At the recent CASE Board meeting Paul Sheff, chair of the Commission on Philanthropy (and chair-elect of the CASE Board) shared a set of questions he developed in collaboration with CASE staff. I thought the document was thought-provoking, and worth sharing more broadly.
Share your own questions (or answers to these questions) by leaving a comment.
1. If necessity is the mother of invention, what did we invent during the past year in response to the economic downturn that might remain in place when our institutions’ finances return to “normal”?
2. What have we learned about measuring and demonstrating the importance of advancement to our institutions, defining our messages, and communicating with and engaging our constituents? Which of these lessons will translate to our work in better economic times?
3. What have we learned about collaboration across our traditional disciplines (alumni relations, communications, development and marketing), staffing (number of staff required and deployment of staff), organizational structures and management in general?
4. What – if anything – should CASE be doing now to develop content and services for members in the post‐recession workplace? What should be at the top of the list?
Special thanks to Paul Sheff (president of Catholic Memorial School in Massachusetts) and to CASE's Rae Goldsmith for encouraging me to share these questions with Alumni Futures' readers.
Image of the plight of bananas during a recession from Flickr user Colin White, via Creative Commons.