Orange Club Press Conference Transcript (Oct. 17, 2006)
Dr. Daryl Gross
Director of Athletics
“Thank you all for coming. We are here to introduce something that is very dear to our hearts. Orange Pack, as we knew it, has now been re-branded as Orange Club. There has been a lot of thought and a lot of process that has gone with this. I want to commend senior associate athletic director Scott Sidwell and his staff for putting together and rolling out a wonderful Orange Club plan that we think all of our alums, donors, fans and friends will enjoy. It’s a concept where the people who have supported Syracuse athletics for years will be recognized as people who have supported it and will have the membership benefits that go along with that. We are excited because we have constructed a system that rewards our fans. It is very progressive and it’s a lot of fun. We hope that it will allow a lot of other people to see that they should get involved with Syracuse athletics because there a lot of good things that will come out of it. We are here to celebrate that. To talk in more detail, I would like to bring up senior associate athletic director Scott Sidwell.”
Scott Sidwell
Senior Associate Athletic Director
“Thank you, Dr. Gross. Certainly before we get into the elements of the plan, we have some folks that we want to thank. My staff certainly has worked very hard to put this plan together. As Dr. Gross stated, it’s a very well thought-out plan, one that we worked on for nine months since I began last January. I want to introduce Lisa Moore, assistant athletic director for development and gift planning. She joined us just a few short months ago and she has done a great job with the nuts and bolts of this plan. Matt Palumb is our director of donor relations. He joined us just three weeks ago. Matt is a very familiar name in the community and in Syracuse athletics. And, of course, Mary Dunham and Barb Nesci have been here for a number of years and do a great job for us.
“The first thing I want to talk about is what necessitated the change to the Orange Club. When I showed up here nine months ago, Dr. Gross challenged both me and our office to do a couple of things that would help us in the area of development. The first thing was to simplify the process for giving. Certainly when you look at the folks who donate to the athletic department, they do it because they love Syracuse athletics and they do it because they want to support our student-athletes in every endeavor, both in the classroom and on the field of play. The second point was to improve our communications, both internally and externally, from the standpoint of how we work as a unit in the department with all the different aspects of it, from the marketing department, the communications department, the ticket office and all of the other departments we work with. We had to improve our communications and we feel that with the roll out of this plan, we have done so. And the last aspect was the raise more money. Certainly that’s the end result of all of those things. We need to raise more money to be able to benefit our student-athletes and give them extraordinary opportunities. That is one thing you have heard Dr. Gross talk about a number of times. His vision is to be extraordinary. We feel like we’ve been able to do that.
“With that, we have developed the Orange Club. The first part of any development of an organization and new plan is to have a mission statement. We put together a mission statement that we feel is very broad-based and gives us the opportunity to really focus in on the things that are important. The basic aspects of the mission statement that are important to us is that we raise more resources across the board for our student-athletes and we do it with integrity and professionalism. Certainly that was something we wanted to focus on and we feel like we’re going to be able to do that in a number of different ways.
“There are three basic areas that we focused on. The first is making giving easier – a simplified system of recognition and processing. Before I came here there were a number of different ways folks could give to the Syracuse athletics department. There wasn’t a coordinating and unifying effort that helped recognize those. We simplified that system. Another area is consolidated billing. Often times all of our donors would be giving to different aspects of the athletic department, including preferred seating, gift clubs, an endowment, give to a facility, or a planned gift. In all of those areas, they received different invoices and different billing and often times a different person would talk to them about each of those aspects. We are consolidating all of that and making it simpler. In December, all of our donors will receive an invoice that will consolidate that all into one billing and make it much simpler. The last effort is making giving easier in a coordinated effort department-wide. Certainly that is something where we need to unify our vision, unify our message as we move forward.
“The second aspect of the roll out of the Orange Club is in customer service. We have updated our systems. We worked closely with Pat Campbell and Wendy Coher from the Carrier Dome Box Office, who have done a great job for a number of years in giving our fans every opportunity to purchase tickets and to donate in a much easier way. One of the things that we have done is integrate the computer software in the ticket office and the development systems. Certainly when people look at Syracuse athletics, they don’t want to have to say I have to call the Orange Club office for this and the ticket office for that. We tried to consolidate all of that and we feel we’ve been able to do that so donors will be able call up and everyone in the department will have the same information on what the donor has done or the years of support or what they can to continue to support. That is something that is very important to us and we’ve added the software to help us do that.
“From the donor relations standpoint, we’ve really worked hard during the first nine months of my tenure to coordinate our efforts through Institutional Advancement, the department on campus that oversees all fundraising for the University. They have their own systems which we tie into. We attend meetings on a weekly basis and are in contact with them daily to make sure that as we are approaching our donors, we are doing a great job of communicating with them what they do across the board. The last aspect of the donor relations component is assigning prospect managers. A prospect manager is a person who works in our office and the ticket office who, when they are talking with someone, know exactly what they are talking about with both their ticketing and their donation needs so that you are seeing it all in one place so that you know what someone is doing for the University.
“The next aspect of the rollout is really the most important and that is the benefits of membership. We have laid out different levels that people can donate to who will receive different benefits. Some of those things include being able to be a member of Orange All Access on our website, having the opportunity to go on a trip with the football team on its charter, as well as the basketball team, to our very highest donors who will receive a personalized, reserved parking spot on game day. From that aspect, these levels represent a culmination of the gifts people give across the board. We are certainly very excited about being able to offer these benefits of membership.
“Last year as an athletic department we raised $8.6 million. And if you compare that to others we compete against, not only in our conference, but also regionally, other private institutions, we have a lot of work to do. From that standpoint, it all ties back to the opportunities we can provide for our student-athletes to better compete. That’s really what this is all about is us being able to make a simplified process and opportunities for our student-athletes to be able to compete better in both the classroom and on the field of play. If you look at some of the other schools, Louisville raised just about $11.5 million last year, Connecticut raised $17 million, and if you look at the University of Virginia, they raised $27 million. The challenge that Dr. Gross that has giving us is to catch up and be the best. That’s our goal is to be the best fundraising organization in the country and be able in a year from now, stand up here and let you know how much progress we’ve made.
“We will be doing informational sessions throughout the year on the change. I want to make it real clear that this is a transitional year for us. This is an opportunity roll out a new plan. It gives us the opportunity to let people know why it is going to benefit them and how it’s going to benefit them and more importantly, how it is going to benefit the department and our student-athletes.”
