Episode 13:
On our first RAISE podcast episode of 2020, Brent sits down with John Grice, Director of Annual Giving at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. John spent his childhood and college career at K-State, where he was exposed to advancement at an early age. Both John’s parents worked for the institution, where he started his career as an intern with the annual giving team.
John moved to Oklahoma State as a young professional, where he embraced a giving funnel approach to fundraising. He shares an incredible example of using the giving funnel with the marching band at Oklahoma State. They were struggling to raise money and losing donors year over year. John and his team started promoting the marching band on social media, using new videos and photo updates to engage followers. Using EverTrue, he and his team qualified and assigned potential donors, and then solicited gifts. As a result of this effort, they saw a 140% increase in gifts, something John credits to “warming people to the ask.”
John is now at the University of Wisconsin at Madison where he has launched their first Digital Gift Officer Program. Over 50% of their leadership gift donors were unassigned and were not a focus for the annual fund. John now has a 5 person program designed to nurture these prospects and foster major gift pipeline.
Listen to the conversation to hear John’s innovative views on advancement and learn how he thinks we can drive the most change in the sector. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify.
Interested in learning more about Digital Gift Officer Programs? We created this playbook to help you build and grow a program.
John Grice
Director of Annual Giving University of Wisconsin-Madison
About John
John Tatum Grice began his career in philanthropy as a Student Foundation member at Kansas State University serving within the K-State Proud Student Campaign. This experience jump-started his passion for higher education philanthropy. Following graduation in 2012, John began his tenure in KSU Foundation’s Annual Giving department focused on direct mail, phonathon, student philanthropy, and student life fundraising. In 2014, John moved to the Oklahoma State University Foundation, charged with developing student giving, young alumni programs, and digital giving strategies. In November of 2018, John accepted a role as the Director of Annual Giving at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.