Every year, Chelsea Thorpe donates to Temple’s chapter of Gamma Iota Sigma, a risk management and actuarial science organization, because it holds a special place in her heart for helping her land internships and an eventual career in the insurance industry.
Thorpe, who now works as the head of broker management for AXA AL, served as the vice president of Gamma Iota Sigma as a student and regularly comes back as a guest speaker to stay connected with the organization and its current members.
“The only people who are giving [to Temple] are the people that feel a connection to something,” said Thorpe, a 2009 actuarial science alumna. “There are a ton of alums who give a lot of money to the actuarial and risk departments because we’re very connected to the program. But if you just graduated and are put on some mass communication list and you’ve struggled to get a job afterwards, you are going to be way less likely to donate.”
Thorpe feels motivated to donate because of the memories and gratitude she has for the organization — but she specifically donates just to Gamma Iota Sigma. A number of other alumni have described their communication and connection with Temple after graduating as feeling like a transaction and not a genuine relationship, according to a series of interviews conducted by The Temple News.
During the 2024 fiscal year, Temple’s total donation numbers paled in comparison to its peers. While the university reeled in more than $100 million for a fifth straight year, it did not meet the goal it set for itself at the beginning of the fiscal year, said Vice President for Institutional Advancement Mary Burke, in an interview with The Temple News.
In 2023, Temple only had a 3% alumni giving participation rate, a 1% drop from the 2022 year, according to the university’s 2023-24 fact book. When comparing Temple to its peers, more than 11,400 donors contributed $2,466,661 on the University of Pittsburgh’s Day of Giving in 2024, while Penn State’s 2023 GivingTuesday raised $1.4 million. Temple 2024 Giving Days brought together just more than 1,400 donors, contributing roughly $600,000.
Burke and other university officials noticed the inefficiency in their approach to engaging with alumni in recent years and have recently put an end to cold calling as a fundraising tactic. The department is also strategizing other methods besides letters in the mail, she said.
Temple President John Fry also announced in a message to the university community in December that the Office of Institutional Advancement would undergo a comprehensive review, signaling a shift in how the university plans to strengthen alumni relationships.
“We are just a decade away from Temple’s 150th anniversary, making now the optimal time to lay the groundwork for what will be a comprehensive fundraising campaign,” Fry wrote in the December memo. “To ensure that we have the right resources and structure to launch a significant campaign, we will be conducting a thorough review of Institutional Advancement and Alumni Relations at Temple next semester. ”
Burke and Fry have been meeting weekly since the memo was sent out, Burke said.
Fry, who previously led Drexel University, has a strong track record of boosting alumni contributions. He spearheaded Drexel’s most ambitious fundraising project from 2017-22 with the “The Future is a Place We Make” campaign, which raised more than $800 million through more than 42,000 alumni and 4,000 “friends” of the university during the five-year span.
Between 80-90% of Temple’s institutional fundraising comes from large gifts of $50,000 or more, and around 60-65% comes from donations of $1 million or more. With donor participation declining nationwide, the challenge lies in expanding engagement beyond major donors and encouraging smaller, long-term contributions from a broader alumni base, Burke said.
But between still paying off student loans, not immediately landing a lucrative job or not feeling overly connected to the university after graduating, a number of alums are not motivated to give back.
Heidi Stilwell, a 2004 alumna, said that many people in Pennsylvania choose to go to Temple because it’s affordable and don’t have the money to immediately give back after graduation.
“I don’t really feel an affinity to Temple anymore because I don’t feel that they even reach out to me and it’s like I don’t exist, I gotta be honest,” Stilwell said. “I think that once you graduate, you kind of fall off their radar. I occasionally get these things in the mail to donate back but that’s about it.”
Stilwell said she has donated back to Temple in the past when it has promoted a new building on campus, but was unaware of recent development initiatives, like the renovation of Paley Hall and plans for a new home for the Klein College of Media and Communication.
“I don’t see any of this information so I didn’t even know about any of these things,” Stilwell said. “I can’t contribute and I can’t get excited about it if I don’t know about it.”
Despite Temple publicly celebrating its $100 million in donations during fiscal year 2024, it still fell well short compared to comparable universities like Pitt and Rutgers. One key factor is Pitt’s longer-established institutional advancement program, which benefits from decades of development, Burke said.
Broader instability at the university in recent years has also created a negative public perception, which makes some alumni feel less inspired to give back. High-profile challenges, like constant leadership changes and public safety concerns, have impacted the overall confidence level that some alumni have in the future of the institution as a whole.
Leadership instability, highlighted by the tumultuous tenure of former President Jason Wingard and a number of administrators he hired, has affected donor trust, making it harder to secure long-term commitments, said Aryell Heywood, a 2018 kinesiology alumna.
Heywood’s lack of engagement with Temple’s fundraising efforts also stem from the fact that she feels the university doesn’t offer the same personalized academic and financial support she experienced at smaller institutions, like Carlow University, where she also studied.
“I never donated because I felt disconnected — Temple’s communication methods are just generic letters and emails, and it seems they aren’t sure who they’re trying to reach,” Heywood said.
Temple’s institutional advancement department has still made strides in recent years despite obvious room for improvement. The university saw a rise in social media engagement in 2024, with a 71% increase in followers and more than 1,700 posts aimed at fostering school pride, Burke said.
Burke added that the university is exploring new strategies to make donating feel like an investment rather than a one-time transaction for recent alumni.
Thorpe believes it will be hard for the university to convince recent graduates to donate because their association of the university is tainted following a series of recent public relation hits.
In 2021, former dean of the Fox School of Business Moshe Porat was found guilty of misreporting data to rankings surveys, like U.S. News & World Report, to improve the appearance and prestige of its graduate programs, The Temple News reported.
In the three years that followed, a Temple student was killed just off campus in a robbery, the university’s graduate student union went on strike and Temple responded by stripping employee benefits, Wingard told reporters he did not know how to keep students safe on campus and a campus police officer was fatally shot when responding to a carjacking.
Wingard resigned in 2023 following mounting pressure from the student body and faculty union, but his presidency left a sour taste in the mouths of students that will take a while to go away, Thorpe said.
“The university’s reputation has taken a lot of hits, and it’s going to be a challenge for that to be rebuilt,” said Thorpe, who contemplated getting an MBA from Fox prior to Porat’s misinformation scheme. “It just keeps dogpiling on with all the stuff going on administration and public safety wise, which just isn’t helping.”
But despite the challenges, Temple remains ambitious and believes it has hired the right president for the job in Fry. The university has set a donation goal of $120 million for 2025, with hopes of increasing that figure to $150 million annually in the years ahead, Burke said.
To achieve those amounts, Temple is looking toward a comprehensive fundraising campaign — a strategy that Fry and institutional advancement leaders have been discussing in their regular meetings. The university has also consulted fundraising expert Albert Checcio, who helped raise more than $700 million at the University of Southern California, in an effort to refine its approach.
On the athletics front, Temple is yet to fill its vacant institutional advancement director position after parting ways with Ed Stoner in October 2024. The Owl Club, the department’s primary avenue for fundraising, has fallen significantly behind other schools in the American Athletic Conference in recent years since the introduction of Name, Image and Likeness in college athletics.
Previous statistics provided to The Temple News during a 2023 NIL information event showed that the Owl Club had roughly 2,000 members who raised around $2 million in 2022. But a closed club meeting on Feb. 1, attended virtually by The Temple News after obtaining an unlisted YouTube link, showed less than 1,000 members and $1 million dollars.
“Most of my peers are dealing with the same thing,” said Athletic Director Arthur Johnson in an interview with The Temple News in October. “There are some opportunities out there that we’re aware of but everyone else is kind of dealing with some of the same challenges and issues.”
However, the University of Central Florida, who left the AAC for the Big 12 last year, raised more than $43 million through 10,000 donors that same year. Charlotte, who joined the AAC that year and whose recent athletic success is comparable to Temple’s, had 1,500 donors and raised $4.16 million.
Temple Athletics’ performance on the field has arguably been just as underwhelming as its donation efforts. The football team has not won more than three games in a season since 2019 and the basketball team, while knocking off top-notch competition from time to time, has not returned to the NCAA Tournament since the same year.
Despite the shortcomings that have deterred a number of alumni from giving back, others, like Jhae Thompson, still donate whenever they get the chance because it helps support the next generation of students and can enhance their learning experience at Temple.
“I donate to Temple because I feel a deep responsibility to support the next generation of Owls,” said Thompson, a 2002 communications alumna. “For me, It’s not about writing a check, it’s about mentoring current students, staying engaged with the community and encouraging other alumni to do the same.”
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