If these interesting times have shown us anything, it is that we need to be innovative, flexible, and continuously improving. Those are the tenets of our program that we call R.E.O. or Enterprise Activities. R.E.O. is an acronym for Revenue Enhancement Opportunities. In recent surveys of nearly 100 Christian colleges we asked whether your school was more:
1. Tuition-centric (student tuition & fees is your top $$$ source) 48.28%
2. Contribution-centric (donor contributions are your top $$$ source) 47.13%
3. Endowment-centric (investment income is your top $$$ source) 4.59%
4. Enterprise-centric (entrepreneurial income is your top $$$ source) 0.00%
Note that last entry! “Enterprise-centric” was 0%. This is not surprising. Christian colleges – and not-for-profits across the board – have not been awakened to the necessity of this type of planning and – frankly – re-engineering of your institution.
This process does not have to be costly in terms of dollars. You can D-I-Y at your campus – and we can help. My premise is that you and your team already have gifts/talents from God, things you are passionate about, activities that you are (or can be) the best on Earth at, are spending time, effort, brain power, money, and resources on – you just have not monetized this (or these) activities.
The goals of an R.E.O. project are three-fold: 1) increase enrollment; 2) engage and motivate donors and stakeholders; and 3) show a profit from the activity.
As a prescription, right now, in this challenging Coronavirus season, consider flexing your creative muscles, brain power, and team skills. What about the ideas below? We’d LOVE to help you brainstorm, plan, develop, and set in motion any and all of these.
If your students are now away from campus and involved in online/virtual classroom work, have you considered needed and creative ways to keep them engaged? What about these?
Distance Chapel – if your school has mandatory Chapel – keep it mandatory. Prayer, music, and messages can be provided from anywhere via Zoom, Facebook Live, etc. Take e-Attendance?
Regular Town Halls – have your President and/or popular professors, coaches, other campus servants host video web meetings at regular intervals during the week. Students can ask questions, get answers, etc. Leader can “poll” students face-to-face (sort of) about how they are doing, prayer needs, what is happening back at campus.
Student “Chat Rooms” – set up listserv/bulletin board/chat room-type opportunities for students to interact with the friends they are missing by not being on campus (as if they are not doing that already…)
Virtual Sporting Events! - who are the best video game players on campus? Get the top guys and girls together to simulate sports games/matches that are open to all students to attend. Re-create the NCAA Basketball Tournaments that got cancelled, weekly soccer matches, etc. THIS COULD BE FUN and a way to keep students engaged.
Virtual Fundraising Events - in the same vein, are there creative ways you could do a virtual banquet (send everyone something from Blue Apron, etc) and have a video fundraising program? A video golf tournament.
And, when you are ready, we are READY to work with you on R.E.O. projects!
Be blessed, be wise, and stay healthy.