In any case, I’m certainly not going to disagree with the general point, which is that many offices on campus appear to have an allergic reaction to the concept of customer service. It sort of reminds me of the attitude many find Metro employees to have. And when you have a monopoly/100% of the marketshare on the “customer base,” there’s not as strong of an incentive on the part of management – or anyone else – to demand that customer service and helpfulness be institutional priorities.

At the same time, I can assure you that administrators are aware of this, to a greater or lesser degree. Just because they haven’t asked you about why you do or don’t give doesn’t mean they haven’t asked anyone. There’s nothing Advancement loves more than focus groups and surveys.

You forgot SAC! They’re pretty independent. In fact, they’re unaccountable to anybody!

Whammy.

The very response seems to be in line with Georgetown’s paternalism. What, there’s a problem with alumni giving? Should we actually get input from current students and recently-graduated alums on why they aren’t giving? No, of course not! Let’s revamp some bullshit programming initiatives instead!

I’m not saying things like NSO and Traditions Day aren’t valuable — I certainly enjoyed them. But, like @Trust me said, they’re peripheral to the real problems.

What’s the best way to foster giving? A direct connection. Knowing that your donation actually means something and can make a difference.

Look at other schools. Take Harvard. The Hasty Pudding, the Crimson, the Harvard Lampoon, their final clubs — and on and on and on — are all amazing organizations of wide renown. Did they get that way by administrative molly-coddling? No. They got that way because they were allowed to make their own decisions. And students appreciated that. And after graduation, they gave and contributed, because they knew their donations would go directly to helping current students make their own decisions.

Look at our own school. What are the most successful organizations? The ones with the most independence — The Corp, GUAFSCU, Mask & Bauble, the Philodemic Society, IRC, and so on (actually, there aren’t that many more). Should this come as any surprise? You wouldn’t think so, but the administration apparently remains clueless.

And thus, one of the lowest donation rates among our peers. No surprise.

However, I do have one thing to add that I feel hasn’t been addressed (amazing considering the size of this comment thread): Chris D, you said in one of your earliest comments, “In the case of DPS/UIS its a lack of funding, I don’t really hold ill will towards most of the people who work there.” I don’t understand. You’re upset with the quality of service you’ve received from departments like UIS and DPS that are underfunded, so you’re… deciding not to donate money which you could even earmark for those departments that you feel need some help? That just doesn’t make sense to me. And yes, I read your later posts, and I realize this is not your only reason for not wanting to donate; after all, you have/will have spent a lot of money on private education! I just wanted to point out that this seems like a strange line of reasoning.

Do you honestly think that this has not been noticed by Advancement and the administration. Believe me, it has and continues to be the source of a great deal of concern and hand-wringing. Many of the initiatives on campus, like NSO, the revamped Class Gift campaign, the senior lecture series, even traditions day, were all conceived with stimulating a higher rate of giving as one of their goals.

No offense, but were I the office in charge of getting alumni donations and noticed that we were in the bottom of the barrel of alumni giving compared to peer schools, I’d probably want to go and actively find out why alums aren’t giving, and then present that to the President and Board of Directors of the University. The fact that no one seems to have noticed this and is OK with the anemic giving rates, well, says something about GU in general.