Innovative Alumni Fundraising Strategies Through Technology and Engagement

In this episode of FYI we hear from advancement expert Charlie Melichar about how institutions can leverage technology to boost results.

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Who is Charlie Melichar?

Charlie is the founder of Melichar Consulting and a recognized expert in campaign development and alumni engagement.

In this Episode

Charlie Melichar joins FYI host Gil Rogers to talk about how to use technology effectively to facilitate better connections with alumni and advancement offices. 

The conversation also covers Charlie’s career journey, starting in radio and pivoting through journalism and public relations, before settling into higher education consulting at his own firm. Charlie makes a good argument that the quality of outcomes from any technological tool depends on the level of understanding and goals set before it ever gets used.

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Episode Transcript

Harnessing Technology for Better Alumni Fundraising and Engagement with Charlie Melichar 

Publishing Date: March 5, 2024

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome back to FYI, the For Your Institution Podcast, presented by Mongoose. I’m your host, Gil Rogers. And today, we’re going to be listening in to a conversation I recently had with Charlie Melichar of Melichar Consulting. We dive into a lot of topics centered around alumni development and advancement offices and how technology can be used to better facilitate connections.

Let’s listen in.

[00:00:30] Gil: Hey Charlie, how are you?

[00:00:32] Charlie: I’m doing great. How’re you doing?

[00:00:33] Gil: I’m doing all right. Thanks for, thanks for taking the time. It’s always awesome to connect.

[00:00:38] Charlie: Very, yeah.

[00:00:39] Gil: So, before we hop in, I want to let you introduce yourself to our audience and give us a little bit of your background, how you got to where you are, your inspirations, all that sort of fun stuff, and then we can go from there.

[00:00:51] Charlie: Yeah. So, I’m Charlie Melichar. I run my own consulting firm, Melichar Consulting. We do, or I do, work primarily in the advancement space with colleges and universities, healthcare systems, cultural organizations, looking to raise money to do great things for people. I mean, that’s what it boils down to. So, we do campaign planning, campaign work, and then just overall advancement program and fundraising program support, because campaigns are great and important, but these organizations do great and important things outside of campaigns. So, really helping figure out, how’s the program functioning, how are people performing in their jobs, and how’s your message resonating, and ultimately, are people picking up what you’re putting down? Are they excited about your mission and your vision? And do they want to be a part of it through philanthropic support and engagement?

So, that’s what I do. How I got to do that, which is a bit of a journey, you know, I started off in thinking I was going to go into radio, then thinking I was going to go into journalism, then deciding to go into PR. And then PR got me into higher education, and that’s where I sat for most of my career, working at UMBC in Baltimore, then Colgate University in New York, then ultimately, Vanderbilt University, which is here in Nashville, and where I’ve been since 2010. So, yeah, that’s me.

[00:02:10] Gil: So, tell me about this desire to get into radio, because we’re on a podcast now [crosstalk 00:02:15] radio, right? So, you do, kind of, have a voice for radio for whatever.

[00:02:19] Charlie: Yeah, I’ve been told about that.

[00:02:19] Gil: I have a face, I have a face for radio, but what was your original genesis for wanting to do that?

[00:02:24] Charlie: Yeah. I just, I got into the college radio station. I was like, “This is it, man. This is what I’m going to do.” And then, I had… so, I was general manager of the radio station, was on air, did my internships in the summer in radio, and came back to my internship after a semester for the summer and opened the door to the room where I did a lot of my work. And there were, literally, machines where I used to sit, like the computers that were set up to do the work that I had been doing. And it’s, kind of, like this, “Oh, my gosh,” and they said, “Well, we don’t need you to do that anymore because it’s been automated.” I was like, “Oh, they shifted me over to something else.”

And I used to pull commercials and stuff like that and try not to say too much about how old I might be, but pull commercial spots and all that. And then, they said, “No, no, no, no, that’s on the machine.” I was like, “Oh.” So, eventually, it took hold that maybe, maybe there won’t be a job for me at some point. So, I kind of started to slide away from radio. I still, you know, I love it and loved it, but it moved more towards journalism. And then, really, journalism, that dream was short-lived because the journalism professor that I attached myself to was just, as soon as I said that, he said, “Oh, gosh, just go into PR.” He said, “You’ll end up there anyway, so just do it now.” All right. So, that’s how I ended up in PR, which, kind of, led to everything else.

[00:03:43] Gil: That’s awesome. So, so you were, like, the original person who was replaced by AI.

[00:03:48] Charlie: I felt like it. It felt like it, yeah.

[00:03:50] Gil: That’s amazing. So, we’ll probably find some parallels to that in the middle of the conversation when we talk about people and their roles and their work.

[00:03:59] Charlie: Sure.

[00:03:59] Gil: You were literally replaced by a machine; whereas, people are concerned about being replaced by software, right? I think that there’s, definitely, parallels that will [crosstalk 00:04:09] there. It’s interesting about the journalism piece, because I think that my story, I worked for the high school newspaper, I was a sports writer and all that sort of stuff. My favorite part was my last ever article that I contributed was on the front page of the sports section. That was the first time I was put out there, which was great. This is how I peaked in high school, literally. But then, you go, I went to college, joined the newspaper, and it was the business manager selling ads and all that sort of stuff. And so, then, I got into marketing, right? And so, getting into marketing, getting into PR. I applaud the work that true journalists do. But there’s all these other elements that are tied into that [crosstalk 00:04:45].

[00:04:45] Charlie: Oh, yeah, that’s all training, right? I mean, it does… what you learn from doing those jobs and what I learned from radio, I mean, you learn a lot about how to talk, just talk, right, when you’re in radio, because you’re usually in a room by yourself, talking to nobody. And you might actually be talking to a few, a couple or thousands of people and you don’t have that immediate feedback, right? So, you, kind of, have to learn how to know what you’re going to say and know what you want to talk about and keep yourself entertained for a little bit.

[00:05:15] Gil: Yeah, it’s the old day webinar, right? Like, you think about that experience. And I remember I’m one of the, and for the listening and the YouTube viewing audience, you know, one of the ways Charlie and I got connected was, I was working at a company that hosted virtual events and virtual content. And during the height of COVID, those types of companies saw a lot of growth because there were no other in-person options, right?

And one of the biggest points of contention for admissions officers, which I would assume is a similar type of feedback from advancement professionals and communications professionals, is the people who are really good at presenting to audiences, say, at an event on campus or an event off campus, were the ones that really struggled… many of them, I shouldn’t say all of them, many of them struggled with doing it virtually because they thirst for that interaction. They want that type of just-in-time feedback that you don’t get from a webinar and you surely don’t get when you’re hosting a radio show.

[00:06:09] Charlie: Well, it’s also, if you think back, it was a proxy. Like, before it was necessary. It was just a, “Hey, this is… there’s some technology out there.” I mean, we weren’t Zooming all the time back, before we were Zooming all the time. So, you can work around the inefficiencies and you can work around the, “This is actually what we do now,” of it.

And I think you’re right. I think it did take people a minute to think about, what do you really want to… can you reasonably accomplish in this format? How do you connect to people? How do you think about lighting, like, all that. From big stuff to little stuff, it’s, yeah, it’s not been that long, but it’s been, actually, a few years now that people had track record of how to figure out how to do this right. I still, I’m pretty sure we’re not there yet.

[00:06:51] Gil: Yeah. And I think the people who had a headstart, were the people who have done types… these types of things. I was doing webinars for years before [crosstalk 00:06:59]. And many people were, I’m not going to say I was like the pioneer webinar, but there were a lot of people who had never done that type.

I told the story last week to a friend about podcasting, like, I was doing a podcast with one of my former bosses at a college that I worked with, and we were, like, “This is when we were diving into every social network and we want to be on every digital channel.” I was like, “Why don’t we do a podcast where the admissions VP talks about what kids should be doing to prepare for their college search?” We thought that was a great way to, you know, add value to the conversation. And it was interesting, because this is the guy that you put him in an auditorium with 900 people. Totally fine. Jokes. Having a great time. Put him in front of a microphone to record a podcast, which you can edit all of it later before it even goes live. Sweating bullets, right? [crosstalk 00:07:43] And so, it’s just, it’s interesting to think about the place people, the places people are comfortable and knowing where to put people.

[00:07:51] Charlie: Yeah. It’s true. It’s true.

[00:07:54] Gil: So, that’s a great intro. And I’ve actually, I’ve learned so much about your radio. I didn’t know about the radio background. That’s amazing to me. So, what we’ll do is we’ll take a quick break, and when we come back, what we will end up diving into is, probably, something very related to what we just started touching on, which are some of the challenges that advancement professionals specifically are facing during these times. And I think, you know, we can talk about AI. We can talk about digital media. We can talk about a lot of things. But we’ll, we will take a break, and we will be right back.

[00:08:24] Charlie: Sounds great.

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[00:09:16] Gil: All right. Welcome back to FYI, the For Your Institution Podcast. I’m here with Charlie Melichar of Melichar Consulting, and we are about to dive into a branch from the conversation we were just having around the challenges that advancement professionals might be facing right now with regards to advancements in technology. And Charlie shared a, a great story about, he was replaced by technology back in the day. And now, we’ve had a lot of conversations here on the podcast and all over the internet about advancements in technology and how people are concerned, not necessarily now for their jobs, but how it’s going to impact their jobs.

So, Charlie, I’d love for you to give just your off-the-cuff reaction to that type of a commentary, right, where people are trying to find the best ways to leverage technology in their day-to-day. And I’ll give you one example, that recently we had Dave Marshall, who’s the founder and CEO of Mongoose, on the podcast. And he… you know, we were talking about how technology can… the irony of how technology, actually, can facilitate better human interactions and better connections. But a lot of those conversations have been in higher education, at least, I feel like, have been really centered around student recruitment and retention, right? And I think that there’s a gap in the conversation that we have to have more, which is, how can we apply those lessons in the advancement world? And so, I’d love for you to, kind of, noodle on that and let me know what you think.

[00:10:45] Charlie: Yeah. Well, I mean, just jumping right off of that point, that’s what I am most optimistic about, that if you can use technology, and it doesn’t have to just be outward-facing, but even the technology that you have, to just do the day to day of the job, if you can leverage that to make more time for people stuff, that’s good, right? Because these are people-to-people, one-to-one or one-to-few, or even one-to-many, opportunities for people to get together, whether it’s around missions or advancement, engagement, that’s great.

So, the degree to which technology facilitates human-to-human interaction, that’s a win. I think some of the problems we face are pacing, things are changing very quickly. Higher education, in particular, some, it just, it takes a while to make things happen, to implement things. So, the incubation time from “that’s a great idea” to “now we’re using it” and fully fluent and how best to use it can take a while. And sometimes, the technology changes under our feet.

So, how are places being thoughtful about which technologies are enhancing, which ones are really doing the work they need to do, and which ones might be adding to workload, adding to just overall, kind of, the burden on the people, and taking them away from the people stuff, right? So, I think, sometimes, you see places that acquire technologies, and they spend so much time selecting, onboarding, training, that ultimately was the juice worth the squeeze, right? Are you doing more of the right work, or did we, kind of, add more burden? That’s one of the challenges.

The other one, one of the other ones I see is embedded in that last comment, are just around not the people-to-people connections that we’re charged to make as advancement professionals, but also, the, how are we using technology to support people internally? And are they properly trained? Do they have the resources to be successful using whatever technology it is? And is it recognized, again, as an enhancer? Or, is it, kind of, taken off the ball?

So, those are a handful of things that can be in our way. But, like I said, I’m really optimistic about ways that we can be using some, really, any technology, but some… new platforms and emerging platforms to do great things for advancement programs and for their institutions. But it can get really noisy, right? It can get queasy in terms of everything that’s available, what the best practices are, what the ways to use these things properly are. And there could be uneven levels of adoption and, again, kind of, fluency with the organization that just make it clunky. And nobody loves clunky.

[00:13:25] Gil: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting, nobody loves clunky, but they also are super comfortable with the status quo, right? And if clunky is the status quo, then, a lot of times, we deal with clunky. And that’s, that can be from the guy who’s worked in ed tech for 20 years now. That’s the frustrating piece, right?

And I know one of the things we’ve talked about for the past couple of years is this challenge of there’s desire for everything to be integrated, but you don’t want to invest in one larger thing. We’d rather work with five or six small things, right? And especially, in the advancement world, I feel like there’s opportunities for efficiency, where, like you’re saying, is the juice worth the squeeze when we have to log into four different platforms to be able to, to truly engage with one donor or to better respond or better reach out to one alum about getting involved, right?

I think there’s a lot of opportunity there to become more efficient by, dare I say, consolidating some of those investments. And I love your thoughts on, kind of, the time people are spending with different things, because I think that brings us to the different, different sections of the fundraising pyramid, so to speak, right? I know, there’s, obviously, you’ve got your large base of recent alumni who don’t necessarily make a lot of money that aren’t going to be giving, but they want to be involved in some way. And then, you’ve got the super tippy top, which are the people who are getting ready to, you know, write the institutions into their wills, and they’re super high-touch.

But there’s this giant group in the middle that, if you could get them to, you know, add a zero to their $50 check to send $500 instead, that would be a huge impact on the outcomes of the fundraising campaign or of the annual fund or whatever the effort is. But I think a lot of it is we cannot get out of our own way.

[00:15:05] Charlie: Yeah. And if you look at how programs are built to interact with, engage, manage, whatever you want to call it, folks up and down that pyramid, I mean, typically, you have individuals responsible for individual relationships, communications, engagement, kind of, at the higher end. And then, obviously, for efficiency purposes, we’re communicating in more of a mass way as we get further down.

I think one of the things, and it makes me skeptical a little bit about where we could go with as technologies advance, a lot of times there’s a problem. We do know these folks, right? They’re just, they’re not… and if they’re alumni, they’ve experienced the institution. Many of them have interacted in some way. They’ve had some kind of engagement. We still tend to see folks addressed, spoken to as a bit of an amorphous blob, right? And you get that, right? I mean, you and I, we have alumni experiences. I’m not sure what yours is like. I’m not, not talking about what mine is like. But I think a lot of people would say that, generally, maybe I don’t get a whole lot. And when I get it, it feels pretty standard. So, that’s at the base, and that tends to run up all the way through that middle, even, that you’re talking about of, before you ask me to do something, you should probably reflect that you know me and why you’re asking me to do that thing.

Is it just because you need a certain amount of revenue each year and you’re counting on alumni to be responsible for that? Well, that doesn’t sound great to me, right? But you can use some, really, not sophisticated technology to get some of that right. I think it creates opportunities to use more sophisticated technology to do other things.

But I still think, I mean, to your point about all the platforms and everything, I still think there’s work to be done to not just do targeted marketing or, kind of, use fields to enter, you know, Gil’s name or whatever. It’s more of a reflecting that, we see you, we care about what you care about, and there are things that we’d love to see you get involved.

And simple as that seems, as basal as that seems, there still are some problems up and down on that. So, making people, giving people a sense that, there’s not just an opportunity to invest more, but there’s an opportunity to just feel more a part of the institution. And that doesn’t have to be all person-to-person. Sometimes, you can use the people to manage the systems to make it possible for someone to see themselves in it. And then, that leads itself into something else.

So, I think technology can help tremendously, especially, like you’re saying, at that mid-level point, because a lot of those folks who end up in that middle of the pyramid have some level of capacity to both do more, and they probably have raised their hand at some point and say, “Yeah, I care about what you guys are doing.” But if they keep getting tossed into the general pool, eventually, they might slip away, right?

[00:18:00] Gil: Yeah. And that goes to the point, like, that I’ve heard numerous times over the past few months, is around personalization, right? And personalization is not just, “Dear, first name,” right? That’s, that personalization is more about the right message after the interaction, right, and making it so that they’re… I go to the recruitment world with this, right, where it’s like, “My name is Gil, and you know that I have expressed interest in the marine biology program, right.” And so, sending me a letter saying, “Dear, Gil, here’s information about the marine biology program,” that was personalization at some point 10, 15 years ago, that was the level that we were capable of at best. Yet, we still send dear-student letters, right?

[00:18:45] Charlie: Yeah.

[00:18:46] Gil: And so, there’s still issues with that. And I think it’s the same in the advancement side, where, I would hope my alma mater knows my name, and I would hope that they know what I graduated with, right? They should have a record of that somewhere. But to send me a letter and just say, “Hey, we would love to update you on what’s been going on in the business school,” right, that’s different than knowing that I was on the website a week ago and inviting me to an event that features a professor who I adored when I went there, right? Like, there’s, there’s an opportunity to be better when it comes to personalization.

[00:19:19] Charlie: What you just talked about, though, I think… and this isn’t a technology issue, this is a culture or practice or behavior issue, whatever it is, is that makes sense, right? Saying, “Hey, Gil, we know you care about Professor Johnson from the marine biology program. We’re doing an event nearby. We’d love for you to create a program, great offering and everything.” The truth is, maybe, 30 people really care about that, 50 people really care about that, and maybe 16 might come. When places put on events, there tends to be, maybe they start with that recognition, but then as the list gets built and they think about the program, and “Oh, gosh, we’re asking him to travel out there, and we already got the catering and everything,” invite everyone within 100 miles. And that’s where things, I mean, that then does manifest itself in technology.

But there can be this sense of, “We, really, everybody should know. Or, we should invite everybody.” And if you took a minute and looked at everybody’s past behaviors, most of them have no chance of going, right? And make all these arguments about, well, you know, if they don’t know, they won’t go. Well, we did that, like, 30 times already with Gil and he’s never shown up. So, we probably over-invited him, right? And also, he majored in dance. So, I don’t even know why we’re asking him. And if that’s, what, again, that’s not really a technology thing, but it’s a, I don’t know what it is, if it’s fear or if it’s the sense that everybody should know, right? But if they’ve already shown some sense of, like, they might really care about one thing, but they mostly don’t care about everything else, just give them that one thing.

And the technology does its best work when you start to do that, right? If you have internal practices about, “We know who our market is, we know what our market cares about, and we know how if they might be activated,” technology is ready to rock. But if you give it just lumpy data, you’re going to end up saying, “Well, that platform didn’t do what I wanted, so I’m going to switch to this one,” which is going to do the exact same thing. You see this a lot, right?

It’s this, it’s about this sense of engagement, which is a great word, but I think it gets misused a bit sometimes, that engagements feels good but there are a lot of things about it that can be hard, right? Engagement isn’t just, “I want you to engage with me so I can do something,” right? Engagement is, like, a two-way street conversation. Do you want to have a conversation with these people, right, just as an organization? Is this everyone? And do they want to have a conversation with you? Both answers might be no, right?

So, I think, having honest conversations about, what do you mean by engagement? Who are you trying to activate? And do any of them show signs that they want to engage back? I think that all of those conversations, at a high level, really help you dial in how the technology can do its best work for you.

[00:22:13] Gil: Yeah, absolutely. And I love how, during this podcast, I went from being a business major to a marine biology major to a dance major.

[00:22:21] Charlie: Oh, we’re not done yet. We’re not done yet.

[00:22:22] Gil: And that’s fine. I mean, I… now, I work in podcasting. So, there we go. So, I want to drive home that point around the better communication and thinking more clearly about what message gets sent to whom, right. And I think, I, I look at, like, case studies when people buy a new CRM platform, they say, “Oh, our yield rate went up by X percent,” or, “We had better response rate by Y percent,” or whatever. And I always chuckle because I say, well, the reason why is because building that new communication flow in that new CRM is probably the first time you’ve looked at your [crosstalk 00:22:56] eight years ago when you built your old CRM, right?

And so, I think there’s a certain need for more proactive evaluation of that type of content on a regular cadence. And I know it’s easier said than done, but it really should be done, right?

[00:23:14] Charlie: Yeah.

[00:23:14] Gil: Doing the good work to make sure that our targeting remains true, because if it does, if I invite everybody within 100-mile radius or invite 35 people in the area and either way 17 people show up, something tells me I should have just gone with the more targeted approach.

[00:23:28] Charlie: That’s right. Well, in all logic, I mean, none of this, like, mind boggling, right? Like, we’re not saying things right now that would blow people’s minds. But again, they’re either institutional cultures or a sense of, “We have to generate audience for this thing,” which, of course, is true. But that doesn’t mean, now invite 600 people, because the same ones who were going to show up to the targeted list are probably going to show up. Or, maybe you catch a couple here and there, but that’s not really [crosstalk 00:23:54].

And what costs, both in terms of internal cost and what cost in terms of you just bludgeoning people with stuff and just showing them again and again that you don’t know them going back to that original point.

And I totally agree about that the process enhances the products, but if you just, kind of, it’s like anything, right? If you practice every day, by the time it’s game day, you’re going to perform better. But if you just show up to the game, if you just use the system at, kind of, point of send, it’s probably not going to really do much great work for you.

[00:24:28] Gil: That’s it. And now, I need you to give a pep talk to my son about his hockey practice time. Same thing. Awesome. Well, that is, I mean, obviously, covered a lot there. And like you said, I feel like a lot of these conversations are always we’re not doing earth shattering, groundbreaking revelations, we are reinforcing common sense and reinforcing… and I get it, there are people that, “We’re under pressures every day to increase reach, we’re under pressures every day to increase outcomes,” but if you get one or two more people to show up to an event but you turn off 99% of those 600 people that you invite, is it worth it? And some people will say, “Well, I got those two people to come,” but long term, is it worth it?

[00:25:10] Charlie: That’s right. Well, there’s also opportunity costs in there, too, right, of kind of, the, if we are really honest with ourselves about the people who are really good prospects, then we’ll be more honest with ourselves about, okay, who are the next ones, the ones after that, right? And then, how do we spend some time, maybe some dollars, a little bit of research, or whatever it is to get to know our people better? Because again, we’re talking about engagement, and engagement isn’t just the easy engagement or the people who know you and like you. It’s harder engagement of the people who know you and, maybe, sort of, like you, or don’t really know you and might like you, but, kind of, doing the same things with the same groups, with the expectations to have better or different outcomes just won’t work, right? It just doesn’t work.

So, how do we peel that back, just be honest, that we’re not doing anything wrong here, but there’s opportunity out there we’re just missing because we’ve limited our bandwidth or we’ve not taken the time to understand why they’re not, you know, why they’re not engaging, why they’re not responding, why they’re not whatever. And it’s probably because we just don’t know them. We don’t know them as well as we know the people who, again, who have said, “I like you. I want to be a part of what you’re doing.” It’s we’re expecting other people to do that just because other people do it. That’s not how it works.

[00:26:27] Gil: Absolutely. Well, we’re going to take another break. And when we come back, I want to build on that and talk about another future and how we can better serve people by getting to know them better and what ways we can get them to know us better so that we can then know them better, and vice versa, right? So, we will take a break, and we will be right back.

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[00:27:41] Gil: All right, welcome back to FYI. We are here with Charlie Melichar of Melichar Consulting, talking about a number of things. One, inspiring my son to practice more at hockey. Two, we need to all get back into radio broadcasting. And three, and almost probably most importantly, doing a better job of informing our use of technology to keep our audiences engaged and then help to demonstrate that we know them, right, and in so doing, getting better results from our outreach, right?

And so, Charlie, we were just talking about, that was a very long way to just get to the areas where we were just talking about, which is, we have these great technology platforms and these great tools at our disposal. But a lot of times, the tool is only as good as the prompts that we give it. You know, I think about ChatGPT as a good example here, right? Like, when you give a bad prompt, you’re going to get a bad response. If you give a really thoughtful prompt, you get a really thoughtful response. And so, when we use technology, it’s very similar, right? If we’re not using targeting well, if we’re not using the personalized fields well, if we’re not using a good cadence, we’re not going to get good outcomes from our campaigns.

And I love your thoughts on tangible and tactical things that people could do to be better, right? To get better results; thus, creating a better experience for our audiences.

[00:28:57] Charlie: Yeah. Well, I think, going back, it starts again outside of technology, right? So, what are we trying to achieve? Who can help us get there? And what are we asking of them? I mean, some of the basics of, from a fundraising standpoint, what are the goals we’re pursuing and the messaging that wraps around it? Then, who actually are we talking to? And that could be from a one-to-one standpoint, but it also could be to more of a, a larger market with segments. But what is it we’re asking of them? And then, how do we make sure we’ve, kind of, earned that ask? And is there more that has to be done before it? And that gets you into how we’re doing our storytelling and everything that tees up that right to ask somebody to do something.

I think the technologies that we use sometimes aren’t, we don’t think of them all together, like you were saying before, that, we have storytelling platforms over here, we got the website over here, we got social media, and then we got, really, an ecosystem that helps us convey institutional ambitions, what some of the opportunities to be involved are, so that, by the time it is, by the time it’s the moment to reach out to folks, there’s some sense of understanding there of where the institution’s going, right? “So, this is what we’re about. These are the big ideas. And then, here’s your chance to be a part of it. Here’s an opportunity that, because we know you as an animal husbandry major, that Gil, that, we were asking you to be a part of this.”

So, it’s a long way of saying, I think the technology, again, is a, a facilitator of that point of engagement. And the ways that we can best use it is by doing our homework first around all the other things. So, why is it? Is it because this is the way we usually do it and we usually use this thing to do it? Or, is there an opportunity or in a segment that we know really well or know about that we need to provide this opportunity to? And is that really the best way to get them? Is it whatever? Is it our email platform? Is it our social media program? Is it text, whatever it is?

That tool will only perform as well as, like you said, that tool will only perform as well as what we feed it, right? So, if you feed it a bad list with, kind of, clunky content, even if it’s well-written, but the content isn’t on point and honed, you’re not going to get a great return from it.

So, I think it’s everything that leads up to the point of which you start pressing keys and buttons and all that kind of stuff turning knobs because I have to turn knobs on my computer every morning, that is going to just make for a more successful outcome. And again, it’s going to feel better to the people on the other side. What feels weird, often, to folks on the inside, on staff, is that your lists are smaller, your messaging might be more honed. It can feel like less, but it’s way more focused and targeted.

[00:31:46] Gil: I’ll point out, you did not say touch a screen when you talked.

[00:31:49] Charlie: I did not. I did not, with technology. So, for those who are questioning age groups, there we go. I think I’ve already taken care of that, yeah.

[00:31:57] Gil: I mean, we already opened the conversation with you were replaced at a radio station by technology. So, I think we’re good. Were you also one of those people in the basement helping connect phone lines to each other? Is that…

[00:32:08] Charlie: Not going to, not going to have response to that.

[00:32:12] Gil: I mean, I think it boils down to, and this will be the Mallory Wilson shout-out of the podcast, which is, she always says, goals before tools, right? And I think that, at the end of the day, as you said, you could have the greatest CRM platform, you could have the greatest text messaging platform, you could have the greatest social media monitoring software. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have clear guidance on what your objectives are. And for so long, it’s been in, and in higher ed, it’s definitely more pronounced. I’ve seen it at many institutions. It’s chasing the shiny toy, right? And/or not liking the outcomes from the latest shiny toy, so jumping to the next shiny toy.

[00:32:56] Charlie: That’s right.

[00:32:56] Gil: Jumping to the next consulting firm, or jumping to the next… and I think that, that we need to be more thoughtful about what our goals are. And like you said, maybe we’re working with smaller lists, but you know what? If I called 100 people, if I’m a development officer and I’m calling 100 people and 1 out of every 10 tell me that they want to give versus 10 out of every 10, I’ll take that smaller list that’s 10 of 10 every single time over this larger list and continually hitting a bunch of no’s.

[00:33:22] Charlie: Yeah. And, and a lot of it is, again, remembering that we’re trying to get to productivity results. Like, we want to make something happen, whether it’s an event or it’s giving, or what are those goals? And activity is not a goal, right? Being busy isn’t a goal. Sending 600 emails per month isn’t a goal. Having 300 events a year isn’t… all those things are means to an end. So, again, it can feel good, it can be it’s like the Costanza effect, where, if you look really busy, maybe that feels productive, but is that actually benefiting the organization? Or, can you do, make fewer efforts get either the same or more outcomes? That sounds even better.

But again, a lot of this is just, it’s, it can be habit breaking, and it’s very easy for me to say, because I’m a consultant, and I’m on the outside, and I don’t have to run into that, but I think, folks like you, folks like me, we can point to it and say, there’s another way, and then maybe give some confidence, give some kind of guidance on how to get from here to there. But I think, like you said, just depending on either the, whether it’s a tool or a report or whatever, to fix the problem isn’t getting to some of those fundamentals. And again, it doesn’t make good use of that cost of time and cost of, kind of, purchase on whatever technology that you’re using.

[00:34:47] Gil: Yeah, absolutely. And I think I’ll throw my final points, and I’ll let you respond. It’s, it comes to the matter of there’s two phrases that I’ve coined to the point of being cliche, hopefully, at this point, which is, there’s certainly comfort in redundancy, right? And I mean that from the point of, we, we do the things that we… that keep us busy because it’s way, I would say, it’s a way things have always been done, an approach. But there’s definitely a certain level of comfort with doing those remedial tasks over and over again because it feels like I’m doing something. It feels like I’m putting effort forward, right? And I think that’s something that is definitely permeated in the culture of higher education.

And the other is presence equals value, right? And just, you’re in the office. Even if you’re just sitting in your chair or spinning in a circle for the last two hours of the day, you’re there, right? You’re in the office and you’re present, which is an item that has been, at higher ed, definitely held on to pre- and post-COVID, which is making sure that people are there. And, and obviously, there’s been some flexibility now in a post-COVID world, but there’s still definitely an almost an over-indexing on being present in the office versus being out or in doing work. So, I’d love your thoughts on those two, kind of, statements.

[00:36:07] Charlie: Yeah. I mean, I think, on the first one, there’s a certain band of it’s year-over-year, it’s baseline work. It doesn’t need to be super exciting, but it’s important. But I think, sometimes, gets over… it’s not even overvalued, just too much time gets spent on it. It’s, like, the easy things need to be easy. So, what is that band of productive activities that aren’t the most exciting but they work? How do we make sure we spend as little time as humanly possible on them? And that’s a great place to insert technology because they, like, they just work. You have to make sure you’re paying attention so that they’re still working and that they’re functional and effective and efficient, all that kind of stuff. But let’s spend as little time as humanly possible on that, because they don’t need to be reinvented each year, which creates bandwidth for that next level of work that is experimenting more. And maybe it goes back to something we were talking about before. It’s time spent studying those untapped or under-leveraged markets that we have, some of that bandwidth gets cannibalized by spending too much time here.

And then, on top of that, it’s the real, kind of, the high value work that usually that time does get protected for that, but it’s that middle piece that I think we can find some ways to make better use out of. We could spend days on end talking about the presence is productivity piece. I think one of the things is, what does productivity look like? And so, are we clear on how people’s work is being valued and measured and where it’s most effective to do that work? I’m a believer in the human-to-human piece. I think we haven’t figured that out yet in terms of balance of showing up versus being present for the job.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about more lately, which is maybe a little bit off-topic on the balance of in office, out of office is, as we’re thinking about newer employees, whether they’re newer to the workforce or newer to the organization, how do we make sure that we’re not just making sure they’re productive or making sure that they’re doing the right things for the job? Are we offering them mentoring and growth opportunities? Because a lot of that happens in the margins. A lot of that happens in a traditional in-office environment. It happened around the edges of a meeting or around the edges of, kind of, event, whatever it was.

So, our place is really thinking about how they grow their people outside of Gil is a top performer, which is great. And maybe that’s enough. But are we also thinking about Gil’s growth in the organization? Gil’s growth as a professional? I am not sure what that looks like yet, but I’d love to hear more conversations about that, versus what’s the right number of days in the office, because I don’t know what to do with that. It could be all of them, or it could be none of them. But if it’s only… if the only measure is, are they doing the job, I feel like we’re missing something on behalf of the person, right? Like, what are we… but I don’t know what that could or should look like, but it’s something I’m eager to see folks talk more about.

[00:39:09] Gil: And how does Gil put his underwater basket weaving degree together? That’s the most important.

[00:39:14] Charlie: You’re bringing it full circle. I like it.

[00:39:16] Gil: Awesome. Well, I’ll start a radio show about underwater basket weaving and you’re my producer.

[00:39:22] Charlie: I’m in.

[00:39:22] Gil: So, Charlie, thank you so much for all of the time. And for anyone who wants to get in touch with you, what are the best ways to be able to do that?

[00:39:30] Charlie: LinkedIn is my favorite. So, yeah, you could find me there at melicharlie. You can find me anywhere at melicharlie, but that’s the top place to, to connect.[00:39:38] Gil: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, again. And we will see you all next time on FYI. Bye.

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