I've seen some of this on this thread and elsewhere. Just out of curiosity and to potentially help the communication gap, how would people in your position like to be contacted to be asked to donate?
I live out of state now but grew up in Ames (my dad taught at ISU, parents still live in Ames). The Cyclone Club membership is only about 6600 people...
There is no way the Cyclone Club should only be 6600 people. We need to increase it....
- There are meet up groups all around the country with fans going to watch the games at local bars/restaurants (I ran into a group at a bar in Raleigh, NC - had no idea they existed). how many of them spent $100 on that one afternoon?
- There are 160k+ followers of ISU Athletics on Facebook, 140k twitter followers for ISU Football. What's the hook to attract 5k-10k of them to start contributing? what do we offer them based on where they live?
I think ISU needs to find ways to connect with these people (multiple ways to find them - meetup groups, social media, alumni records, etc.) they are passionate fans of ISU athletics... Look at all the away games every year and see what meetup groups, social media followers, alumni are in the area - places you will travel too regularly (conf opponents) set up regular opportunities to connect. Offer tickets to sponsored local tail gates for games in the area, maybe at certain levels, you get tickets, parking for all ISU events in the area, seated with local fans, tailgate with local fans, etc.
For me, it is more about media. Offer a premium subscription to all ISU sports content on Cyclones.com. Cyclones.tv is a good start - I bought a subscription just to watch the 1992 ISU v. osu basketball game when we beat okie st by 1 in OT (first game I attended as a kid).
Also, I love looking up box scores and stats from games. There is some data on Cyclones.com, but they could add premium content. Like box scores going back as far as we have them... for example, on Cyclones.com you can go to "schedule" then select a year and see the results for that year - going all the way back to the 1894 season in football. Link pictures, box scores, game highlights, full games, etc. to any seasons / games these are available for and put them in a "Cyclone Club" premium content view. If you are a member, sign in, get the additional content (add Cyclones.tv content to the Cyclone Club membership, make the content more visible on the site to attract more attention to premium access).
Just some thoughts - got to connect with fans that are not able to attend home games regularly.