From: Don Shobrys

Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 9:46 PM

To: fofdaper-board-bounces@mit.edu

Subject: Princeton Trip Report

 

 I had a chance to visit Princeton to see how they coordinate Athletic Department support.   Attached is a trip report.

 

 Here some comments to provide perspective on the visit.  Although Princeton has to balance both academics and athletics, they more intense in athletics than MIT.  As a rough rule of thumb, expenditures per sport for Ivy League school's are about 3 times the Division III average (in comparison, Division I schools out spend Division schools by a factor of 10 on average).  These numbers are averages and can vary greatly by school (Penn State spends around $8 million for football, while Duke spends only $2 million on it's football program and it shows). 

 

 Princeton competes for national titles in sports like crew and lacrosse.  They routinely send teams or individuals to post season Division I competition in basketball, wrestling, swimming, and track and field.  Furthermore, they still have alumni that remember when they were a national power in sports like football.

 

 Where do the additional expenditures go?  In addition to facilities and staff, the Ivy's send coaches on recruiting trips (which have to be funded by alumni gifts) and can bring in prospects for recruiting visits (which also have to be funded by alumni gifts).  In addition, teams are allowed one foreign trip every 4 years.

 

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Trip Report:  Visit to Princeton University on July 3

 

I met with Brandon Mcneill, Associate Director of Athletics for Development.  His responsibilities include operating a relatively new umbrella organization (the Princeton Varsity Club) that sits over the Friend’s groups for specific sports.  He is also responsible for developing corporate sponsorships.  He reports to both the Athletic Director and Central Development and has 2 staff members working for him (Harvard purportedly has 7 full time staffers in this area).  Princeton’s Athletic Department has a separate communications group with 5 staff members.

 

Central Development is responsible for broad based appeals.  A separate group, the Leadership Gift Office, cultivates individuals with capacity for major gifts.

 

Brandon’s target market is 22,000 individuals who participated in varsity sports or made a gift to a varsity sport in the last three years.  Funds are generated with memberships in the Princeton Varsity Club and broad based appeals.

 

The rest of this document provides an overview of the Princeton Varsity club, outlines the broad based appeal process for the Friend’s groups, and touches on corporate sponsorships and endowments for athletic programs.

 

Princeton Varsity Club

The cost of membership in the Princeton Varsity Club is on a sliding scale the goes from zero for undergraduate athletes to $150 per year for alumni who graduated 15 or more years ago.  Members get the following.

Proceeds pay for an athletic awards banquet, athletic awards, and go towards an endowment for the Athletic Department.

 

All of the Ivy League schools have Friends programs.  The existence and activities of an umbrella program vary by school.  Brown’s athletic programs have the highest dependence on alumni gifts.  They have the most aggressive fund raising effort headed by Ron Dagleish (?) from their Office of Development.

 

Appeals for Friends Groups

The broad based appeals occur between the months of June and December.  The athletic department cannot do fund raising in the six months preceding reunions.  The broad based appeal has the following steps

  1. A glossy summary of the past year is mailed out.
  2. A solicitation letter and card is sent that lets the recipient direct a gift to the department or to a specific sport
  3. There is a follow up to the solicitation by coaches.
  4. There is a follow up by student athletes.

Where possible, Princeton combined the men’s and women’s Friend’s groups so that a single group supports both the men’s and women’s teams in a specific sport.  This was done for gender equity reasons.  Since Princeton was not co-ed until 1972, the male population of alums associated with varsity sports is much greater than the female population.

 

The Friends groups vary in size and degree of organization.  Some produce newsletters while other do not.  Periodic fits of contention between a group and the Department or University Administration seem to be a way of life.

 

The volume of annual revenues generated by a Friends group seems to be a function of the following factors (no significance to the order of this list).

 

Corporate Sponsorships

Princeton’s athletic department raises about $500,000 per year from corporate sponsorships.  They have signage in their athletic facilities but it must be tasteful and use only orange and black.  They also publish game day programs with ads that are distributed at no cost.  The funds come from local firms that want a relationship with the university or exposure to the large numbers of people that come to see football (17,000 per game) and basketball (5,000 per game).  Brandon estimates that, without the high attendance volumes, corporate sponsorships would generate only about $100,000 a year.

 

Individual programs have their own sponsorship deals.  Football and basketball are Nike teams, while Reebok and Warrior Lacrosse sponsor lacrosse.

 

Endowments

Endowments occur on a serendipitous basis from alums that are close to a specific program.  Cornell has a major fundraising effort underway to endow their athletic programs.  Brandon has the impression that effort is going slowly because the endowment will simply offset the use of general funds (no perceived net benefit to the programs).