Last Day

Today was the final day of my senior project, I went into work today at around 10am and came Chuck immediately wanted me to make some modifications to the slide show I had made, but after seeing that it was pretty much all set he was satisfied. I worked on that for about an hour, and after that I went and talked to Valerie about the slideshow because she thought it could be better, but I reassured her. Then I gave Chuck the sponsor evaluation sheet that he needed to fill out, and he promptly completed that and returned it to me, and he explained why he gave me what he did, nothing bad. Lastly, I went around and said bye to people and thanked them for a great senior project. It was a lot of work, but I would do it all again!

2nd to Last Day

I didn't have the most exciting of days today, since I am winding down on my senior project I didn't go into the office for that long today. I went in after my Spanish exam at around 10am, and walked in to find that they were just about to start a weekly meeting, which was perfect. They were basically getting all the preparations for the senior dinner and graduation finalized, along with the upcoming cruise. On Friday and Saturday, when the graduation and senior dinner happen, the development office will be scrambling to make sure all the events are taken care of. Each of the people has a different job in each of the ceremonies. I just listened to this meeting, where they only talked about what the plans were, but then after I began to make the slideshow for the day of senior dinner. I only got the raw pictures before and now it was time to make it into a slideshow. I exported the pictures to iphoto and then into a movie format so that it will be easily played on Keith's computer. That was all I did today, tomorrow is my last day, so I have to complete my self-evaluation and have Chuck write a Sponsor evaluation.

Second Weekly Reflection

I feel like this week was full of information, I learned so much that I don’t think I could write it all on this weekly reflection. I really enjoyed what I was doing because I was really getting into the business side of the development office. I especially enjoyed interviewing Steve Theroux because he is the Finance manager for the Board of Trustees, so his information on the business of Proctor was lengthy, which is exactly what I was looking for. I learned a lot of information from him, but I also learned a lot from the people around the office. Like when I talked with Bonny and Keith I learned what the facts and figures were of the office and how they need to raise a certain amount of money each year to get the school by. I learned from Greg how to actually communicate with the donors, and how to ask them for money without actually asking. Also, I learned from Kim what it takes to communicate to the donors and potential donors through things like emails and weekly newsletters. There were no specific activities that I was asked to do that I didn’t know why. All the things I was doing seemed to have purpose. Everything happened as I expected this week. The only things thing could have happened that didn't was my interview with Mark Loehr, but I am not too disappointed by that because I got to talk with Steve Theroux, but possibly I will be able to talk with Mark this upcoming week. I got to interview almost everyone in the office and I know almost completely the process of how they go about business. I will benefit from this weeks activity by understanding now how a non-profit organization works, and since it’s the school I am attending I can see that process of business being applied. To this point almost all of my goals have been met, the only thing that hasn't happened is my meeting with Mark Loehr. The only other thing I would like to add is I enjoyed talking to Greg Samaha about communications and understanding how they go about calling donors, that was one thing I was puzzled about before. That’s about it for this week, I am excited for what is to come of this upcoming week, I hope that I will be able to get an interview in with Mark Loehr.

Friday

I went into work today at around 9am to go and sit down and write down a few more emails for the development office of students' emails, so that the development office can stay in touch with them. After that, Brenda Godwin asked if I could go to assembly and give Ed the yearbook and also help give out yearbooks to seniors after assembly. I got all of that done and went back to the office where I went and had a talk with Kim Hurlbutt who is the director of communications at the development office. We talked about how any pages that are sent out to parents and prospective donors come from the development office. She went over how 94% of the revenue comes from leadership donors, or people who donate a thousand dollars or more to school. What's pretty cool is that Kim can track who is reading the emails that the office sends them and see if they are even opening the emails, it really gives her a sense of how to send out the message of donating the best. Kim tries to see how to retain donors, while also getting new ones so that the business can grow. Her job takes lots of research on people, because she makes personal pages for the leadership donors and to do that she must find out a lot about the person. Kim talked about one person she made a page for where the person happened to really love football, so she found a picture of the person back when he was a student at Proctor and put his picture on a personal page. She also put a picture of Chris Ruez on the page posing on the same rock that the person in the other photo had. She said that also all the time she will get an email back from the recipient saying how delighted they were to be given a page that was so perfect for them. Customization is a key to her work. That was pretty much all we talked about for today, and at that point I was done for the day, but overall I had a very successful Friday.

Talk with Steve Theroux

Today wasn't exactly the busiest of days compared to others, though I did think that it was going to be a long stressful day. Anyways I went into the office at 9am as usual and met Steve Theroux who is the treasurer of the board of trustees. He was at Proctor so that I could interview him and that is exactly what I did. Steve is currently the president of Lake Sunapee Bank, but he has been involved with Proctor for some time now. He was the business manager of Proctor for a few years in and after 1980 and then he turned to be a trustee in 2005. Three of his sons came here which is why is stayed connected with the school. Our conversation was mostly about finance and how the school needs to operate. I heard a lot of the same stuff I have been hearing all week, like how the development office needs to raise 1 million dollars a year, but I also learned some new things like how their job is to make sure everything is balanced. The board of trustees mainly wants to oversee the school and keep the mission on track. Each year there is a specific budget that needs to be divided accordingly so the Board of trustees elects a school leader, Mike Henriques, to oversee that budget. So they are almost like the boss of Mike. Steve did say that he really enjoyed how Mike has been performing as a headmaster. Mike has been making sure there is a good flow of the budget each year. Proctor, like most other schools, follows main business concepts like technology, budget, payroll, etc., and this is how the money that comes from tuition is used. About 80% of the schools revenue is from tuition, so that is definitely the biggest part, but that other 20% needs to be filled in. That is where the Board of Trustees and the Development Office come in. They keep a sufficient model each year and if there are any new dorms or renovations that must be made, they will do a big fundraiser for the school. It surprised me to find out that the tuition isn't enough to get a new building, let alone completely support what the school needs to thrive. Steve also talked about an endowment, which I won't g into, but he basically said it was a big savings account. That was all for my talk with Steve, I was going to talk with Mark Loehr, but he had to reschedule, which is a relief to me seeing as this blog would be twice as long. To finish the day I rehearsed calling people for annual giving with Greg Samaha, which is much harder than you would think.

Communications

When I left to go to work at around 9am I went to Dougo Houston's office to go and talk to him about my past weeks because he is my mentor and that is his duty. So we talked for about 30 or 40 minutes just to catch up on my recent activities. After I left I went over to the development office, and the first thing I did was I wrote down emails of current seniors so that the development office can stay in touch with them after graduation. Then I proceeded to go and speak with Greg Samaha about the communications side of the development office. We basically go right into it by me sitting in on a few of his conversations with either parents of alumni or alumni or some other donor. I didn't get to make any calls myself, but I got a good handle on what he was doing and maybe later this week I will be able to speak with someone about giving. Greg gave me the basic script for the phone calls, but over the years it seems as though he has put his heart into it, which is what he said it was all about. Also he talked about smiling on the phone because if you are smiling the other person will be able to hear it. While I was listening he got a few answering machines, but he also made some success as well by getting a donation of a thousand dollars right there. He also talked to some parents that weren't sure, so I really got to see every type of situation that can happen. Greg told me that you never want to ask someone for their money, but rather invite them to donate, because it is less pressuring and a more courteous way of asking. We ended by having a mock conversation where I was the donor and Greg was Greg, and I got to see what strategies he employs. I am hoping that tomorrow I can maybe try calling someone and invite them to donate.

A New Understanding

I began my Tuesday by going to Brenda Godwin's office at around 10am, there I met her to go over pictures for the "Faces" slideshow. This is the slideshow shown during senior dinner. She wanted me to go through the pictures and make sure that there were enough pictures of everyone and to make sure some people weren't being shown over and over and some people not shown at all. After going through all the pictures and feeling like I had a good input on the slideshow I went back over to the development office. There I talked to Keith Barrett about his role in development and what he feels like he has to do to keep the show running. He talked about how 10 percent of a schools donors make up 90 percent of the donations. We talked about how people with the capacity to donate are the ones being called and the ones sent brochures and such. If someone donates once, most likely they will end up donating again, so the development office tries to keep that person on their radar, so to speak, because every donations counts. Since Proctor in a non-profit organization, there is a widely varying donor base, so what the development office does is keep people donating to the annual fund more than towards a big gift. Because normally a big gift will be one and done. Keith's role is to make sure that the donors are called and also he makes sure that no section of the development is weighed more than the others. So things like communications, annual giving, major gifts, planned giving, etc. are all equally important. Lastly Keith talked about how if the students are made happy and their dreams come true then they will most likely want to give back in the future. So the development office really wants to get all the donors it can to reach that essential budget each year.

Another Monday

To start off the week I didn't have the most exciting of days, but I certainly learned a lot. I came into the office at around 9am to see what would come of this week, and right away I sat down with Bonnie Morris to learn about what the development office has to do to raise money every year. We talked about all the figures of the whole operation. The school brings in about 14 million a year and they want to have 15 million for developing Proctor, so the job of the development office is to raise that one million dollars to keep the school running and/or help finance new buildings or extraneous costs. Things like the music studio were all funded by what the development office raised. This year they are looking to have 235 donors with a donations of over one thousand dollars. For anyone that may be donating over a thousand dollars, they will get a phone call from the development office rather than just a letter in the mail, to make it more personal. These people that donate over a thousand are called box 1 donors and that is just because they donate the highest. Anyone else is either box 2, 3, or 4. For those people they will be sent a paper appeal or pamphlet, and they aren't as important as the box 1 people, but they certainly help. That was pretty much all I learned for today, it's a lot of information I know, but I'm glad I know how a non-profit organization like Proctor works now.

First Weekly Reflection

The first week of my senior project was very successful. I basically learned what it was like to work in a development office for a week, whether I was doing busy work like laminating cards for senior dinner, or attending important meetings. For the most part I liked what I was doing, sometimes I would be doing the little things that aren’t exactly fun to do, but part of what needs to be done for things to keep flowing. A few of those activities were creating slide shows, cutting ribbons, counting and creating table cards for senior dinner, and figuring out transportation for the senior cruise. I was also involved with important things like marketing meetings and planned giving meetings, which is what I had as an idea of what I would be doing. Another thing I learned is that there needs to be a lot of money flow to make everything run smoothly, I learned that from the planned giving meeting. I really enjoyed listening and understanding how everything works and finding out that there is a lot of things that go into making a school run. For example, one of the meetings there was talk about the Proctor logo for about an hour, and there wasn’t even a decision made then. I would say that most things happened like I expected, I knew that I would probably have to do some “start-up” work meaning that I had to do the little things around the office. But I also knew that Chuck would do his best to keeping me involved with the important things as well. I have already benefited from the activities I did this week, because I have already learned how the business works at development and I now know that Proctor basically wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the development office. This week was about learning what the development office does as a whole, and next week I am hoping to find out what each of the individuals’ role is for the office and what they contribute. I feel like I had a very successful week and I am excited to see what is to come of this upcoming week.

Hooray for Friday

When I got to the office today at about 900am, I sat down at my workspace and wrote up a blog about the meeting the other day because I needed help with the terminology. Kim helped me out to teach me what an I.R.A is for, because Peg Andrews was talking about them an I really didn't know what they are. Turns out that I.R.A stands for individual retirement account, and it is an account that a person will obtain when they retire and the advantage of having one is that it is tax free and the account gives the retiree money every alloted amount of time. So giving a school an I.R.A is one of th better ways to donate because then the school doesn't have to pay taxes on incoming cash flow, opposed to an asset as a donation, the school would have to pay tax on the asset. After that brief conversation I worked more on setting up for the senior dinner. I had to cut out two ribbons for each of the 80 tables that will be at senior dinner, the ribbons are different colors to direct families to their tables. Busy work I know, but I'm glad I can always help.

A Busy Thursday

I came to the office at around 9am right after my one class of the day. Valerie Ferris assigned me to organize the cards that will be given to everyone as the enter senior dinner so that they will be able to find their table. There were about 800 cards that I had to go through so it wasn't difficult work, but busy work. After finishing that I went and called multiple coach companies for possible transportation to Lake Winnipesaukee for the senior dinner/dance cruise. Some companies didn't charter and others did, but it turns out that it will be cheaper to just use a few minibuses and the Proctor "Big Bus". This was my first interaction with close to formal conversations on the phone in the office. Peg Andrews then came in from Colby-Sawyer College to talk to us about planned giving, this entailed many different approaches to possibly receive money from mostly Alumni of the school. She mentioned this like merit scholarships where the school would give the student money, so that they would feel like they have to give back in the future. An I.R.A or a Individual Retirement Account is a good gift for the school, because it has no taxes on it and is a periodically flow of money for the recipient and, as a gift, that money would be going to the school. A lot of the planned giving money is from wills, so if the school is included in a will they could be possibly getting money, unrestricted or not, or some sort of asset that the school could eventually sell for unrestricted money. Peg also talked about face to face conversations between potential givers and a development worker so that the potential givers will be more susceptible to donating, and lastly she said to follow up on any gifts that someone gives, because if they give once most likely they will be willing to give again, unless the giving is from a will of course. After Peg left Kim brought Pizza for the office and I had lunch and then was finished for the day at around 1pm.

Marketing Meeting

Today was filled with less busy work and more conceptually work. I went to work at around 815am and briefly talk to chuck about the meeting we were going to be attending. We talked about how the school funds go towards different buildings on campus. A few projects we talked about were the possibility of expanding the field house, or how when the current Wise Center was built they were also going to expand the street side of Maxwell Savage to basically put a new face on Proctor. After talking we went to the marketing meeting, where a few of the heads of school met together with a few of the development employees. Mike Henriques, Chris Bartlett, Gregor Makechnie, Chuck, Kim, and Keith were all there. The first conversation was about the Proctor logo and how a few changes might be made in the near future, and it has already made some progress compared to the logo in the past. Most of the next conversations had to do with more appeal to prospective students and parents. They are trying to make a more user friendly website and there is even a Proctor map on Google Earth. Next they talked about thousands of photo archives being added to the internet on Flickr. That was pretty much all of the important things mentioned at the meeting. Though I didn't really put too much opinion into the conversation I definitely absorbed a lot of information from the meeting. I have a good understanding for what marketing is now that I attending this meeting.

Making Progress

Today, I got into the office at around 1030am and almost immediately got to work, after greeting everyone. I went to the computer that Chuck stationed me at and got back to working on the senior slide show. I forgot to mention this is the slide show that will be playing while people are getting their food at the senior dinner and not the slide show that Brenda Godwin plays during the awards. I worked for about two hours and completed the slide show, I only used the images, I didn't make a title page or anything like that. After finishing that and feeling accomplished I moved on to go ask Valerie what I could do to help out and she said that I could get the cards together that they give to each of the families as they come into senior dinner. She printed out all the numbers for each of the table and I cut them out and laminated them. That was all the work I did for today I am hoping I can talk more business tomorrow. I worked for about four hours today.

First Day

Today was the first day of my senior project at the Development office at Proctor Academy. I begun by being introduced to the variety of employees that work there. After that Chuck Will and I walked over to the bookstore to ask Alex Estin for a list of seniors for the senior slide show that will be played during the day of graduation. Then we went to talk to Patty Durkin to try and set up a time where I might be able to interview the head of trustees, Mark Loehr. Chuck and I went back over to the Development office and I got to work on beginning a senior slide show. After working on that for a little longer than an hour I attended a development meeting. Where all of the employees got together and discussed their current whereabouts with work, whether it were managing transportation for the senior cruise or something else having to do with the upcoming graduation. That was just about all I did for today and I left from there to go to class, I worked from about 9am-12pm.