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thanks, smupony94. i'm on it.

ojaipony wrote:thanks, smupony94. i'm on it.

Tim is a great guy. I am laziest person around and he got me motivated to help with Austin campaign

You need to remember that the most supportive fans need an avenue to particpate. $500 is alot of money to many of our supporters--$500,000 is not approachable except for very few. A dinner like this is very important, makes alot of season ticket holders feel included and feel like they are helping--just like politics and elections.
There are a number of ways a supporter of the program can participate, the more opportunities the better. Remember that image we are always fighting? The elitist school?

Just to expand on that point, if they doubled the number of seats and made the minimum donation 250, I think a lot more people would be engaged.

Also, I am in that 25-40 range, and yes, there haven't been a lot of folks in that range involved in the past. More of them are coming out to the games now, but they are just kind of sticking their toes in the water. Not a lot of them are coming out to the lunches, but I saw a lot more folks from that demographic in the lunch this week (kind of sad to say).

People need social proof of their peers to get involved. You don't hang out with SMU folks on a daily basis, so there is no social proof of people wanting to get involved, and usually the only things said about the program have been negative in the past.

With us joining the Big East and continuing to improve, we will get more non-alumni involved with the program and coming to the games/following the program. And that is going to be what actually pushes the alumni back.

smubrooks wrote:

JasonB wrote:I think we have some great top level donors.

What SMU needs to do is increase the number of midlevel donors and widen the base a bit.

That is what this effort is all about - getting midlevel folks to give a little bit more towards a specific goal.

Couldn't agree more. SMU alums make well into the six figure range and beyond, so what's a couple thousand a year to MC/booster events? Also, although I donate my share, Monday was my first luncheon and I noticed something quit disturbing. We do not have a lot of younger alums that are involed. AS I said, that was my first luncheon and I plan on attending a lot more going forward, but something needs to be done to bring in alumni in the 27-37 age range who are finally in a place career wise to make significant donations.

it's tough for 30-somethings to take a two hour lunch. Most are still working for the man.

That said, I was very impressed with the increased support of my Smu peers (late 90's) this year. Guys who were skeptical seem to be coming around. Season tickets are becoming a cool thing to have. This will continue to grow.