Online giving introduced by Development Office

By Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

iving to UMass Amherst got easier last month, when the Development Office made it possible for supporters of the campus to donate money through an online site.

     Donors can now give using their credit cards.

     "It's all done very securely," said Tom Navin, director of Annual Giving Programs.

     The credit card number is not being passed through several groups of people. It's all done in the bank and it's never seen by anyone else."

     Navin said the new system does not pave over other fund-raising efforts.

     "It's not replacing anything; it's adding," he said. "Among the gifts we've received so far is one from an alum who's information we'd lost in the system." Navin said that by making an online gift, a friend of the campus can reconnect to the UMass community.

     Annual fund efforts to reach West Coast and international alumni had been challenged before by differences in time zones, Navin said, because Annual Fund calls are made in the evenings from campus. Now, he said, people can donate easily any time.

     "We're already seeing some of our West Coast people using it," he said. Although the sample is small, early results suggest that a higher percentage of people outside the Eastern U.S. are using the Web site for donations than who usually support the campus.

     The biggest gift so far has been $1,000," he said.

     Development has begun to advertise the new giving method through notices in @UMass, an Alumni Relations publication, and in the monthly Advocacy Programs newsletter.

     "We're going to do a postcard campaign for international constituencies and for people we don't have good phone numbers for," he said. "We've been collecting e-mail addresses for quite some time," he added, saying that Alumni Relations plans to notify prospective donors via e-mail.

     "We're starting to put it on everything we do, all of our print materials, return envelopes, outgoing envelopes, brochures," he said.

     When visitors at www.umass.edu/development click on "Make a Gift Now!" they can have their gift processed quickly, Navin said. Afterward they receive an e-mail response saying, "Thank you for your gift." Like other donations to the campus, these gifts can be made anonymously and can be directed to specific recipients at the University.