One Columbia

The Columbia Student Calling Center crossed the $2 million mark this past weekend—an all-time high!

How do they do it? Here are 10 facts about the magic happening in that room tucked in the lower level of the Columbia Alumni Center.

1. As of Monday night, the call center brought in $2,058,000 from 13,100 pledges.
2. Our top callers each raise as much as $100,000 per year and confidently make leadership asks at the $10,000 level.
3. Over the last four fiscal years, the call center has set records, bringing in $1.2 million, $1.7 million, $1.8 million, and $1.9 million.
4. The call center employs 60 enthusiastic and persuasive students—our largest staff ever—who represent Barnard and Columbia.
5. One dynamic manager, Swaati Puri, and four energetic student supervisors run the center.
6. Students speak to 45,000 alumni, parents, and friends of 19 schools and programs each year. (That’s an average of 750 calls per student!) Of those, 12,000 are stewardship “thank you” calls.
7. Students are dialing year-round, seven days a week.
8. For Columbia Giving Day 2014, student callers brought in $146,544.
9. Last week, a student secured a $1,500 gift from a first-time donor on the spot.
10. Student callers improve our data by updating contact information and finding “lost” alumni.

Bonus: Student call centers can jumpstart careers in development. As a School of General Studies student, Connelly Stokes-Buckles supervised Columbia’s calling center. Jake Strang was a “Carolina caller” at the University of South Carolina. CloEve Demmer called on behalf of Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, and I worked at Penn State’s “Lion Line.” If there are others out there, please let me know.

Want to see the call center in action? Contact me (cs3248@columbia.edu) for a visit. A special thank you to our deans and annual fund colleagues who come down and check us out!

This week, Natasha Requeña reports that the Promise Project has pledged $1.5 million for the Department of Psychiatry’s PROMISE at Columbia program, which seeks to help children with learning disabilities primarily in the Harlem, Washington Heights, and South Bronx communities. This is the fourth year the Promise Project has supported PROMISE at Columbia.

Serving over 400 children since its launch in 2011, PROMISE provides children access to neuropsychological assessments to determine their disability, clinical recommendations and treatment programs, and follow-up support ensuring they receive the services they need in their public schools.

Dana Buchman, known for her eponymous women’s fashion brand, founded the Promise Project, which is dedicated to supporting underserved children with learning disabilities, after learning to manage her own daughter’s special needs. Buchman has become increasingly involved in the University and now sits on CUMC’s Board of Advisors and the Department of Psychiatry’s advisory board.

“This is a perfect example of a partnership from the very beginning,” said Requeña, executive director of development at CUMC. “The Promise Project came to us looking to work with a leading academic medical center, and, working closely with faculty, we put together this plan to create PROMISE at Columbia. The organization has consistently upgraded its support each year, allowing us to meet the growing need in the community, which is a true sign of success.”

This week, Heather Hunte reports that Albert J. Mrozik, Jr. ’75CC has made a bequest valued at more than $400,000 to establish a scholarship in memory of his uncle, William J. Drake ’29CC.

Prior to documenting this intention, Mrozik, a prosecutor in Newark, N.J., had been making small annual fund gifts since graduating — the largest was $75. He is a member of his 40th reunion planning committee and, following one phone meeting with Jackie Morton about planned giving as it relates to the overall goal for the class of 1975, he reached out to make a bequest of his own. Hunte, then assistant director for class giving at the College, provided the guidance and documents needed to bring this to fruition.

“This is a classic story of a planned gift prospect,” said Hunte, who this week started at Columbia Law School as associate director of major gifts. “I was surprised by Albert’s e-mail following the call, mostly because he had given less than $500 to Columbia to date. But he was very motivated by his reunion, and Jackie was instrumental in laying out the options available.”