Liberal Arts Development/Alumni Relations

The College of Liberal Arts Advancement Office works to generate private gift support for the college, its departments, and programs. It also provides alumni outreach, events, and other activities to a broad base of CLA graduates. Activities include: major gift fundraising (focused on gifts of $25,000+), annual fund and telefund campaigns, corporate and foundation fundraising, gift stewardship, and alumni relations. At Purdue, fundraising is coordinated through the University Development Office of the Purdue Research Foundation. All fundraising efforts considered by departments or faculty must involve the CLA development officers in the planning stage. Click here for more information on making gifts to the College of Liberal Arts.

Major Gift Fundraising

Development officers meet with donors and prospective donors from around the country in an effort to secure support for the college. When appropriate, department heads and faculty members work with the dean and the college’s development officers to identify, cultivate, and solicit donors. Because many of our alumni have multiple connections at the University and support many areas, the development officers work with others on campus to implement a coordinated cultivation strategy. For that reason, it is imperative

that the college development officers be fully informed of all faculty and staff contacts with alumni and friends.

Department heads are encouraged to share information about their programs, initiatives, and fundraising opportunities with the development officers. This information is shared with donors during visits and with alumni and friends in appropriate mailings and at events.

Annual Fund

Annual fund projects include direct mail and telephone (Rally Line), and social media (Purdue Day of Giving) solicitations of alumni and friends. Annual fund activities provide the new donor pipeline for the college by attracting people to the college and maintaining their participation as annual contributors. These efforts are coordinated through the University’s annual fund office by the college’s development office. 

Corporate/Foundation Relations

The college development officers coordinate all corporate and foundation contacts with the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations of the University Development Office. Management teams from across the University are identified for corporations.  Proposals for support from corporations are coordinated through these management groups. This approach brings together those academic areas in which a corporation may have an interest and provides a coordinated approach to corporation officials. Similarly, for private foundations, the central office staff works with the college development officers to create a coordinated approach to foundations when appropriate and to ensure that one university proposal does not compete with another at foundations.  As appropriate, these proposals route through the Sponsored Programs Central Processing Center.

Stewardship

Any development plan for the college includes a good stewardship program. Stewardship includes: thanking donors for their gifts; seeing that the donors’ gifts are used for their intended purposes; reporting to the donors; and publicly recognizing donors.

All academic departments have a staff member who has been trained and given access to the Acknowledgement Wizard that lists gifts made to the University. Department heads are asked to acknowledge all gifts made to their department every two weeks. Individual contributions are acknowledged by the College Advancement Office as well.

Donors of gifts of $500 and more are members of the college’s Dean’s Club. They receive a thank you from the dean. Contributions of $1,000 or more also qualify donors for membership in the President’s Council. They also receive acknowledgement from the University president via the University Development Office.

Alumni Board

Because fundraising is based on informing potential donors, stimulating their interest, and involving them in the college and University, alumni relations are integral to the development office. A group of area alumni serve on the College of Liberal Arts Alumni Board. Alumni activities sponsored by this group include: Homecoming displays; the Emerging Voice Award for Young Alumni; and the Annual Awards Banquet which recognizes Distinguished Alumni and Outstanding Seniors.  A list of current members is available online.

Mailings

A central database for all University mailings is maintained in the University Development Office. Any changes made to the address or occupation of alumni and friends is kept in this database. It is crucial that departments share updated information on alumni, particularly employment information, with the College Advancement Office. The University database is the official record of Purdue alumni and friends. Parallel databases do not benefit from the University's effort to keep information current and result in increased costs caused by repeated use of incorrect addresses, failure to comply with alumni and friend requests regarding their preferred communication with the University, and in recent cases mailings to deceased individuals.  Such mailings may violate University Data Use policies. All mailings to alumni by college departments are coordinated by the Advancement Office. Please contact the Liberal Arts Advancement assistant, to request mailing lists or other alumni information.