Comments for Stephen Tall

Comment on “But don’t all US alumni give back to their university?” by John Rux-Burton

John Rux-Burton — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:57:28 +0000

This is indeed an excellent initiative. It seems once this published a useful next stage would be to bring informed individuals together to gain consensus that all the right questions are being asked and enough context is being published to analyse the results properly and then seek to broaden those submitting data as widely as possible. It is probably in the best interests of everyone to press for this and for all us consultants to be very active in cooperating (or get the necessary release from clients to cooperate) as fully and openly as possible.

Comment on “But don’t all US alumni give back to their university?” by Adrian Beney

Adrian Beney — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:40:38 +0000

Some may not know that, together with a consortium of between 12 and 15 universities, we have carried out an in depth benchmaking project for the last three years on lower level giving. We’ve analysed every gift made by every alum for the last ten years. Last time it was 40GB of data.

A public report is due for approval by the group quite soon.

Comment on Timothy Garton Ash is right: there is only one logical way for me to vote in 2015 – for the Conservatives by That EU vote: 6 thoughts on what it means for the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour

That EU vote: 6 thoughts on what it means for the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:17:15 +0000

[...] And here’s the uncomfortable truth for those of us in the better-off-in camp: Mr Cameron is our best hope. As I’ve pointed out before, logically there is only one way to vote in 2015 if you want to be sure the UK stays in the EU: vote Tory. [...]

Comment on “But don’t all US alumni give back to their university?” by John Rux-Burton

John Rux-Burton — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:07:33 +0000

Hamish makes some very good points. It must be anticipated that DM and email will have better retention because so few respond, the people who are doing so have to be, by definition, dead keen. It is also very likely the average gift will be higher because, again, via DM and email the responders will include only those who were committed, not those who were encouraged by a call to do a ‘little something’. All those small ‘token’ gifts (to use a widely used but rather pejorative term) will bring down the average gift. However, if one takes a DM to 5000 alumni and divides the gifts by those mailed and a phone campaign to a pool of 5000 (with maybe half actually be reached) and does the same division, it rapidly becomes clear that phoning is vastly more effective.

Of course, the other aspect of this is that it is vital to make comparisons with peer institutions (which is hard right now as bench-marking in our sector is underdeveloped at this time). It is quite possible to do internal matrices and decide one solicitation method is particularly good. It may reveal a general truth about methodology or it may reveal that the institution is exceptional at delivering this method and/or woeful at another method. Sometime ago much was made of the lack of a need for a pre-call in phone campaigns. The argument was it made no difference to giving. The institutions assumed the absence of a difference in the stats revealed that pre-calls did not matter, rather than considering their pre-calls were perhaps substandard. We tested the assumption in a blind test and found pre-calls did make a significant difference and had to come to the conclusion poorly constructed pre-calls did not help, but well written ones did. The same logic applies to examine solicitation methods.

What all this reveals is that none of us should really be getting on these forums and giving opinions; opinion informers like Adrian’s (Beney and Salmon), Hamish, a number of others and I would suggest, with all modesty, myself, should be working on agreeing transparent, publicly available bench-marking which allows clarity on something that is not actually very obscure, because, unlike so much major gift and legacy work, it is so immediately measurable.

Comment on Timothy Garton Ash is right: there is only one logical way for me to vote in 2015 – for the Conservatives by That EU vote: 6 thoughts on what it means for the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour

That EU vote: 6 thoughts on what it means for the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:44:11 +0000

Comment on South Shields by-election: Labour hold solid, Ukip surge, Tories fall and Lib Dems… plummet to 7th. Ouch. by Where Ukip won (or almost won) on 2nd May 2013

Where Ukip won (or almost won) on 2nd May 2013 — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:05:07 +0000

[...] Or, as I characterised Ukip’s USP here: ‘stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off-pull-up-the-drawbridge-nothing-against-them-personally-but-we’re-full-and-another-thing-health-and-safety-some-of-my-best-friends-are–all-the-parties-are-the-same-I’d-emigrate-if-I-could’. [...]

Comment on Where Ukip won (or almost won) on 2nd May 2013 by Alex

Alex — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:47:39 +0000

Filey has a UKIP Mayor.

We came second in most of the seats in Scarborough. Had it not been for ‘Independents’ standing, we would have taken the whole borough.

Comment on Where Ukip won (or almost won) on 2nd May 2013 by Scott Preston

Scott Preston — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:58:36 +0000

Why is Redditch in Worcestershire not on the list ? We polled over 10,000 votes gaining 2 seats and coming 2nd in vote share

Comment on Where Ukip won (or almost won) on 2nd May 2013 by Damian Ly Lo

Damian Ly Lo — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:22:32 +0000

Hey Stephen. You can add South Thanet and Great Yarmouth to your list, we can add Castle Point and Bognor Regis to ours, see:http://survation.com/2013/05/ukip-won-in-8-westminster-constituencies-last-thursday/.

Comment on Where Ukip won (or almost won) on 2nd May 2013 by Richard

Richard — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:03:36 +0000

Also look at Eastleigh

http://www.eastleigh.gov.uk/the-council/elections-and-voting/county-council-elections/2013-county-election/2013-county-election-result.aspx