Dear Bearcat Fans,
In today's world of intercollegiate athletics, fundraising is imperative for success. At the University of Cincinnati we have an excellent development staff and we want to make sure you know who they are and what they do!
Andy Hurley is our Senior Associate Director of Athletics and heads the UC Development Office. His staff consists of Jenny Gardner and Jeff Smith, who both serve as Associate Athletic Directors, along with Assistant Directors of Development Bryan Allen (major gifts) and T.J. Feuerbach (sport specific fundraising). Greg Harrell is our Director of Priority Seating and Katie Pavel serves as our Sports Program Associate. The office is rounded out by their Administrative Coordinator, Vicki Rohlfer.
As many of you know, since Andy's arrival five years ago he has done an amazing job. Andy and his staff have worked tirelessly to capitalize on our football and basketball success, greatly increasing the amount of funds raised for annual giving and endowments, and securing $70 million total since his arrival in 2006. For the last reported year, Andy and his staff raised more than any other development office on campus, by double!
Andy worked closely with me and with lead donors such as Larry Sheakley to raise the necessary funds to construct our new indoor practice facility and fields. In a short six week period in 2008 over $5 million was garnered for the Raising the Bar Campaign for football initiatives. His department has almost tripled the number of UCATS members, with this year marking the fifth consecutive year UCATS has seen an increase in memberships since UC joined the BIG EAST Conference in 2005. George Smith Society membership has increased by over 60%, and we've launched the Director's Society soliciting annual gifts of $50,000 or more.
It's important to mention that our development staff achieves all they do in a highly efficient manner: UCATS operates on a 6% cost of fundraising, meaning it costs us six cents for every dollar we raise. In comparison, the Big East average is 17 to 18%. So we're raising more money with less resources, not an easy feat yet one which is of great importance in today's economic climate.
UC must leverage opportunities that impact revenue generation so we can remain a viable competitor in a BCS conference. Over the last year the UCATS staff has been hard at work developing a new initiative to provide new and expanded value for UCATS members. This program is being implemented to help us grow our base of support so we can maintain our standard of championship performance for all of our programs. Titled the Bearcat Fan Advantage, this program will be launched this fall and will further engage our fans and supporters and bring them behind the scenes, closer to UC Athletics than ever before!
The Bearcats Fan Advantage program is an online subscription program that provides UCATS members access to stories and features about UC Athletics; the opportunity to attend VIP events; exclusive information and video footage from their favorite Bearcats teams, online deals, discounts to over 1,800 vendors nationwide, plus much more.
A subscription to the Bearcats Fan Advantage will be the ultimate fan experience and therefore it will be offered to current members of UCATS (giving at $100 or above) for free as a benefit of membership! Others will have the chance to enroll in a 30-day free trial to try out this great program. At the conclusion of the trial, non-members will be required to join UCATS to continue the subscription. We are excited to launch this new program and anticipate our fans will be pleased and enthusiastic about it, too.
In unrelated but very important news, as the first five-year strategic plan, CATAPULT, wraps up, we are working diligently on the development of our next five-year strategic plan with the intent to unveil this blueprint in the fall. We like to involve our campus counterparts when appropriate and Dr. Rajan Kamath, a distinguished professor in the Carl H. Linder College of Business, is enthusiastically and expertly facilitating our planning process. Besides his work at UC, Dr. Kamath is part of the Executive MBA program at Notre Dame and has done strategic planning with dozens of corporations in the private sector both nationally and internationally.
It is a privilege and a pleasure to serve you, and I thank you for your support of Bearcat Athletics!
Mike Thomas
Director of Athletics
