0:00:04.5 BROOM: Hi, welcome to the Higher Education Coffee and Conversation podcast. I'm Cheryl Broom, CEO of Graduate Communications. This podcast is dedicated to exploring issues of importance to staff and faculty and administrators who work at community colleges and universities. Today's guest is Christina Romero, the Executive Director of College Advancement and the Foundation for Santana College, and she has the most amazing insights and advice for community college marketing and philanthropy departments. This podcast was recorded in June 2020 during the COVID 19 pandemic and during the protests taking place across the nation and the world following the murder of George Floyd. Christina covers how she's managed to maintain personal connections with donors and students when they haven't been able to meet face-to-face. She also touches on telling stories of student journeys without giving into stereotypes or apologizing for what makes community colleges so special. Christina has an amazing way of approaching fundraising, advancement and communications, I learned so much listening to her insights, and I know you will too. Thank you for joining, and for those of us listening, Christina and I have had quite a morning trying to figure out how to record this podcast over Zoom, so fingers crossed that the recording today turns out well, I'm sure.
0:01:24.8 BROOM: Well, and I'm really excited to have you and I appreciate your time so much on the first... Start off by learning a little bit more about you. What drew you to community college is what your role is with the Santa Ana Foundation. And a little bit more about your story. So why don't we start there?
0:01:45.1 ROMERO: Absolutely. Well, thanks again, Cheryl, for the opportunity.
The community colleges are obviously just woven into such intricate parts of our communities at large, but I really blossomed at a community college. I was a student at a very prominent High School in Orange County, and a lot of my peers knew exactly where they were going and what they were going do with their life and what university they were going attend, and I didn't necessarily have that all figured out, and so I registered spending a college and I blossomed in the community college system and was able to work as a student worker and really find my way into not just my academic career, but what it is that was going make me feel connected to the work that I wanted to do, and so I was really lucky, I had my first mentor, of course, was my mother, and she said, “You should go work over there at the community college while you were going to school.” And then I came across a great mentor in the career center, and I started working there, and I joined the swim team, and really, I just started to understand myself, and so after I had graduated and there was an opportunity to work on economic development programs for the community college system and I worked in economic development for several years and worked my way up to assistant director and then again, just really being able to develop those mentorships, I had an opportunity come up related to philanthropy. I just love the work and it's developed and changed over the years. Yeah, the community colleges are really close to my heart because of my direct experience and sort of my love for being right there with individuals so I just... I love what we're able to do for everybody in our community, so it's just been... It's been a 360 or... an evolution for me.
0:04:03.5 BROOM: Well, you must be especially really great at your job because such a big part of fundraising and advancement is being able to tell the student story, and you have your own community college story to tell.
0:04:16.7 ROMERO: Yeah. When you go to a high school where everybody has everything locked in, and of course, we talk a lot about equity and social capital, Cheryl, when we looked at our student populations, and everybody comes with different types of capital and some people have it all figured out and I think the community college is not a default story, it's a story of access and inclusivity, and it's really a story of how we as the community many, many years ago, especially in California, I know you work with so many community colleges across the United States, and one of the things that I think is really amazing about California is that we've capped our tuition and our ability to have access still be a center stage of our mission, and so... Yeah, with Santa Ana College, my parents never made me feel that it was in any way a default choice, I think if anything, it was a way to really grow and learn, and so I do connect deeply with the students. There's obviously a very diverse population of first-generation college students, first generation Americans...
I actually am the first generation American; my parents were from Columbia and from Egypt, and they met in Los Angeles in the 1960’s, and I grew up very privileged. Ot felt very American, but always had this cultural background and understood that there are so many people that come from so many different places in the world. And, so, I also feel connected to the students at sending College in that way, and very sensitive to those cultural differences, and this has been an experience in so many ways that has given me so much, I sort of feel like the students are really the gift for me, when I get to be with them. Yeah, it's been a wonderful ride. I hope I can continue to give back in some way.
0:06:12.4 BROOM: I hear your parents’ story and I think, Well, that would make a really interesting movie, Columbia and Egypt, two people meeting in the 1960s in L.A.
0:06:23.2 ROMERO: Now in Los Angeles, my mom spoke four languages, and she was just... I don't know, she passed away, but she was a person with so many diversities, and my dad was also from Columbia, and there's just... There's so many things that you learn from the way that you're raised, and so I think those things were sort of muscle memory when I got to be in a college. I didn't realize how many connectivity points I would have with our students, and that's been such an important part of the work, and I know we're going talk about storytelling, and I just think during this time more than ever, we really need to honor that everybody's story matters.
0:07:05.6 BROOM: Let’s just dive into the current events right now. So, for people who are listening to this podcast, this is being recorded in June of 2020, so we're still in a pandemic and we just witnessed the murder of George Floyd and have seen protests across the world bringing up police brutality and systematic racism, and it seems like it would be such a difficult time to fund raise and such a challenging time to ask people for donations and to support the colleges. Have you been challenged during this time, how has that been for foundations and... for community colleges in general.
0:07:51.1 ROMERO: I think that like anything, there's sort of the opportunity with any challenge, and then there's the challenges of in the opportunity. And let me explain that a little bit. Obviously, every community college foundation may have a different approach to how they try to assist their students during the pandemic, and I think it was an easy pivot to start to connect with our closest constituents immediately and say, Okay, how can we respond to the immediate needs of our students, so that you can keep them engaged in their academic work. That part wasn't as difficult in the beginning because the story was so real for everybody, and I think those that were connected to our work at Santa Ana College wanted to raise their hand and help and so we've been able to deploy thousands of dollars in the last four months to students that were absolutely on the right path related to their work. I think the challenge starts to be when things settle down a little bit like now, and they're sort of a new normal, and how do you engage in your campaign work, how do you meet people where they're at because of their distractions or their inability to predict the future.
And, I think that's a huge part of philanthropy is understanding that people, even during difficult financial times, will give... The research tells us they will continue to give, but these are just such a move times. We've got uncertainty. Even in 2008 when there was an economic downturn that was very significant in our country, there was a level of certainty that was different than a pandemic, and so now, I think philanthropy is faced with, What does reconnection look like with donors and with your community when you're not able to be face-to-face and you're not able to really look at somebody in the eye and know that you're able to connect their values with the institution, so that part has been something that has given you to. Recently with also the death of George Floyd and the issue of equity and intrinsic bias, and all of these very equity-driven issues, they're so centered around the community college system, there's an opportunity there that is absolutely fascinating and amazing. I think that your bringing up both of those points, so I think the challenge now is how do we stay connected with those that care about our organization, but also meet people where they're at.
0:10:32.7 BROOM: Yeah, that's a really excellent, excellent point. It's such a perfect time for community colleges to tell their story because we're serving the students who need us the most... Right. And are that work and... What a great story to be told. Have you heard of any things that other foundations are doing or ideas that have been floating out there on how you can do that?
0:10:59.4 ROMERO: I mean, I'd love to share a little bit of the things that we sort of develop on the fly, and I know that others are doing very similar types of tactical work. I know that foundations run board meetings, and one of the first things we did in April when we... Our board meeting was really decide how are we going keep our board members completely engaged with what the mission is, and we always have students come and speak in person to our board members and our leadership team, and so we didn't stop that, we absolutely created a space where our students that had received some critical funding were able to Zoom in. We had our Alumni Hall of Famers that were just nominated and selected, Zoom in and really had them take over the space. It's almost like this concept that's going on right now with sharing the mic, it's really sort of shifting and pivoting and saying, Well, there's still an opportunity, there's still a platform to make sure that people hear more from your benefactors really then from you. Obviously, there's operational and policy things that need to happen at board meetings, the other thing I wanted to show that I was so successful for us, and I hope it's something that others can use is when we had finalized all of our scholarship decisions, and we had a pool of 356 that were going be announced in May, I was talking to my scholarship coordinator and I said, “What if we have donors and board members and leaders within our district, call the student and announce that they are selected as one of the 2020 Santa Ana College scholars.”
0:12:39.3 ROMERO: It was magical. We basically reached out to a small but powerful group of people that are absolutely connected to Santa Ana College, philanthropy work, and we said, You know what, we think it would be so great if students heard the congratulatory message from you, and really we were also hoping, that it was a gift to them. So, it was about 50 calls that we assigned to these constituents to contact our students to let them know that they were going be receiving a call either way to see if they were selected. And the feedback that we got from our donors, really more from our donors and some callers and from our students was it was like a present that really allowed them to remember why they are giving or are engaged at Santa Ana College. Particularly with our philanthropy, so that was a really cool moment to let them be the good news makers and that really worked well. So those are just a few ideas of just letting the students, the center stage to the interaction and taking a back seat a little bit, seeing how those students’ stories can carry the water during these plans.
0:13:57.4 BROOM: That's such a wonderful approach because you actually took something that was kind of a deficit through the pandemic and turned it into an advantage for both the students and the donors and gave people a way to connect.
0:14:11.7 ROMERO: Yeah, and I think that you feel it. Others feel it, it's, how do we stay connected? Without feeling that it's contrived or email, for instance, or just... It's so overloading to open your email box, and so I'm also a believer in just good old-fashioned phone calls, and so I think there's something in that too, is going back to the basics and asking yourself, “How can we just use tools that maybe we've forgotten about?” We've also, just to add a little bit to tactics and how do you stay connected, I think that us postal mail is really an underused tactic nowadays because of our digital technology, and so we've found that sending notes in the mail to donors, writing handwritten notes from students to constituent, those are things that really give people pause during the time when they're getting hundreds of text messages or being inundated on social media, and so it's really kind of shifting where there's some competitive advantages for you to go into a totally different direction where donors and others in your circle are not expecting you to communicate with them, and so if you ask another thing that could really be an area of value going into the rest of 2020.
0:15:36.0 BROOM: I really like how you said to that calling the students felt like a gift to the donors and to the students, clearly it's a gift to the students because they're receiving a scholarship, but for the people who called and made that announcement, it felt like a gift to them as well, and I think that really shows your philosophy towards giving and fundraising that it's not just giving money, it's your gift in somebody, a student, you're helping them, you're uplifting them. I think a lot of people are intimidated by fundraising, we work with a lot of public information officers, marketing professionals, and I can't tell you how many have said, I could never work in Advancement.
0:16:22.4 ROMERO: Yeah, I heard that too. It’s important thing to call out, and I know that the people that I look up to that have very successful fundraising shops or have the ability to really be able to leverage what we would call the best practices, I think that there's a lot of philosophy around how do you fundraise without focusing only or solely on the money, and I think what you said is true. My philosophy is that my job is to not sell something to a particular donor, but take the value that that particular donor has and connect them with the institutional values and really be able to facilitate a relationship and a connection between their values and the stories of students that really will be the future of our communities, and I think that Advancement and marketing professionals that are hopefully looking on in the podcast really take an opportunity to reach out and learn more about the fundraising opportunities and the way that... The philosophy of their fundraising units work because there is absolutely a marriage between these professionals that needs to happen more, so that the magic of the story telling and the donors values can come together more.
I get nervous sometimes when there's big campaign goals, and to answer your question about the nervousness of, I've never wanted to be in a hard sales environment, and so I really just think about how can I connect the values that I have and that... I know this particular person in front of me has... With the power of story, and I just... With the phone call, whenever we have students in front of our donors, literally magic happens, not because there's anything there, except really a genuineness. And so when those calls happen... I did want to mention too, of course, we had a decent group of donors say, I want to help that student with even additional funds, we had several donors, say I talked to one, so... And John was telling me a little bit about his life and how he was a veteran, and I really want to help John more. How can I give more to John? And so there's just something really unique about the human experience that when you put people together that are already linked in value, that already blossoms into something that's way bigger than you as a fundraising professional, and so there's just so much opportunity that it hasn't even been tapped into...
0:19:04.5 ROMERO: But absolutely there could be nervousness. But again, I think it's about the way you frame things.
0:19:12.1 BROOM: Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. I love that you said that you're focusing on the fundraising by not focusing on the money, and I think people who might be intimidated by fundraising and advancement, think of it as very transactional, and it's much relational than that...
0:19:31.4 ROMERO: Oh, absolutely, there's obviously donors that you work with, just like in marketing and in any work related to public relations, where you're going to have individuals that are very focused on results or focused on measurable outcomes, and the good news is, is we absolutely take the quantitative work and we put it together with the qualitative work, and we make sure that people feel that they're making a difference, and for some is very quantitative, and for some donors it's very qualitative, but even within those two different frameworks, there's an opportunity where somebody just wants to know that their resources are being put to good use, and so we rarely talk about dollars. When I'm talking to donors until that ask has to happen, and I think... And maybe my professional fundraising colleague would differ with me or maybe not that a good fundraiser doesn't have to really talk about money, and I think that that's where the power of story can come in to, if you do those things well with your public information officers or your team and the other stuff just kind of naturally happens and so that's my approach. It's worked out so far, it's worked out well, but I think there's a lot to learn to from others that may have different approaches.
0:20:56.9 BROOM: Now I've worked at a community college for years, and we supported our foundation, we did a quarterly magazine called Transforming Lives, it actually won... Multiple national awards, and it completely focused on storytelling. It was a beautiful magazine. And I love putting it... Well, always felt badly because I felt like the foundation needed more support from my department and we had to support the whole college, and then I look at the four-year university down the street, Cal State San Marcos, and they have a full, fully staffed Advancement Office with marketing professionals working within the office and publications and emails and phone calls, you make one donation to them and you are on their radar forever, and I'm not sure why community colleges have invested so little in their foundations and in their Advancement Offices. I feel like that's a missed opportunity over the last couple of decades that we haven't put more resources there.
0:22:03.5 ROMERO: Absolutely, and I think you a really, really good point about something that you said earlier when you started off this particular part of our conversation, which is this idea of the publication that you had created at that community college that had the power of story-telling. Me, one of the things that's difficult sometimes to address when you're in a small foundation shop is how do you put out quality work, people wann to be associated with high quality, and so their contention or the intersection of how do you attract people that are going to want to be a part of your work, and at the same time, be able to stay with a budget or create opportunities to put together high publications that really are going to associate you and your mission with success. I think the people that are listening to this, if their marketing professionals and are in the world of telling stories and publication, understand that deeply, that people don't want to touch something and feel like it's cheap or not feel associated with high quality storytelling. I think that that's one of the things that even on a small budget, I would say that community college philanthropy units need to be innovative in how they utilize other professionals on their teams that are maybe outside of their fundraising unit.
0:23:39.8 ROMERO: And I think that the question of Why do the community college not understand the value in building that larger philanthropy units is one that hasn't directly been answered by our leaders within the community college system. I think its sort of this idea of maybe not feeling that that was an area that we could really create traction, which of course is not the case when you look at leaders like Santa Barbara or Cuesta or... I've so many colleagues that I look up to and want to be like, there's a direct correlation share between the number of professionals on those fundraising teams that incorporate also the specialty units that you discussed like marketing, publication, PIO, and the ability to raise a higher amount of high impact dollars for students. I really want that question to be on the table for CEO’s more than ever, and I know that we're doing a lot of work to try to bring that question to the forefront of the leaders in the community college system. But I think we need to examine that even more because public-private partnerships are not just the hot sort of topic, or I think it's really the wave of how we'll build things in the future, and I think
the community at large may perceive the community college system in some different way than the university system related to philanthropy. I don't know if it's because the cost is low, there's been a historical feeling between community members or constituents that we don't need additional dollars, but that's a whole another conversation we can get into in terms of what it takes to really make a student successful, and sort of the full ride concept of the universities and how community college students can't be successful if they're not able to take a certain number of units and they work. And so I think that it's just a perception thing too, I just think that that's kind of how I want to end that question as in there's a lot of perception out there that if it's 46 a unit and we're in my place as a donor in that...
0:25:53.3 BROOM: Yeah, that's a great point, 'cause that's a big, I think, push and pull between the image that marketing departments put out to the community about community colleges and then what the philanthropy departments do, because from a marketing perspective, we want students, potential students to know that it's low cost, and it's flexible, so you don't talk publicly about... Yeah, you're still going have to pay for books and housing, and you're probably not going be able to work full-time, and if you have a kid, you're going have to find child care. And those aren't put into a marketing message.
0:26:29.9 ROMERO: Yeah, well, I think the opportunity there though for the marketing excision, we just put together our raising campaigns and the case statement there, when we really dive in the research, and this is where philanthropy and professionals in marketing and public relations in the community college need to talk together more, because what we found in our case statement was working with research and financial aid was, here's where the story sort of begins and ends, like you said, yes, the community college is a place of affordability and equitable access to higher education. However, if you want to be a successful community college student, we need to add some other parts of that story onto the base of the story, and donors really understand that they actually... When you start to sort of construct that, especially if they didn't or did have social capital or cultural capital related to their family structure, they can relate to, Oh, wow. When I was going to college, my parents supported me, or my parents didn't support me, and that's how that shapes my ability to connect with students, and so what we found there is that the cost of living versus the cost of the education is where the intersect and the collide and opportunity happened with the story.
0:27:51.1 ROMERO: And so, the story of the community college student living in Orange County or in Northern California, or in another part of the other United States in America, is really where the need and the case starts... If that makes sense, it's not just the direct cost of education.
0:28:09.8 BROOM: And so our donors really seem to understand that part of the story, and I also think that it's important to let donors know what a major impact their dollars make at a community college versus out of four years thinking to a USC where you have... I don't even know how many millions of dollars of donations coming in every year versus to a community college where the student need is so high that the impact that they can make personally is greater, it goes further in many ways.
0:28:43.4 ROMERO: Oh, I think that one of the things that probably frustrates me, but also drives me, and I'm sure a lot of professionals in the community college is still the same way, is that we have seen through the other opportunities that universities have had by being able to cultivate their alumni, and then receive this sort of champion of their students, that there's really great power in that, and so we want to let our donors and community members, alumni know that there's such an opportunity here, not just because... We believe so much in the community college student and how they're just so gritty, and there's just something about it that you can't not relate to, but there's also something in saying, why not be a champion for a path that hasn't been fully developed yet, the community college system does need to see more champions in philanthropy, and why not be a leader versus a follower, and I think that in the university system is of course wonderful, they've had years and years of philanthropy that is built up to high levels of resources for students, but there's an opportunity here to build a path that really has not been built out yet, if you know what I mean, and so I think that's something that's something really innovative and entrepreneurial and exciting, and so your investment is going give three, four hold back to you, in return.
0:30:09.7 ROMERO: And so, especially with our certificate programs and our AA degree, which I think people forget that we were created to have a place in the market that were totally different than the universities, and I'm sure PIOs and another marketing professionals understand that and know that... My question is, how much are you really leaning into that instead of trying to make excuses for why the community college may not be like the University. I say, flip that around and really look at your competitive advantage against your university partners. Yeah.
0:30:40.5 BROOM: That's an excellent statement, because especially when it comes to talking about your community college and what your brand is and who you are, we're always challenging our community college clients to think of their competitive advantage, what makes your college unique and special, and it's something different at every college, and there's different students and different stories to tell, and rather than making excuses or apologizing for what a community college isn't, let's tell the stuff of what we are and what we do.
0:31:14.8 ROMERO: Absolutely, I think that I have had so many conversations with the professionals at Santa Ana College that are in the public information world, and I think there is always this challenge of feeling like they're the underdog coming from a deficit perspective, and at the same time, there's just this like especially now with the things that we've sort of talked about it, this idea of everybody's feeling vulnerable... And how do you take that and actually say, Wow, this is such a great equalizer for us to be able to tell the story of our students in a way that... And I do want to pass that I'm sure there's feelings this way that we don't feel sorry in any way for our community called students, we feel a need to empower the community college students, and I think that that's a really important thing to say out loud, because there's a fine line between coming from a deficit perspective versus coming from an opportunity perspective. Here's the opportunity about X students, Sara, or they want it more than most students because it's not being given to them as easily, and so your dollars will propel them, their grit will meet your resources at this really great juncture, and so what I tell people is the formula is magical when you're able to tell the story of perseverance and an ability to not quit no matter what is happening. For donors and community leaders, and really anybody that's investing in their community, it's really hard not to relate to that, it's really hard, and so I think that's where the opportunity lies about knowing what the critics may be saying and coming from an awesome perspective instead of a deficit perspective in marketing and storytelling.
0:33:20.7 BROOM: That is... I think that is such an important point. If anybody is listening is a writer, storyteller, that is such a key point because you're telling a student story and weaving in their background, but in a way that looks forward. So rather than making a bad story about one, what comes from a single family home and has no money, and rather than making the stereotypical or sad tale. . And I was going ask you, and I think you kind of answered it, but maybe you can even elaborate more on how you balance story-telling, how you balance the stories between students who have had a really hard time and are struggling and students who still need financial support but maybe don't come from the same background or have the same struggles and how you balance those stories...
0:34:27.5 ROMERO: I love that question. I'm actually getting really excited. I'm an excitable person, and so people know me know that I get excited easily, but I really feel so passionate about this question and really the answers that I have found, and they're obviously always evolving, but a couple of things that we've been really conscious about and how we have really framed out story telling in those particular term. We lead with what is on striving to become, and for instance, will always share that Mark or someone, they're trying to be the next position in Orange County in chemical engineering, and yes, we weave in those points of challenge, but we also kind of develop a story within the challenge so that the focus isn't that one may have had difficulties because of access to resources, but more looking at the successes that one has had because of those challenges. So, what you gain, what mentors have come along his way, and then the other thing is we absolutely strategically share. We will absolutely make sure that diversity is truly inclusive, and what I mean by that is, we are not just the college, for one type of student, and we are aware that in some communities people think, Well, X college is for X type of person, and so I will very strategically make sure that our donors and our constituents see the stories that are not always top of mind.
0:36:34.0 ROMERO: So for us, it's been in a college, that may mean featuring an Anglo middle class students whose story is just as worthy as one story or Mark’s story. We have to create equity even within the equity lens that we're discussing. And so, I am always pushing the boundaries of my team to say, What are people really assuming about us, and how can we break those assumptions by showing the juxtaposition between the students that may not always feel validated in their story, because there's a lot of attention related to other sub-groups of students, and I think it's our job to question ourselves and to ask ourselves, are we really telling equitable stories, are we only going back to that same story? And I just want to say too that we actually coach our students when they speak in front of donors or when they're going be interviewed for a particular publication, we really let them tell their story openly with that, and then I really try to coach them into asking questions that really allow them to see what virtues or values or skills have they learned through their University, so I hope that those are the things that you were looking for in those questions. I just think there's so much strategic need to dive deeper into what kind of stories are you telling and are you telling stories that reinforce assumptions that are not necessarily the best assumptions for our community to have, or are you paying now stories out there so that people can break their functions and say, Wow, I didn't really know that my community college was helping this type of person...
0:38:26.2 BROOM: Now, I think that that is such a brilliant way to explain how to tell... How to tell these diverse stories without leaning on stereotypes that we're trying to get away from, and I love how you are leading with where the student is going, and then weaving in their past and their challenges and framing that as opportunities, and
0:38:54.5 ROMERO: Then asking yourself, Where can there be... And I think, especially given the human rights and civil ability and equity questions that are coming up across our country, where is their common ground when we are constantly looking at our differences, how can you take somebody that physically and also culturally looks different than another student and put them together so that the common ground is the story of the community college and the organization. That's what we've done in publications, we've had Denis who graduated in the 1960s from Santa Ana College and had a totally different background, but when he was paired up with another community college alumni, they may look different, they may have come from different backgrounds, but where is the commonality in the story, the commonality and the story is setting in a college and the instructors and the development of these individuals that allow them to go back into their communities and become much more high-impact citizens. And, so, right there, it gives me the shivers to think about the opportunity you have right now to tell the stories of our common connection.
0:40:21.7 BROOM: Yeah, that's beautifully put, and I agree with you that people want to give and they want to be affiliated with organizations that are successful, that are doing good, and I think that's an opportunity that we as community college professionals have, is to better tell how we impact the community in positive ways. I think we get so caught up on facts and statistics, and here's our transfer rate and were only 46 dollars a unit, and there's all these numbers floating around.
0:40:58.5 ROMERO: And that we miss that commonality and that the humanity of our students. So I think you've summarized that approach beautifully, it just feels like that's the right way for me to connect with why the community colleges were created. I always have to check myself and make sure that the work that we're doing is really around the mission of the organization that we work for, and I can't really be more passionate about what we do in the community college system because it just feels so relevant. Really the challenges, and I think those that are listening to, obviously have drink the Kool-Aid because they're working for community colleges, so the question really is, where are we missing the opportunities of others to know the story and are we really looking at that differently? I think this is a time to really ask ourselves, we think we're telling a certain story as professional storytellers and relationship builders, but we should check ourselves and take pause and ask ourselves, What stories are we really telling or not telling, what stories are we afraid to tell? And how can we look at that and examine ourselves and just be more innovative.
0:42:17.5 ROMERO: Yeah.
0:42:17.7 BROOM: I speak of missed opportunities as we kind of wind down our conversation, I want your thoughts about alumni associations, because I've been talking to a lot of community colleges across the nation who are just starting to put together alumni organizations or associations, and I feel like that might be something that many community colleges have missed out on, where four-year universities have really excelled at creating alumni connections. We haven't focused on that as much, and it seems to be a popular topic right now. What are your thoughts on that?
0:42:52.1 ROMERO: Well, my thoughts are, just given the 15 years of philanthropy work that I've done, is that it's absolutely relevant to the base of individuals that we should be developing, it's relevant to what the product is that you're actually putting out at the community college. Obviously, If you're able to develop your alumni relations in general and in very strategic ways, you're going to cultivate and care and feed a group of individuals that have directly been a product of your community college. I think the challenge is understanding that, that a beast within itself, that is a department within itself, and really that department, if you are able to develop it, or that program which you can develop at any capacity size has to begin with the other units within the community college that you work for, understanding the branding opportunities from the minute the student steps into a community college and having that feeling of I belong, and this is a place of excellence. And, I think the question, I guess, is what I'd like to start with is how are the community college systems creating the student experience from the moment that a particular student is arriving on to the community college campus? Is there a feeling of, This is a place of success and a place not of exclusivity, but a place of where you can rise to the occasion of excellence? I think from there, there are things that you can do, I think the challenge is many people who are listening that are either running philanthropy units and are running marketing units, are trying to figure out how do we tell that story with such a small budget, and I think a lot of it has to do with just deciding, you can't be good at all things, Cheryl, so if you're going to run a philanthropy unit and do a mini strategic plan, are you going try to dive into a different pots or are you going maybe use alumni as one of your biggest prospecting constituent bases that you're going develop and feed, and so we have some things that we do it on in a college that absolutely cultivate alumni is not in a large, high impact way is more on an individual level.
0:45:11.9 ROMERO: We have an alumni hall of fame, and we have an athletic hall of fame. And what I will tell you is that when you're able to connect with alumni, and when you're able to give them a platform to be able to tell their story of why the community college changed their life, they automatically intrinsically want to give back. The question is, capacity, how do you do that when you don't have a team? Like you said, that Cal State San Marcos has or USC has. And so I think it just looks so different that I don't want to act like an expert, I think it's really working one-on-one with each department and asking the questions that will really bring out the realistic approaches that can be actually implemented, but I can't underscore enough the alumni story being so important because to end the question, How many times have I had the phone call between an alumni and myself where I tell them that they are being honored for the alumni award. And how many times does that person tell me that even though they went on to a particular university or got their Master's degree, that they have more of an affiliation and almost like a kindred spirit with their community college...
0:46:28.9 ROMERO: I would say 100% of the time that I make those phone calls, they absolutely validate what their community college experience did for them and how close they feel, so I think that people need to ask themselves, where do they wan to have the most impact. And then figure out what works for them and take those best practices from the universities that scale them in a way that makes sense for your unit, and I hope that that's what we've tried to do, and I think there's a magic there. And also get in front of your CEO, get in front of your CEO every single time you can to be able to position those important strategy...
0:47:15.7 BROOM: Yeah, it's actually... What I was going chime in and say is, I think that things like developing in an alumni unit, because it's... Like you said, it has to be a strategic approach, it's going take resources, you have to choose where you're going to invest your time and resources so that you'll have the best return, and sometimes that will require your CEO stepping in and helping you prioritize, because you can't do it all. There's just no way, there's no way.
0:47:50.3 ROMERO: And I think that... Yeah, that's one of the things that I think any foundation director is an entrepreneur, and so, yeah, you can't do it all. But sometimes we try to do it all, and maybe that's where we can kind of look and pause and say, Well, maybe we don't have to do it all, maybe we're just going do some of these things really, really well, and that's okay. And that's okay.
0:48:09.6 BROOM: And I think that's one of the challenges of community colleges, and for me working as a consultant, there are so many fantastic, great ideas and so many things that colleges want to do, it's like a shiny object syndrome that they chase. They chase what's shiny, and then there's so many things happening in job responsibilities that the shiny object, it's buried in the desk.
0:48:40.4 ROMERO: I do want to say that I think that there's also... There's magic too, in being able to... Let me say this, you don't have to stop the ability to develop alumni relations strategies and work, because you're still hung up on the fact that you don't have resources. I say, be that entrepreneur that you are and do what you can, and even if it feels less strategic, and you want it to... I think it actually over time can create traction, so one of the things we don't want is for us to get stuck in me... Well, I don't have the resources, so I can't do it. Kind of the cycle. I think there's small things that can be really powerful that are done, especially if you have a PIO and the marketing professional, even if it's one, I encourage people to sit down and say, go share some of the challenges I'm having, and I kind of want dive into the alumni world and I'm struggling. Is this a priority for the college? How can we work together?
0:49:41.1 BROOM: That's a great advice. It made me reflect back at my time at the community college I worked at, these foundation used to put on these beautiful galas, black tie events, and we got a new foundation director and she came in and got rid of them, and it was very controversial because I think the staff liked to go to... Like to go to the gala. They wanted to part of it, but it wasn't raising for the amount of work that it took to put on these gallas, it wasn't raising enough money, and she took a lot of heat for it, but then she kept... Kept her composure and said, I'm investing my resources and my department’s time into major gifts, and sure enough, a couple of years later, the foundation raised... I don't even know how much more for student scholarships but more than they ever did from a gala and there were still at opportunities to do to make connections. She started a scholarship ceremony where donors gave scholarships directly to students on stage and... Yeah, it was an excellent point you make because you have to look at what you're doing and say, Is this really the priority of the college and is this going get me the time that I need to hit the objectives that I want to get at?
0:50:59.0 ROMERO: Yeah, and I think that a couple of takeaway for philanthropy and also for marketing units, are the events even that you're creating or maybe just doing in a rote manner, because that's what we do, are these events that absolutely connect investors and donors with students, and that's something that I always check it myself on, and then the second thing is that I have found to be a benefit to the college, is that foundations are the... Now, the birthplace of story, we have, even if it's not in a very structured way, alumni stories and student scholar stories, and the stories that we have, I think are so valuable to the college that I hope that that reciprocation is really happening, and that's what I really want to do--stress is that when you start to brand yourself within your community college as a place where you have a lot of capital and story, the marketing specialist and the president of the college and the public information officer, they use the foundation stories to build the brand for the college. And so that's really what I would love to sort of pause it and say, We need to really understand the value that the foundations have for the colleges and their branding means, because there's a lot of gold there in terms of digging into that...
0:52:33.0 BROOM: That's a great point. And a perfect way to end the conversation. It's bringing it all home because you're right, you build a great... You have connections to your students, connections to your donors, and some great stories, and everybody benefits--the students, the donors, the colleges, the PIOs, the foundation. We all do.
0:52:52.9 ROMERO: Oh, absolutely, I think in short, take a moment to understand that the foundation unit is one of the only outward-facing units that the college have, and so how are you leveraging the relationships that foundations have to market your story, and so there's just a great opportunity there and I've been so blessed to be able to express myself today, and I want to thank you so much, I'm sort of re-energized to do my work now, after talking to you, Cheryl, really appreciate the time we had together.
0:53:27.9 BROOM: Thank you for listening to Higher Education Coffee and Conversation. If you like the podcast, please leave me a five-star rating and make sure to visit us at graduatecommunications.com. And with that, you're going say thank you for listening and thank you for the hard work you do for students each and every day. Well, thank you so much for your time. Stay safe. Stay sane.
0:56:10.2 ROMERO: Yes. Yeah, I like that. I'm going take that on, I'm going try to stay sane and safe, and I think I'm going start with the same part first, 'cause that's really critical. So I'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much again. Have a good day
0:56:23.0 BROOM: You too. Thank you. Bye.