I'm not making excuses, hell I've donated multiple times. Just trying to figure things out and be realistic. Why aren't our alumni donating?
Big Ten Build Fund Progress
- Thread starter eceres
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Might be helpful to remember that this is a "dead" period for donations in the sense that they do not count for priority points until after July 1. All donations for football priority had to be in by April 30, so they would have been included previously.
I believe the same thing happened at this time of year last year.
Hopefully from July 1 through the end of the football season the AD makes a big push to get the remaining amount raised. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to have a more respectable team on the field to assist with accomplishing that.
I believe the same thing happened at this time of year last year.
Hopefully from July 1 through the end of the football season the AD makes a big push to get the remaining amount raised. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to have a more respectable team on the field to assist with accomplishing that.
Donating more helps for sure , but you can have an exponential impact if you can talk some others in your circles to give anything at all. Talk about how increasing the donor numbers are an important measure not only for this fund, but for the school's rankings as well.
I donated more then ever this year but I completely understand why the casual RU alumni is not motivated to do so. You cannot lose by 78 points and show little to no fight in other B1G games and expect donations to come flowing in. The upcoming year is critical - if we do not see significant improvement on the field and a decent recruiting class Hobbs has to make a coaching decision based on the trend line for the program - he cannot take the usual RU approach and give a new coach 5 years to prove his worth - If this year falters and neither goal is met he must make a change. If you look at the rooster anything less is just digging a deeper hole for RU - This conference is the real deal and we have to start acting like we understand that!
If Rutgers never had the football success it had with Schiano ten years ago there is no Big Ten, no Big Ten Build nor any of the major donors we have now. If the football success never happened we wouldn't have been able to raise even a tenth of what we raised already.
I know it's for all sports but none of this is possible without football.
You are making this all about football when football is actually getting the least from the build fund.
The Build Fund is for overall improvement for athletic facilities across the board. . It's getting all of the 7 sports that use the football strength & conditioning room their own weights & machines. It's upgrading the soccer field & the RAC & it's building world class health facilities. It's AC in the RAC. It's so much more than football.
The "casual Rutgers alumni" needs to be engaged enough in their school and/or in sports to want to give back. I'm not an alumni, but my observations as a fundraising Captain is that alumni feel they received the RU Screw & aren't interested in giving back. And other than the very generous & well publicized donations from a few people, the well to do Rutgers alumni & fans ( The Towers' are not alumni just fans) our wealthy alumni & fans are not donating in ways that we see donors from other schools doing.
My next door neighbor's brother was a Michigan alumni. He donated all the money for the Jack Roth Stadium Club Seats, named after him (about $100M) He funded 100 athletic scholarships over his lifetime. . When he died earlier this year he left his entire personal fortune to Michigan.
We need a few Jack Roths
You guys say that it is not about football, but it really is about football. And Mrs. Screw's example gives an example of a Michigan alum giving $100M to the football stadium.
Would love to see a distribution of number of donors and percentage of dollars donated by football season ticket holders.
While I realize that the B1G Build fund is not for football, we made fairly significant donations the last two years to increase our priority points for parking. I believe @RU4Real did the same thing. That's why I thought with the rush for the April 30 deadline, we would have seen a bigger influx of money into the fund. I thought wrong.
The other surprising thing is that we only have 2,000 donors. How many season ticket holders do we have for football, wrestling, men's and women's basketball?
I did, indeed. Although, this year, I split my donation between the Build Fund and the women's gymnastics team. They've done good work the last couple years and are underfunded.
The number of donors seems low to me. Are you sure that's not just the donors to the Build Fund?
The number of donors seems low to me. Are you sure that's not just the donors to the Build Fund?
Obvious jokes aside, why the interest in gymnastics? They've certainly not the only underfunded team.
TBH, it was mostly for the obvious jokes. :)
I didn't want to give everything to the Build Fund because it seemed to me that the massive emphasis on that was going to siphon donations from other targets. So... I have a friend who is also a pretty big donor and whose kids are just starting out in the sport. We decided to kick the RU team some money.
We have probably 2K or less season ticket holders for hoops and womens under 1K..and many of the hoops guys overlap with football season tix
We simply do not have the fanbase. We do not have enough alums interested in sports. Thats the bottom line. Decades of sucking across the board most of the time will do that
And 10K or 15K for football?
Would think season ticket holders would give SOMETHING to Big Ten Build fund, but maybe they are/feel tapped out and burned out after losing for so long?
I think you have a lot of season ticket holders who are already stretched just to buy their tickets. Someone who has a pair of decent football and 100-level MBB tickets is already paying about $2000 for tickets and parking, plus another $1000 in required donations to hold those seats.
For a lot of families, after spending $3000 on Rutgers athletics, it is hard to justify spending even more.
Only $47,664,478 of that is from RU donors. $25 Million is from the State.
Two anonymous donors gave $5 Million each, and 2 donors gave $2.5 Million each.
There are 11 donors in the $1 Million-2.5 Million range (assume this pool is $15 Million).
Total of $1Million plus donors is $30 Million by 15 donors.
Remaining RU donors gave $17,664,478.
With all respect, season tickets are for entertainment. The B1G fund ishould be donating while getting nothing in return, just for the betterment of the school.
I understand that if season ticket holders don't buy, there is not a list of people waiting to buy their seats so all money they spend (including the part that is a donation for tax purposes) is incremental to the program. However, what is needed at this point is not a re-direction of your required donation towards the B1G fund since this is only robbing from Peter to pay Paul. We all need to dig deep and provide the school with incremental cash.
There was a multi page thread on The B1G screwing us with the deal we got but optimistic that we will be getting $50 million per year soon. Unfortunately, what people don't want to admit is that our failure to raise $100+ million will only put us farther and farther behind from a funding perspective. The facilities will be built but if we raise no more than athletics will have to repay the $30 million shortfall out of future revenues. Simple as that.
Currently:
$50 million from the B1G in the future
- current athletic subsidy
- current levels of borrowing by athletics
- $30+ million B1G fund shortfall
= AAC like annual funding for the first 5 years of full funding in the B1G.
Now is the time to step up or equal footing is more than a decade away..
The whole season ticket thing got me thinking. Why don't they just switch the mandated seat gift to the B1G Build for a year to increase donor and $ numbers for that project ? Obviously net-net RU and the season ticket holder there is no change of dollars flowing, but it advances the Build Fund which is good publicity and shows positive momentum.
Because NJ.com is smarter than that. We would be called out as buffoons the second that was announced.
I guess my point is that less than half my annual athletics (modest) donation goes to the B1G Build Fund. The rest goes to FB. I know of at least two other FB season ticket holders who donate only to FB and nothing to the Build Fund. So it's not saying we have no fans who donate, but only a small subset might contribute to the Build Fund.
Consistent winning would cure many problems including the lack of donor support.As I have stated in other threads there is very little interest in college athletics in NJ which has been a ongoing problem for a very long time.It obviously impacts attendance at games,donor support and perception of Rutgers as a destination school for student athletes.
I don't think its anything that is shameful or dishonest. Not even close. They force you to donate now. So they would just be reflecting the change in the Athletic Department's priorities by changing the mandatory designation. Really don't think it would be a big deal at all.
Many schools do "accounting" tricks that are more far reaching and "juking" the donation numbers than this. For example .. RU does not count the donations towards dance marathon as donors in our counts which are submitted for the US News Rankings. Other schools which do dance marathon arrange it so that donations are made to the school, and then the school passes on the bulk donation to the charity. Therefore they can count those dollars and donors as their own.
I agree it is not dishonest. But changing the required donation doesn't actually reflect the department's priorities. The purpose of the Build fund is to generate incremental donations. If the Athletic Department only wanted to move money from one account to another, they didn't need to create a special donor fund at all; they could have just moved money around.
I don’t disagree that the Build fund should be above and beyond. But I can understand if someone says they spend $3K (or whatever amount) on Rutgers Athletics and they can't afford more, or they don't desire to spend more.
It is easy to say everyone should dig deeper. Some people just don't have deep pockets. Others may have deep pockets but short arms. And others may have deep pockets but decide they want to donate their money elsewhere.
I agree 100%. What is unfortunate is Rutgers is not the place people want to donate.
Rich Rutgers Alumni donate fortunes elsewhere - not to RU athletics.
NJ kids that go away to school donate I assume more than NJ kids that stay home and go to Rutgers.
My oldest went to UF, is 26 and driving the same car he went to school with and donates. Why?
Remember that they have made this so simple that it's real hard to say you don't have the ability to give. (Not you personally). $25 bucks a month for 5 years is really nothing but 398,000 of 400,000 alumni won't do it. It would be a great sociology study.
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RU successful alums are almost exclusively 1st generation wealthy. They are thinking about establishing their kids, sending them to expensive private schools, funding their down payments on houses, and leaving them a very nice inheritance. Rich parents don't send their kids to Rutgers. They are more likely to donate to their children's rich private schools than to RU even if they are alums. Under Schiano, undergrads who never would have attended a football game did, regularly, and are much more attached to our university. They will make large donations down the road. Student attendance is now dropping which is a very bad sign for the future.
Mrs Screw statement regarding "casual Rutgers Alumni" is spot on. I met a women at a Golf Outing last week that used to be employed at the Rutgers Foundation. She casually asked about what years I attended Rutgers. She proclaimed them to be the height of RU Screw years. She has worked in non profit fundraising and foundation work for 30 years and that Rutgers was her most difficult assignment, for the RU screw reason alone.
Her words "Rutgers as an institution did such a horrible job keeping their students engaged from the mid 80's to the late 90's that it was nearly impossible to raise any money with consistency out of those years of attendance."
I enjoyed my time at Rutgers but the administration did make it entirely too difficult for the students to gain any semblance of team or institutional pride. And I am not just speaking of athletic accomplishments or success. The administration made it more difficult to navigate the entire educational process, from registering for classes to paying a bill, there was nothing that was easy.
all these arguments are still just lame excuses--we are not talking about big bucks--win or lose, season ticket holder or not ,the basic pledge is not much at all--excuses=cheapness and to be honest non support of RU sports--I guess its easier to demand or scream about RU than to let those moths leave one's wallet.
I'm guessing that the main issue is that the tactic would create a hole elsewhere in the athletic annual budget. That would require further annual spending belt tightening in favor of allocating those funds to the build fund.
Much of this is true, which is which is why it was nice to the median income of RU students families rising.
I think if Ash even makes just marginal progress on & off the field, he's earned a third year.
Upgrades at QB, playcalling, and pass defense address three most glaring issues from last year. On paper, we have more playmakers on both sides of the ball and overall team speed has been upgraded (special teams!).
I think he'll win 4 and another year.
If there's going to be a change, it would make most sense to wait until the bump in conference cash kicks in.
Upgrades at QB, playcalling, and pass defense address three most glaring issues from last year. On paper, we have more playmakers on both sides of the ball and overall team speed has been upgraded (special teams!).
I think he'll win 4 and another year.
If there's going to be a change, it would make most sense to wait until the bump in conference cash kicks in.
I am in that dead zone noted. I have a company match waiting but will not release it until I know it will hit after July 1. And I won't add another personal contribution until afterwards too. I doesn't count for Football PPts until then.
two, wonder IF the significant level of alumni diversity impacts this (if at all).
(and don't read anything into that question. I am not judging)
two, wonder IF the significant level of alumni diversity impacts this (if at all).
(and don't read anything into that question. I am not judging)
The bottom line is that a LOT of TOO HIGH of a PERCENTAGE of RU fans are CHEAP toward RU athletics ...because RU athletics have done everything on the cheap for 2 generations since making the move to big time sports in the middle 70s
As a university, we are starting to NOT do things on the cheap...but need that big ten money...as we do that, it will change to culture slowly....but I suspect that it will take 10-20 of doing things right and NOT on the cheap to get the fan base to match...and even that culture may be too ingrained in some of the older timers. (not all)
Winning regularly will solve this...especially if we win BIG a couple of time along the way...
I suspect winning BIG a second time (the first time was 2006) and at on the big ten level will do a lot to make to the mind set that we are here to stay, and though we may have down periods, good times will be back...and that thought process will keep fans more likely to reach for the pocket on a regular basis....
RIght now...too many think 2006 will not happen again...at this level
So still culture change needs to come...and winning cures a lot
As a university, we are starting to NOT do things on the cheap...but need that big ten money...as we do that, it will change to culture slowly....but I suspect that it will take 10-20 of doing things right and NOT on the cheap to get the fan base to match...and even that culture may be too ingrained in some of the older timers. (not all)
Winning regularly will solve this...especially if we win BIG a couple of time along the way...
I suspect winning BIG a second time (the first time was 2006) and at on the big ten level will do a lot to make to the mind set that we are here to stay, and though we may have down periods, good times will be back...and that thought process will keep fans more likely to reach for the pocket on a regular basis....
RIght now...too many think 2006 will not happen again...at this level
So still culture change needs to come...and winning cures a lot
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