By Stephanie Steinberg, Daily Staff Reporter
and Kyle Swanson, Daily News Editor
Published October 5, 2009
It’s a startling fact that many are unaware of, but the majority of individuals who donate to the University never graduated from it. Instead, these people are friends of the University — meaning they support the institution for some other reason.
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For many of these people, a spouse or family member has graduated from the University. Others may give because they have benefited from a service the University offers, like being treated at the University of Michigan Health System, or because they enjoy attending University-related events, like football games at the Big House or fine arts performances at Hill Auditorium.
All totaled, 372,931 donors — most of whom were individuals — gave to the University during the last major capital campaign, which ran from 2000 to 2008.
While that number is less than the University's roughly 460,000 living alumni and the majority of gifts come from non-alumni, Vice President for Development Jerry May said the surprising lack of individual alumni giving is not unusual.
“Only 15 to 20 percent of alumni give in any given year,” May said. “It’s because when we go out in the world we get preoccupied with the needs of our families, our other communities, our other things, things that are important to us like our hospital, our church or whatever.”
But that steady stream of donations from such a wide swath of people can have a significant impact on campus life in the programs and scholarships that such gifts help fund.
To aid academic units and University programs in soliciting and tracking donations, the University’s Office of Development divides people based on what types of gifts they are giving, though some donors may fall into multiple categories — a major part of which is those who partake in what the office refers to as “annual giving.”
Annual Giving: A Pipeline of Support
A major contributor to this steady stream of individual donations is the practice of what the Development Office calls “annual giving.”
Because so many people fall into this category, the University’s development office has a special team of people who work to meet the needs of donors who give annually.
Elizabeth Woods, senior associate director of marketing and research for annual giving, said the University’s annual giving operations are essential to raising money and engaging the majority of University alumni and friends.
“We have the buildings, and we have the plaques and the wonderful things like that, that are so important to what the University is,” Woods said. “But annual giving provides the pipeline to that and serves as probably the largest relationship that our alumni will have with the University.”
Though specific definitions for annual giving vary among the academic and non-academic units on campus, Woods said annual giving is defined by the Office of Development as gifts of $25,000 or less made on a yearly basis.
Using that definition, Woods said the annual giving unit at the University raised $41.9 million last year, of which $27.7 million — approximately 66 percent — came from alumni. Of the money collected from annual giving, alumni contributed $18 million to academic units, whereas non-alumni gave $5.5 million to academics.
Though it may seem contradictory to the overall giving pattern of donors to the University in which non-alumni donors outnumber alumni, Woods said that annual giving focuses on alumni and that numbers vary from year to year.
The money raised from annual giving is used for a variety of programs and expenses at the University, including student financial aid, conferences and workshops and fellowships. A steady stream of support from private donors is essential to the continuation of many of these programs.
However, Woods was quick to point out that annual giving isn’t just about the money donated, but it’s also about talking with donors.
“Our alumni don’t just make a donation or give a gift.
