Received my MG Membership Guide

southsideguy · March 26, 2018

When people ask who my favorite pro team is I tell them i don't follow the NFL but love college football. They ask me who my favorite team is in College Football and I answer North Texas I get the blank look. I know they are waiting for a P5 response but I tell them I went to school there and I am loyal to UNT. So loyal I retired to Denton to attend the games. Basketball of the past five years made it hard to go to the games but I have enjoyed this season.

The person I sit next to at the football game goes to even the away games. We were talking basketball and he said he gave his season tickets two years into the Benford years. Had not been to a game until last week against Mercer. He has already bought tickets for USF game. He is going to renew his season tickets next season after watching this years team play. Hope more feel that way. I stop buying season basketball tickets two years ago and only bought tickets for the games I attended. Renewed this year and I am glad I did. I thing next years team is going to suprise a lot of people and CUSA teams.

SilverEagle · March 26, 2018

33 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

This is a historical issue.

The schools who do fundraising well have a good database of contacts, that they have built over decades.

When they were building those databases, our administration was so afraid of outside influence that at one point a president banned donations. So what ends up happening is that there is no central database. Over time, some schools/centers/etc started to build their own data. Now, everyone is incredibly protective of their own.

What Smatresk is going to have to do is keep pushing to build a central development database, and force everyone to share all the data they have. Once the data is fully shared, then it incentivises everyone to keep populating and updating the database.

It doesn't matter how many development officers you hire if they only know a tiny fraction of your actual alumni base.

I have personal experience with this. About a decade ago I was invited to attend a board meeting of the Tarrant county Alumni association (the old one not the new one). The main focus of the meeting was fund raising for the athletic department. A representative from the school was there and brought bound copies of print-outs of alumni who were current donors to the school. I was surprised at the size of it. The school rep who brought the material was going to take a job at another school and was not going to be around very long.......so she was a bit more "unvarnished" in her answers than she might have been otherwise.

We spent a certain amount of time going over the list and saying "well, what about this person, or that person?". I even brought up the name of a high powered lawyer based in Bridgeport who had once been the student body president when I was attending there. The answers to all these "what about's?" For lack of a better term she responded, "you aren't allowed to contact them, they belong to the school of....business, college of arts and sciences, music etc etc."

Basically this aforementioned representative conveyed to us that every department has been compiling their own list of donors (she indicated for a long time) and all of those departments are not inclined to share with anyone else........nor are they required to.

So basically when it became evident that the "don't solicit donations from alums......for anything" rule from the Dr. Matthews era was cancelled, it became every man (or department/school) for themselves.

So, IMHO, we joined the world of college fund raising.....but (true to our nature) in a very dysfunctional way.

Edited March 26, 2018 by SilverEagle

southsideguy · March 26, 2018

Funny i get requests from the every group at UNT. I do give a little to all but I my preference to give to the athletic department is seems to be the overlooked one at UNT.

Cerebus · March 26, 2018

2 hours ago, SilverEagle said:

So basically when it became evident that the "don't solicit donations from alums......for anything" rule from the Dr. Matthews era was cancelled, it became every man (or department/school) for themselves.

So, IMHO, we joined the world of college fund raising.....but (true to our nature) in a very dysfunctional way.

This is the main thing I think President Smatresk has to fix while he is here. If he can get this done it will be one of those things that while change the university forever, it's just something that is going to be very hard to do, and is completely thankless. The payoff won't come for years until after he is gone.

MrStrange18 · March 27, 2018

19 hours ago, Cerebus said:

This is the main thing I think President Smatresk has to fix while he is here. If he can get this done it will be one of those things that while change the university forever, it's just something that is going to be very hard to do, and is completely thankless. The payoff won't come for years until after he is gone.

I had no idea it was this bad. I worked for a non profit for years and fundraising was a big part of my job. It is disheartening to hear that it is like this. Without a good database to START with, its hard to get traction.

I will say, it is all about relationships. It can be done, but you need some names to start with.

I do like that WB wants people to know the stats. Its an eye opener. I am interested to see if those numbers improve after a year of good fundraising.

rws69 · April 4, 2018

Like many alumni, I went to high school in Dallas County and worked in Dallas County after graduating from NTSU. There has been so little coverage of North Texas athletics in the Dallas media, coupled with little to no communication from the alumni association, that I was simply not able to keep up with North Texas athletics. At different times, I had season tickets to Cowboys, Mavericks, and mini plan with Rangers. It was not until my office relocation to Denton County did I get caught up with UNT. All that to say, our huge alumni base in DFW outside of the Denton area is not aware of UNT athletics. Last week I learned that a casual acquaintance here in Flower Mound graduated the same time I did. He asked if we were still in the Missouri Valley Conference! I will make sure he stays informed from now on.

SilverEagle · April 4, 2018

7 hours ago, rws69 said:

Like many alumni, I went to high school in Dallas County and worked in Dallas County after graduating from NTSU. There has been so little coverage of North Texas athletics in the Dallas media, coupled with little to no communication from the alumni association, that I was simply not able to keep up with North Texas athletics. At different times, I had season tickets to Cowboys, Mavericks, and mini plan with Rangers. It was not until my office relocation to Denton County did I get caught up with UNT. All that to say, our huge alumni base in DFW outside of the Denton area is not aware of UNT athletics. Last week I learned that a casual acquaintance here in Flower Mound graduated the same time I did. He asked if we were still in the Missouri Valley Conference! I will make sure he stays informed from now on.

Geez louise........I knew it was bad, but I never imagined it was THIS bad.

BTG_Fan1 · April 8, 2018

On 3/26/2018 at 12:51 PM, Cerebus said:

This is the main thing I think President Smatresk has to fix while he is here. If he can get this done it will be one of those things that while change the university forever, it's just something that is going to be very hard to do, and is completely thankless. The payoff won't come for years until after he is gone.

So here is a question... Is there a way that alumni can change this? I'm assuming if a # of alumni email or whatever, it may help aid in a change under his watch?

kj86 · April 9, 2018

On 4/4/2018 at 11:29 AM, rws69 said:

Like many alumni, I went to high school in Dallas County and worked in Dallas County after graduating from NTSU. There has been so little coverage of North Texas athletics in the Dallas media, coupled with little to no communication from the alumni association, that I was simply not able to keep up with North Texas athletics. At different times, I had season tickets to Cowboys, Mavericks, and mini plan with Rangers. It was not until my office relocation to Denton County did I get caught up with UNT. All that to say, our huge alumni base in DFW outside of the Denton area is not aware of UNT athletics. Last week I learned that a casual acquaintance here in Flower Mound graduated the same time I did. He asked if we were still in the Missouri Valley Conference! I will make sure he stays informed from now on.

I have been asked multiple times (by UNT alums)..."what conference is UNT in?".

kj86 · April 9, 2018

On 3/23/2018 at 9:59 AM, Zeke said:

This is very true. How many of you:

Have friends and family that are certain you are the biggest Mean Green fan EVER

Find it as almost a novelty that you follow the team
"You have season tickets?!"

"You go to Every game??!"

Ask you about the team with almost a smirk on their face

Or this one...

You're wearing a UNT shirt and they ask, "Do you work for UNT?"

You know, 'cause nobody could possibly be a North Texas fan.

KRAM1 · April 10, 2018

6 hours ago, kj86 said:

Or this one...

You're wearing a UNT shirt and they ask, "Do you work for UNT?"

You know, 'cause nobody could possibly be a North Texas fan.

I get that question all the time when wearing UNT gear...which I do often.

MrStrange18 · April 10, 2018

17 hours ago, kj86 said:

Or this one...

You're wearing a UNT shirt and they ask, "Do you work for UNT?"

You know, 'cause nobody could possibly be a North Texas fan.

Yes... this happens to me!

My favorite though... is when I wear an UNT polo to work on Fridays, people around the office think I am a Philly fan. I tell them that its UNT, not Philly. They retort with "well isnt that the Eagles logo?"