From Inside KBS

[wncapp78]

In fact here is a list of all the Development officers.
https://give.appstate.edu/contact/

[asu66]

In fact here is a list of all the Development officers.
https://give.appstate.edu/contact/

I don't believe its up-to-date.

[hotrod2001]

" There's no major media market and other than football, nothing is at a level that's even close"

Does that matter? Football is king. If the "Power 6" wants to elevate their status, they're not going to go with a mediocre, young program which just happens to be in a large market area.

I don't buy into the market argument, eyeballs and ticket sales gravitate to a good program. Clemson, Virginia Tech, Penn State are some of the most storied programs in the NCAA, and I would doubt anyone would argue that any of those schools reside in a major market.

[Westisthebest]

I think one simple place to start would be to send a mailer to every alum in the database that doesn't currently give. Ask for $5 or $10/mo, explaining how it helps not only the athletic program, but the university in general. A catchy program and name, like IPTAY, would really help drive membership (I assume).

I donated to YC for 8 or so years, then was unable to do so for a couple. During those couple of years when I wasn't donating, I never heard a single thing from Boone about it. Reaching out to folks who used to donate and no longer do is another potential source of revenue, if for nothing else than to find out why they stopped donating in the first place.

We need to make sure that ALL alumni athletes are contacted and I mean with regular and personal stuff. The Former Athletes Association is trying its best to help do that but for me personally in talking with athletes from my era (73-78) what I hear is: "No one from athletics ever contacted me, has ever contacted me, and neither has the Yosef Club." Sure we can say that all they need to do is hit up the website but it's a well-known fact (at least to me) that personal intentional contact goes a long, long way towards developing that person's desire to contribute. I know for a fact the football players from that era feel very alienated, at least a lot of whom I've talked with.

I completely agree on the contact part, and understand the feeling of alienation (even though I don’t have the ties that a former athlete would have). In fact, I felt a little betrayed (probably to the right word) that no one ever seemed to care that I was no longer donating. I wasn’t a huge donor by any stretch, but was giving $1k/yr at one point. I began donating again a couple years ago on my own because I was able to do so again, but not quite at that level.

Reaching out to all alums, as well as those who no longer donate is a great place to start. Also, as pointed out in this thread, hit every business in Watauga, Wilkes, Ashe, Catawba, etc and try to get them involved, even at a low level.

I find your situation similar and odd to me as well. I was giving at a slightly higher level than that starting in 04 or 05. Every year I got a call from Gerald Adams making sure I was going to donate again. Answer was always sure, even when money was tight. It was just the interaction and knowing it mattered. I got to hear the same story every year about his son in law, I believe, was a woodworker. I stopped getting that call, for obvious reasons, or any call from Yosef and haven't given since. Times are different now as well. With a couple kids playing travel sports and being much more involved in church mission work it's hard to have much money left over. However I am sure I could come up with something if I ever got a call.

[Yosef84]

High cost of living in Boone?
This is what 300k buys in Boone:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/615- ... 7403_zpid/

And now what 300k buys in Charlotte:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/800- ... 9908_zpid/

I live in the Charlotte area and can tell you that Charlotte home isn't really representative of what $300K can buy. Yes, the Charlotte housing market is high (overpriced) but you can still buy quite a bit of house for $300K. It looks like your intend is to imply the Boone area isn't that high in terms of cost of living, but I would have to disagree (if that's your point).

No $300k will not buy you a decent home in CLT unless you choose an undesirable location and like to hear gunfire in the vicinity.

I guess you consider Ballantyne an undesirable location? Sorry, but you're wrong. I'm not saying this based on a quick Zillow review. I've been in the housing market recently as well as a family member from both a buyer and seller perspective.

[DaphneUrquhart]

It sounds like there are plenty on here with great ideas on how to grow the Yosef donor base and increase Yosef donations. Rather than standing on the edge of the river giving advice to the ones navigating the rapids, please get in the boat and row. Volunteer to make "thank you" calls. Get your friends to join Yosef. Join Yosef yourself.

The Yosef staff is eight people. Eight. If all those eight people did for the standard 260 work days a year was call alumni, they would each have to call about 65 people per day to reach each Appalachian alumnus / alumna. That doesn't leave them much time to do the remainder of the "Yosef should" list that's being proposed here.

If the only thing keeping you from joining Yosef is a personal invitation via a direct phone call, please PM me your name and number so I can call you for your donation.

[Yosef84]

High cost of living in Boone?
This is what 300k buys in Boone:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/615- ... 7403_zpid/

And now what 300k buys in Charlotte:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/800- ... 9908_zpid/

I live in the Charlotte area and can tell you that Charlotte home isn't really representative of what $300K can buy. Yes, the Charlotte housing market is high (overpriced) but you can still buy quite a bit of house for $300K. It looks like your intend is to imply the Boone area isn't that high in terms of cost of living, but I would have to disagree (if that's your point).

No $300k will not buy you a decent home in CLT unless you choose an undesirable location and like to hear gunfire in the vicinity.

Totally overblown take... my wife and I bought our house 5 years ago (and yes, prices have gone up since then), but we live in one of the more desirable areas of South Charlotte and paid under 300k. I love Boone, and I love Charlotte. No need to try and make Charlotte out to be a mecca of violence with danger around every corner. For families, it's one of the best and most affordable larger cities in the country.

Well, probably but I have a home in S CLT; it is market value of about $500k. I would sort of like to sell and buy but to remain in the same vicinity inside of the 485, i'd have to add at least $250k to it to find similar size, age, location of home.
I didn't say CLT was not one of the more affordable larger cities but would like to know what desirable s clt neighborhood has $300k homes available.

Congratulations for the success you've had. I hope you're truly grateful for that! The word "desirable" is subjective so maybe that's where there is a disconnect, but your characterization of neighborhoods under $300K being crime ridden (hearing gunfire) is way off base and makes you sound pretty pretentious. I'm sure that wasn't your intent.

I currently live in a nice community in Fort Mill, but my mother's home is on the edge of Ballantyne / Pineville and the homes in her area go from the high $200's to high $300's. If you aren't able to find what you're looking for, you should probably hire a better realtor.

[AppStateNews]

It sounds like there are plenty on here with great ideas on how to grow the Yosef donor base and increase Yosef donations. Rather than standing on the edge of the river giving advice to the ones navigating the rapids, please get in the boat and row. Volunteer to make "thank you" calls. Get your friends to join Yosef. Join Yosef yourself.

The Yosef staff is eight people. Eight. If all those eight people did for the standard 260 work days a year was call alumni, they would each have to call about 65 people per day to reach each Appalachian alumnus / alumna. That doesn't leave them much time to do the remainder of the "Yosef should" list that's being proposed here.

If the only thing keeping you from joining Yosef is a personal invitation via a direct phone call, please PM me your name and number so I can call you for your donation.

I have offered to volunteer several times. I have also offered to help with the Yosef advisory board. I have never received a call or email back.

[mikeyosef]

My career in the Private Bank at BofA would have been a failure if I only prospected those who banked there. I and my compatriots had a running list of “elephants” we hunted in NC S.C. and a few nationally. We need elephant hunters...A volunteer committee to identify and develop individual tailored strategies for some nOn App heavy hitters

I couldn't agree more. We have a great story to sell and, potentially, a short window to sell it. I have often wondered how many Alabama, Clemson, UNC and NC State donors are alumni. I am sure most wearing their gear and maybe most in the stands are not. Just this week I vacationed with a friend who had two children attend GT and is a season ticket holder and financial supporter, even after they graduated. How aggressively do we look at parents of students as donors? I live in Greensboro and can tell you Nido Qubein at High Point University can probably tell you the income and wealth of every parent and grandparent of each student. They are prime candidates for donations.

We also need to professionally market our story, especially regionally. If I made a major donation and had a real say in where it went, I'd want a large portion of it to go directly to developing a world class marketing campaign. Such a campaign would grease the skids for those selling the school to alumni and open up non-alumni donors as a bigger possibility. So far our football team has generated a massive amount of organic marketing which is fantastic but we need more. To give you an example; I was in Seattle to visit with my daughter and in-laws, I was stopped a couple of times when people noticed and commented on my App hat. This led to one of my in-laws watching us on TV, then insisting he wanted to schedule their next trip East around our football season so he could come to a game. That's powerful!

[Stonewall]

Yosef has lost the "connection" , and the passion, Gerald brought to the organization.He and Linda.Two people.

[ArmantiWaterSafety]

It sounds like there are plenty on here with great ideas on how to grow the Yosef donor base and increase Yosef donations. Rather than standing on the edge of the river giving advice to the ones navigating the rapids, please get in the boat and row. Volunteer to make "thank you" calls. Get your friends to join Yosef. Join Yosef yourself.

The Yosef staff is eight people. Eight. If all those eight people did for the standard 260 work days a year was call alumni, they would each have to call about 65 people per day to reach each Appalachian alumnus / alumna. That doesn't leave them much time to do the remainder of the "Yosef should" list that's being proposed here.

If the only thing keeping you from joining Yosef is a personal invitation via a direct phone call, please PM me your name and number so I can call you for your donation.

I have offered to volunteer several times. I have also offered to help with the Yosef advisory board. I have never received a call or email back.

I truly have no insight whatsoever into the program so forgive me if I'm off base, but it sounds like Yosef might be in the same situation as every other downward trending company out there; too stuck in the weeds of solving day-to-day problems vs. actually solving the root cause of the problems. We have little money to go around which means lack of staff, which means lack of ability to personalize the experience to increase the money, which means little money to around, which means....well you get the picture. Can I fix it? No, and I certainly can't volunteer at this point in time, but it worries me if someone has offered to volunteer and they can't get a call back due to lack of staff availability to do so.

[appstategrad2008]

My career in the Private Bank at BofA would have been a failure if I only prospected those who banked there. I and my compatriots had a running list of “elephants” we hunted in NC S.C. and a few nationally. We need elephant hunters...A volunteer committee to identify and develop individual tailored strategies for some nOn App heavy hitters

I couldn't agree more. We have a great story to sell and, potentially, a short window to sell it. I have often wondered how many Alabama, Clemson, UNC and NC State donors are alumni. I am sure most wearing their gear and maybe most in the stands are not. Just this week I vacationed with a friend who had two children attend GT and is a season ticket holder and financial supporter, even after they graduated. How aggressively do we look at parents of students as donors? I live in Greensboro and can tell you Nido Qubein at High Point University can probably tell you the income and wealth of every parent and grandparent of each student. They are prime candidates for donations.

We also need to professionally market our story, especially regionally. If I made a major donation and had a real say in where it went, I'd want a large portion of it to go directly to developing a world class marketing campaign. Such a campaign would grease the skids for those selling the school to alumni and open up non-alumni donors as a bigger possibility. So far our football team has generated a massive amount of organic marketing which is fantastic but we need more. To give you an example; I was in Seattle to visit with my daughter and in-laws, I was stopped a couple of times when people noticed and commented on my App hat. This led to one of my in-laws watching us on TV, then insisting he wanted to schedule their next trip East around our football season so he could come to a game. That's powerful!

I have a similar tidbit. My wife's grandfather, who is 96 and has lived in Southern California for his whole life, really only follows schools local to that area. I had told him on several occasions prior that I had attended App State, but he normally would associate me with UNC because that's really all he knew of as far as universities in NC. I spoke with him at Christmas, and he brought up our win in the NO Bowl and recognized App's performance. It finally resonated that I was a Mountaineer rather than a Tarheel. I don't blame the guy for not knowing beforehand. The guy doesn't have internet, a smart phone, computer, etc. But I thought that said something about our season and our bowl win that it triggered such recognition from him across the country!

[BeauFoster]

It sounds like there are plenty on here with great ideas on how to grow the Yosef donor base and increase Yosef donations. Rather than standing on the edge of the river giving advice to the ones navigating the rapids, please get in the boat and row. Volunteer to make "thank you" calls. Get your friends to join Yosef. Join Yosef yourself.

The Yosef staff is eight people. Eight. If all those eight people did for the standard 260 work days a year was call alumni, they would each have to call about 65 people per day to reach each Appalachian alumnus / alumna. That doesn't leave them much time to do the remainder of the "Yosef should" list that's being proposed here.

If the only thing keeping you from joining Yosef is a personal invitation via a direct phone call, please PM me your name and number so I can call you for your donation.

I've never looked for a personalized invitation from YC to join, but I believe that if someone was giving $1k a year and then stopped, it should be on someone's list to call them personally and ask why. I have no idea of the turnover within the donor base, but I'd assume it isn't very high. A call like that may convince 1-2 people to re-think, or at least give something. If I was presented with a list of 5-10 names in January/February, I'd happily volunteer to call each one and discuss with them.

I tried to volunteer with YC back in 2007-2008, but was never called back. Sounds like my experience isn't all that different from some others. To be honest, if I try to help you once and you don't seem interested, I'm not going to try again day after day. PM me with someone's contact info in Boone and I'll reach out and volunteer again.

[App91]

My career in the Private Bank at BofA would have been a failure if I only prospected those who banked there. I and my compatriots had a running list of “elephants” we hunted in NC S.C. and a few nationally. We need elephant hunters...A volunteer committee to identify and develop individual tailored strategies for some nOn App heavy hitters

While i understand what you are saying, i know back in the Beasley era this was the main focus. Nothing on the $1000 level area. Wouldnt even get a response. While whales are great, thats probably why we only have 3500ish members. I say we cast a very large net. Yes we do need someone courting the major gifts, but lets raise all numbers.
Interestingly, i listened to the Ragin Cajun Army Podcast while removing christmas decorations. They have a new guy in charge of their donor base, came from purdue, and he has some great ideas. It would behoove our folks to give it a listen for new ideas.

[Yosef84]

I'm not really clear why this is being debated as an either/or proposition. I see nothing wrong with doing BOTH. What would keep us from having both a wide-spread grass-roots campaigns AND hunting the elephant...or great white whale...or whatever? I have to think both could be done and probably are. The discussion would really be about the effectiveness of either or both.

[DaphneUrquhart]

I tried to volunteer with YC back in 2007-2008, but was never called back. Sounds like my experience isn't all that different from some others. To be honest, if I try to help you once and you don't seem interested, I'm not going to try again day after day. PM me with someone's contact info in Boone and I'll reach out and volunteer again.

I have offered to volunteer several times. I have also offered to help with the Yosef advisory board. I have never received a call or email back.

I cannot speak to why it is that someone did not return a call 12 years ago. Here's the link to the current Yosef staff Yosef Staff I recommend choosing the person to call based on how you want to help. Their titles and bios are on the site.

I cannot speak to offers to help with the Yosef Club Advisory Board (YCAB) other than ones I have fielded personally in the past 3 years. Unfortunately, YCAB cannot take all comers as board members. Any of you that have served on volunteer boards know there's a fine line between the critical mass needed to handle all responsibilities and an abundance of people creating more "cat herding" than effectiveness.

I can tell you that no one from the day to day operations of the Yosef Club in 2007 is there today. Seven of the eight current staff were hired in the past 12 months. Suzette Mauney has been at App in development since 1997, though not all of that time was in athletics. Suzette, James Frey (pronounced "fray"), D'minia Stokes, and Brandon Vedder focus on major gifts and premium seating. A "major gift" is one of $25,000 or more whether that be a deferred gift, a 5 year pledge, or a lump sum. Doug Banks, Toronto Thomas, Dominic Parisi, and Jennifer Spink focus on day to day Yosef operations, planning, donor stewardship, and everything else. If you call the Yosef office, you're likely to speak with either Jennifer or Dominic. Both are stellar at customer service and are App grads.

[BooneKarate]

" There's no major media market and other than football, nothing is at a level that's even close"

Does that matter? Football is king. If the "Power 6" wants to elevate their status, they're not going to go with a mediocre, young program which just happens to be in a large market area.

I don't buy into the market argument, eyeballs and ticket sales gravitate to a good program. Clemson, Virginia Tech, Penn State are some of the most storied programs in the NCAA, and I would doubt anyone would argue that any of those schools reside in a major market.

You are correct. Joining conferences isn't just about the size of the media markets. It's also about attendances at home games. This is typically easier to obtain with an area that has a higher population, sure. But the way things are right now, our Men's Basketball program won't be accepted into another conference due to low attendance (I don't know the exact number, but I'm making an assumption that it's over 2500. Probably similar requirements at other relative conferences).

You don't even have to be a great program in every sport. Football can remain king, but you have to have more than 1 king. Have a couple of princes and princesses to go with your king. Even if it isn't a basketball team. Could be baseball or softball. Could be soccer programs. But I would assume it would need to be a revenue generating sport as well.

Better teams create better home opponents, better home opponents result in higher attendances. Higher attendances can solve 2 problems. More dollars generated and the ability to either run the SBC or move to a more desirable conference.

[appstatealum]

I think one simple place to start would be to send a mailer to every alum in the database that doesn't currently give. Ask for $5 or $10/mo, explaining how it helps not only the athletic program, but the university in general. A catchy program and name, like IPTAY, would really help drive membership (I assume).

I donated to YC for 8 or so years, then was unable to do so for a couple. During those couple of years when I wasn't donating, I never heard a single thing from Boone about it. Reaching out to folks who used to donate and no longer do is another potential source of revenue, if for nothing else than to find out why they stopped donating in the first place.

We need to make sure that ALL alumni athletes are contacted and I mean with regular and personal stuff. The Former Athletes Association is trying its best to help do that but for me personally in talking with athletes from my era (73-78) what I hear is: "No one from athletics ever contacted me, has ever contacted me, and neither has the Yosef Club." Sure we can say that all they need to do is hit up the website but it's a well-known fact (at least to me) that personal intentional contact goes a long, long way towards developing that person's desire to contribute. I know for a fact the football players from that era feel very alienated, at least a lot of whom I've talked with.

Not only that Era.... But all of the eras of former players feel some type of way. I know this first hand. They are planning on having a special lounge for former players in the new facility, but I am planning to push DG and his staff to embrace/engage the former players more and in different ways to aid with our culture and fundraising.

[ericsaid]

It sounds like there are plenty on here with great ideas on how to grow the Yosef donor base and increase Yosef donations. Rather than standing on the edge of the river giving advice to the ones navigating the rapids, please get in the boat and row. Volunteer to make "thank you" calls. Get your friends to join Yosef. Join Yosef yourself.

The Yosef staff is eight people. Eight. If all those eight people did for the standard 260 work days a year was call alumni, they would each have to call about 65 people per day to reach each Appalachian alumnus / alumna. That doesn't leave them much time to do the remainder of the "Yosef should" list that's being proposed here.

If the only thing keeping you from joining Yosef is a personal invitation via a direct phone call, please PM me your name and number so I can call you for your donation.

There are 8 people?

How about people begin to take Shawn Clark's advice, "scared money don't make no money". 8 people isn't enough people to run a small transportation firm much less an organization hoping to garner enough donations to cover in full all athletic scholarships. Are they relying on people doing the work themselves to find out how far their money goes, where it goes, where to donate, who it helps, and what the possibilities would be with continued support?

Eight people.

The constraint that places on capacity caps the amount of money you are able to bring in dramatically and would seem to be low even if App were Division II playing against Lenoir-Rhyne and Catawba.

[ugmw177]

I live in the Charlotte area and can tell you that Charlotte home isn't really representative of what $300K can buy. Yes, the Charlotte housing market is high (overpriced) but you can still buy quite a bit of house for $300K. It looks like your intend is to imply the Boone area isn't that high in terms of cost of living, but I would have to disagree (if that's your point).

No $300k will not buy you a decent home in CLT unless you choose an undesirable location and like to hear gunfire in the vicinity.

Totally overblown take... my wife and I bought our house 5 years ago (and yes, prices have gone up since then), but we live in one of the more desirable areas of South Charlotte and paid under 300k. I love Boone, and I love Charlotte. No need to try and make Charlotte out to be a mecca of violence with danger around every corner. For families, it's one of the best and most affordable larger cities in the country.

Well, probably but I have a home in S CLT; it is market value of about $500k. I would sort of like to sell and buy but to remain in the same vicinity inside of the 485, i'd have to add at least $250k to it to find similar size, age, location of home.
I didn't say CLT was not one of the more affordable larger cities but would like to know what desirable s clt neighborhood has $300k homes available.

Congratulations for the success you've had. I hope you're truly grateful for that! The word "desirable" is subjective so maybe that's where there is a disconnect, but your characterization of neighborhoods under $300K being crime ridden (hearing gunfire) is way off base and makes you sound pretty pretentious. I'm sure that wasn't your intent.

definitely not my intent.

I currently live in a nice community in Fort Mill, but my mother's home is on the edge of Ballantyne / Pineville and the homes in her area go from the high $200's to high $300's. If you aren't able to find what you're looking for, you should probably hire a better realtor.