[bklyn11201]

The vast majority of elite institutions are completely unwilling to take the risks to capture 100% of the online revenue pie:

a) They are unwilling to spend lots of money on upfront content development costs without knowing future revenue.

b) They are unwilling to hire a bunch of temporary workers to help spin up new content and then re-allocate them.

c) They are unwilling to adopt (aggressive) modern marketing techniques.

d) They are unwilling to cold call.

e) They are unwilling to maintain call centers.

f) They are unwilling to spend millions on FB and Goog ads even if it has positive ROI.

[vgeek]

All of these are true except for d and e. I get multiple calls per week some weeks asking for donations from various deparments, having never donated to my college and demonstrated no willingness to do so. If they can panhandle from alumni, why not call prospective students? Too low of an ROI or are they just playing hard to get?

[bklyn11201]

I believe the difference is that institutions are using scholarship students to warm call alumni for donations vs. online program managers using large, paid call centers. I think it's just a different magnitude of marketing.

Non-profits in general are using more and more professional calling services. Maybe they keep the easy (warm) calls in-house and then outsource all the more difficult calls to an outside service.