with a mailer that encourages alumni and friends to return to their personal giving level of the previous fiscal year. LYBNT is an acronym for Last Year But Not This. These letters include a calculation - of the donor's total giving during the current fiscal year as compared to the previous year - and then asks the donor to consider returning to the higher giving level. An average LYBNT mailer includes about 20,000 letters and raises about $70,000.