Orgsync Blog

So far, we’ve covered the benefits to a company, where to begin, who should be involved, knowing the rules on campus and the company cycle. Now you’re ready to cover writing a great proposal.

Writing a proposal

1. Proposals should be short. One page is best or AT LEAST have an executive summary page at the beginning. Company people, alumni, whomever – let’s just say busy people, don’t have time to read the whole glossy document. You want to wow them with a few marketing lines and put the price-tag so they can skim down to it. Then they can read the entire document if they want.
2. If you don’t think the reader is familiar with your school you can give a short description.
3. State the purpose. Is it unique (do some research)? What is the value? Who is the audience? Are the price points in line with the benefits and level of fund you’re seeking? If the amount is broken down per person, does it seem reasonable?
4. Provide statistics or hard data if you can. How many people have benefited from the program, participated, succeeded etc.
5. Give testimonials (either as an added page or as pulled out quotes on the sides or bottom).
6. Think of benefit levels if it is appropriate (i.e. Platinum, Gold, Silver levels). If you can support more than one donor, company etc. and you have enough benefits to spread around, make funding levels. The top level should have everything that you can think of for involvement (opportunity to speak, logos on banners or websites, attend and participate, judging, booth at event, provide remarks at an opening or closing session, lunch or dinner with set of “special” participants, resume books or cd’s). If it is a year-long program, list out opportunities. Pull out as many specific parts of the program as you can (like the lunch is sponsored by one company, dinner has someone else) and then divide them appropriately. Look critically at the levels so you don’t have multiple donors/companies expecting to attend or speak at the same thing.
7. If you have an itinerary, list it.
8. Contact information, website etc.
9. Sponsorship deadline.

I hope that I have given you some good information. I am always open to discussing more ideas, this would be a great forum to do so!

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As a past officer of a UT business student organization, I know the challenges of communicating with 120+ members on a moments notice. Any student organization officer can tell you, it takes time, effort and skill to know each member, obtain member preference information, and inform them of last minute event details and changes.

What is the solution to these timeless organizational communication challenges? Simply put, OrgSync. On one hand, this Austin based company, OrgSync, Inc., hosts a platform to equip universities with the tools to oversee and manage their students and student organizations. On the other hand, OrgSync’s platform can also be used by student leaders, like me, to manage our organizations, committees, members and events.

My executive council initially wanted to use our website and our forum to inform and interact with our members. One entire year was devoted to creating a new “user friendly” website, and in the end that idea was scrapped because of time consuming inefficiencies with updating web content on a continual basis. After all, we were not a computer science organization teaching our members how to write code to build and manage a website. Our main purpose is to mold our members into young professionals with leadership experience.

After realizing that our website would not be an efficient method of communicating with our members, we focused on communicating through email and sending our entire member list serve [very lengthy] weekly emails, which listed out all events’ detailed information. Needless to say weekly e-mails were very tedious and time consuming and were merely a band-aid to our communication problem.

As a student and an officer, I know the importance of being time efficient and cutting out unnecessary tasks. Our time consuming communication efforts could have been cut in half simply by using OrgSync’s platform.

OrgSync’s SMS/Texting tool could have been the quick and simple solution to informing our members of event updates and details. We would have never needed to dabble in finding, creating, and managing a forum that never held up to our standards. Instead, we could have used OrgSync’s poll feature to interact with our members and to obtain unbiased and anonymous opinions and feedback on events. We would have even had an alternative to the pesky weekly emails. With OrgSync’s event and meeting tools, any officer could have uploaded event information and segment event invitations by specifying which committees and members to invite to specific events and meetings.

Kennie Blanco a graduate from the McCombs School of Business and a past President of a student organization said, “Finding a centralized and user friendly medium of communication was difficult. Our website was never advanced enough to facilitate communication effectively… it was not very easy for a member to go online to find information or to even ask questions about an upcoming event.”

In fact, OrgSync offers everything suggested by this experienced officer. With the tools that its platform provides OrgSync efficiently facilitates communication within organizations. I would recommend it to any school and organization looking to have a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness when communicating and interacting with their constituency online.

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So far, we’ve talked about benefits to a company, where to begin and who should be involved. There are a few other items that you might need.

Gotta know the rules

Before you get too far, know the rules on your campus. After you have secured a champion, talk to the others areas of campus and also include a question on any rules that you might need to know (even if they don’t want to work with you and you’re on your own). Sometimes the Dean of Students or the President’s Office will know if vendors are allowed on campus, if you can put logos on banners etc etc. Campuses can get tricky about that stuff sometimes.

Know the company cycle and who to talk to

If you decide to approach companies, expect that they have a certain funding cycle and you’ll need to find out what it is. If they are a multinational company, they typically begin to set their budgets for the next fall in mid Spring (March or April). Remember that we speak in academic timelines, and they may have a different end of fiscal year date. If you’re going into this cold, you will need to find out who the right person is to send a proposal. Don’t expect the receptionist or the main company address to get to that person. Cold calling is really hard, but you may need to do it to find out who the campus relations or community relations person is – or maybe even marketing or PR. It’s great to find someone who knows someone who can hook you into a person with a name you can actually call and ask.

Budget

Do a budget. You can do a pie in the sky budget and a shoestring version so you have some room. Think of every possible item that you will need. Do your research.

Next time, we’ll get into writing a proposal.

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OrgSync kicked off the 2009 conference season with the National Association of Campus Activities (NACA) National Convention last weekend! Team OrgSync traveled to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, TN for this year’s annual conference to share OrgSync with more than 2,000 students and advisors.

Team OrgSync @ NACA National Booth

We always enjoy attending the NACA conferences, as the Exhibit Hall is filled with talented musicians, magicians, comics, and many other artists. They are able to showcase their performances both at the Convention Center and at local venues throughout the conference. During the Exhibit Hall sessions, there were appearances by the Zac Brown Band, Blessid Union of Souls, comics Michelle Buteau and Ralphie May, to name a few.

We loved exploring the gorgeous Gaylord Opryland Hotel with its nine acres of indoor gardens, cascading waterfalls and an indoor river. Between sessions, we were also able to get out and explore Nashville a bit. Being from Pittsburgh, I was excited to find Piranha’s, a sandwich shop inspired by Primanti Brothers, where they put the fries and coleslaw ON the sandwich. We were also able to check out the local talent at “Nashville’s Hottest Honky Tonk,” The Stage, which is a top hot spot to visit in the city. Our favorite spot, however, was a little restaurant near the hotel called Sukho Thai, which featured really great Thai food AND a go kart track. Where else can you eat Thai food and race go karts all in one place?!

Andrew Showing OrgSync to a NACA Delegate

We had a great time making so many new connections, and also meeting delegates from some of our new schools. We love sharing OrgSync with the student leaders on campuses because they see how easy it can be to run their organizations. We also love showing the advisors how we can help improve communication with their students and streamline their workflow in their office. Attending conferences is our favorite way to get the word out about OrgSync!

We look forward to our next conference, which will be the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) March 7-11 in Seattle, WA. We hope to see you there!

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In the last two postings, we discussed benefits to a company and where to begin. Now, let’s talk about who should be involved in this process from your area.

Who should do this?

It’s nice to have a team of people who can divide and conquer. Someone well connected and higher on the status chain is always good to have to serve as your champion. You might start small though. See if you can get a local sandwich shop to provide the meal at leadership training, or get your packets printed for free if you include a logo or put an ad on the inside cover. As we always tell students – start early to plan. If you can sell the freshmen orientation event sponsorship or leadership kickoff to a company in January or even earlier in the fall, you can work yourself into their budget cycle so they can plan too. Or just ask the local pizza joint to provide the meal, but do it early. If they’re a chain they will need time too.

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If you have been a part of the OrgSync community or a regular reader of our blog you have heard us talk about how the creators of OrgSync gained valuable leadership experience in college that lead to the development of OrgSync.  For this reason we are dedicated to providing students with opportunities for Leadership training and development. That is why we love working with the University of Arizona and the National Collegiate Leadership Conference (NCLC).

NCLC at UA

NCLC is a student-run annual conference that serves as the cornerstone of the leadership experience and training for hundreds of college students across the nation.  They have professional staff that advises them throughout the year, but overall the student leaders are completely responsible for organizing the annual conference.  Students recruit speakers, raise funds, manage logistics… and everything else involved in planning a national conference.

The entire conference was great, but Saturday was the highlight of the conference for us. On Saturday morning I presented an information session on social media and how leaders can leverage the power of social networks to allow their voice be heard.  Later that afternoon Eric had the opportunity to present “Leadership Lessons from a Young Entrepreneur.” Eric discussed how his leadership experience in college allowed him to successfully launch and manage OrgSync from the ground up.

Presenting OrgSync at NCLC

It was the first time Eric was able to present the “OrgSync story” to inspire and teach others the importance of getting involved and being a leader. Justin Jones and James Castrission were the keynote speakers at dinner and presented a truly inspirational presentation on how they completed the world’s first Kayak expedition from Australia to New Zealand across the Tasman Sea.  Their story about dedication, endurance, and perseverance was filled with important leadership lessons.  In many ways their story is like Eric’s and OrgSync.

Eric and Jeff with Justin and James

They chose an outdoor adventure, and Eric chose starting a company; both took on a great deal of risk, developed a strong team to support them on their adventure, and showed strong leadership skills.  We had a great time meeting these guys, and look forward to meeting up with them in the future.

OrgSync will continue to support the NCLC conference and any efforts that encourage leadership development and education to students.  We look forward to continue our long relationship with the University of Arizona, and working with them to support and develop new leadership development programs and initiatives.

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Last time, we began to discuss ways in which companies can benefit from funding your event. Now, let’s talk about where to begin.

Your campus relations

When seeking money for a program, there are a few places to begin. Large sums seem to be a better match for these ideas.

1. Meet with Career Services: whether you have an active career center or a small placement office, a career center can be a great place to begin to identify potential companies who might give money. If they recruit on campus, post jobs on campus, or hire a lot of students without much effort, you can approach them. Who doesn’t want good press? Keep in mind that you may also have to sell your career center director on the idea.

2. Hit up Development: many schools have an active development office in some sense. Some of them work more with alumni than companies, some do both. It can be an interesting concept to a development office if they have never thought of “selling” a program. Typically they sell scholarships, research centers, naming conventions (The Howard T. Residence Hall) and large programs. It usually does not involve departments like Student Affairs. Your job is to educate them on what you have to offer and to keep the dialogue rolling.

3. Ask Alumni Relations: if you have ever tracked students who attend your programs or utilize your services, there is nothing better to pair with an alumni database. Students who have been involved in a program or lived in a residence hall are a perfect place to begin because they can relate. If the alumni staff are aware of your programs, they can also match up potential high flying alumni with your programs. There is nothing better than being at a cocktail reception with an alumnus who mentions how much they love leadership – and then your alumni staff gets to make them happy by mentioning your program (now give your alumni staff that visual too).

4. Package Programs: try to find similar programs across campus or programs that fit together in some fashion and package them together. Perhaps your program is too small to speak to a company about, but you can put together a package that an alumnus or a company would get exposure multiple times. You can come up with creative ways to combine programs so multiple departments benefit. How cool is the Pamela C. Leadership Series or the H Company Coffee Night (which perhaps combines the residence hall programming and the student events center music committee)?

5. Go it alone: if you don’t get many hits from the career center, development or alumni do it yourself. Start small and open your eyes to local companies or businesses, notice those flyers across campus which might have a logo, alumni speaking on campus, or check the job postings yourself to see who is recruiting on campus.

6. Get a Champion: the best advice is to get a champion. You will get much farther if you get the buy in from your supervisors and as high up as you can go. That way, they can go with you to the other areas of campus to suggest partnerships or to ask for assistance.

Check back on Monday, February 23 for Student Affairs Fundraising Part 3, we’ll discuss who should be involved in this process from your area.

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We are pleased to introduce CeCe Ridder, Director of Student Life for the McCombs School of Business, as a guest blogger. CeCe will be conributing a 5 Part Series on Student Affairs Fundraising over the next two weeks.

CeCe Ridder

CeCe has worked for The University of Texas at Austin for twelve years. She is currently the Director of Student Life at the McCombs School of Business, Undergraduate Program. Her position encompasses admissions, student organizations, scholarships, leadership and special events. CeCe’s home state is Nebraska, and she earned a bachelor’s degree from Nebraska Wesleyan in Interpersonal Communications, with a Public Relations focus. She has a Master’s Degree in College Student Personnel from Kansas State University and is pursuing a PhD in Educational Administration from UT. She is passionate about student development, leadership, multiracial college students and retention. CeCe is also a lead facilitator with LeaderShape.

Many schools overlook the myriad of opportunities to push our programs forward, involve the community, promote potential employers for students and to get something for free! Whether you need some free sandwiches or thousands of dollars to keep a program alive, there are potentials points of funding everywhere. Funding can also provide budget relieving dollars to other programs in your areas. With the current economy, who can pass up actually plugging in a source of income to an event budget?

Creeped out
When I first began pairing student affairs programs with corporate funding, I was really creeped out. But I realize that it’s tough out there right now. Schools are not securing as much funding from alumni, the state, donations etc etc. We have to be creative so we can provide the amazing programs that seem to be the first to go. If you can do this with a heavy dose of ethics, a little sales savvy and not entirely sell your department’s soul it can be done.

Benefits
Companies, from the local pizza joint to the large multi-nationals, want exposure. Think of ways that they can benefit from becoming involved with your event in some way. As my old boss used to say, “you have to spend money to make money” and most companies understand this.
1. Offer them a logo on a banner
2. Print out a sign with special thanks
3. Add them to the event website
4. Ask them to speak or welcome the audience if appropriate
5. Come up with levels of sponsorship and benefits to each
6. Or even go as far as to name the program after them (”The Ketchup Company Leadership Program) if that doesn’t creep you out.

So chew on what benefits that you might have for companies and next time, we’ll talk about where to begin and eventually get to using your benefit levels in writing a proposal.

Check back for Student Affairs Fundraising Part 2 by CeCe Rider Thursday, February 19!

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This past week Cayce and I (Eric Fortenberry) traveled to the Sacramento (‘Sac’) State campus to meet with campus administrators and train student leaders. We met with various departments including Student Affairs, Career Services, Event Services and Student Government. During our first meeting we were honored to present OrgSync to Edward Jones, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs, Campus Life. Edward expressed interest in providing OrgSync to all the student affairs departments to improve their communication and cross department scheduling. We were very exciting when Edward realized “OrgSync’s only limitation is our imagination.”

Eric and Cayce with the Student Activities Staff

During our meeting with Sac State’s accounting department we discussed their student organization treasury needs. An online treasury solution is much needed and will be implemented slowly to assure that current treasury processes can be re-worked for efficiency. Another highlight was meeting with the Career Services department. They gave us some great feedback and suggestions on how we can continue to improve our resume builder and Co-curricular transcript manager. Lastly, we had Rebecca Dietzler and Rich Clakeley from Events Services walk us through their entire room reservation process. It’s always so exciting for us to have the opportunity to sit around a table and collaborate with campus leaders to brainstorm how our innovative software can benefit their campus in more ways then we ever intended.

Student Activities presents Success Through OrgSync

The OrgSync leadership training for student leaders was held all day Saturday. We kicked off the day with a 90 minute in-depth walkthrough of all the “Nuts & Bolts” of OrgSync. Thanks to the Buzz Café, there was plenty of coffee and breakfast foods to keep everyone attentive. After the walkthrough we got the opportunity to visit with many excited student leaders. They wanted to know why OrgSync hadn’t been implemented on every campus years ago! After more food from the Buzz Café, the student leaders broke out into groups based on their positions. I co-hosted the planning and time management session with Leanna Neves-Bogetti, Student Activities Program Advisor, and enjoyed showing students how they could leverage our Calendar and ToDos modules to better plan and manage their time. At the same time Cayce was presenting in the philanthropy and community service session where he demonstrated how students could track their involvement and activity hours using our resume builder and co-curricular transcripts.

Student Leaders learning to use OrgSync

At the end of the day the Student Activities Office was excited to use their new Plinko board to raffle off prizes to the 75+ students who attended. They gave away everything from an iPod Nano to Peak Adventure trips and team paintballing. It was a great end to an already amazing day!

Overall, our trip to Sacramento State was very productive and gave us the opportunity to gather feedback from both students and campus leaders. We were also glad to build closer relationships with Tom, Karlos, Joanne, Leanna and Courtney in the Student Activities Office. They have been with us for over a year now and we are thankful for all of their efforts to spread OrgSync across the Sac State campus, as well as for their helpful feedback and feature suggestions that will improve the OrgSync platform for all. I can’t wait to book our next trip to Sac State!

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We are excited to welcome the University of Alabama, the University of North Texas and the University of Nevada at Reno to the OrgSync community. Jointly, these three universities will bring over 850 student organizations onto the OrgSync platform. We look forward to building great relationships on each one of these campuses and improving communications campus-wide!

“We are excited about providing all of our students a one-stop-shop for student organization management and a centralized place for students to get involved,” says Stacy Jones, Director of Student Leadership at the University of Alabama. Alabama plans to start the training process ASAP, followed by a full campus roll-out for all 250 student organizations. Stacy Jones has been working rigorously to bring the OrgSync platform to Alabama and is excited to start training and implementation.

The University of North Texas in Denton, TX has over 400 student organizations that will be using OrgSync to improve communication and organization management. “I am excited about everything that OrgSync will offer to our students. The entire program is going to help all aspects of campus, and the student body is ready for this move up in technology,” says Brooke Carter, Student Activities Coordinator at UNT.

Jason Entsming, Director of Organizations for the Student Government at Nevada, is especially excited to bring OrgSync to Nevada’s 200 student organizations. Having been mesmerized by OrgSync’s capabilities since Fall 2008, Jason is looking forward to implementing OrgSync for the Student Government to better communicate with and manage student organization needs. “Our students want and expect to be able to communicate online. OrgSync will allow us to setup an online community for our students and enhance their out of the classroom experience,” says Amy Koeckes, Coordinator of Clubs and Orgs at University of Nevada at Reno.

On behalf of the OrgSync team, I would like to wish all three of these schools a warm welcome to the OrgSync family!

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