When interviewing people, it has been my experience that simple questions lead to the best (and sometimes the longest) responses. People always appreciate someone willing to listen to them, so that has always been my approach in interviews. So, here are a lot of the questions we discussed in class with a couple of new ones sprinkled in! I believe that with this topic the majority of questions will have to be made up 'on-the-spot' depending on alumni answers to the questions below.
a) How long have you been a member of the alumni association (this number doesn't have to be precise)?
b) What drove you to join the alumni association? What was the one experience in your time at UH that brought you to give back to the university? (follow-up questions to get a better description of this event/occurrence/encounter will be necessary depending on what the answer is)
c) What do you do to stay involved now? (if applicable)
d) What have you seen done/what would you like to see done with your gifts?
e) How has your giving changed over the years? (allocation, different organizations or aspects of UH)
f) What do you think brought about this change? (if applicable)
g) How are you thanked for your giving to UH? (This might be something that needs to be rephrased...or discussed in a subtle manner, but it is also something that the Alumni Association will probably want to know too!)
I like your questions, they synthesize some of our themes really well. I would say to use "gift" rather than "fund" though, or whatever the alumni and development offices use (I think the tendency is toward "gift"). We should check on that....
ReplyDelete"Gift" is correct. I spent two years writing thank you notes for "gifts," so I should have known better!
ReplyDeleteGreat questions. I think that Mai is right, the word is gift. Number 9 may be someplace we'll want to talk about.
ReplyDeleteUpdated!
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