In order to increase alumni services and achievements at Tamkang University, a workshop was held on September 18th, hosted by TKU’s sister school, San Francisco State University. President Leslie E. Wong, Vice President Robert J. Nava and Director Doug Hupke were invited to present lectures on fundraising. In attendance were representatives from over 50 other junior colleges including Soochow University’s President, Professor Wei-ta Pan and Chinese Culture University’s President, Tien-Rein Lee.

In every country public funds are generally provided by the government, however in recent years university funding continues to decrease. Therefore, every academic institute must utilize the resources of the general public, industry and alumni to gain support for funding.

President Flora Chia-I Chang stated, “It was only 20 years ago that Taiwanese universities took the initial steps of fundraising, as requested by the Department of Education. The responsibilities of raising money were delegated to selected individuals in each university all over Taiwan. However the scale of success was minimal in comparison to the success of university fundraising in both Europe and America. The American and European foundations have strategies capable of raising funds that our nation has yet to fully adopt within its educational system. Today’s guests from San Francisco State University can give us the strategies and information that we need to improve the services of our universities all over the nation.”

President Leslie E. Wong and Vice President Robert Nava began by presenting the basic principles and objectives of fundraising. Doug Hupke lectured on the importance of making the participating alumni into partners for the development of the university. President Leslie E. Wong then laid out the roles of the university president and administrators in order to have a successful fundraising event. Robert J. Nava then explained effective donation management and appreciation.

President Wong noted that due to the increasing restrictions surrounding university funding in San Francisco, they have had to implement new fundraising strategies. One newly developed strategy called, “No one works alone” refers to keeping a record of all the involved participants in each fund raiser in order to strengthen relationships. Robert J. Nava later closed by emphasizing the importance of the three “R’s”: Reputation, Relationships and Resources.

Executive Director of the TKU Office of Alumni Resources, Chun-Young Perng stated in closing, “Thank you to San Francisco State University’s staff for sharing your fundraising strategies and alumni management policies. We will surely be able to utilize this valuable information to improve our campus’ services and capabilities.”

SDGs

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