Why does Virginia Tech struggle to fund raise?

I'm sitting at my desk, bored and waiting for a 2PM meeting that is keeping me from kick starting my Thanksgiving time off, and I'm wondering what TKP thinks about Virginia Tech's inability to fund raise at the level that is comparable to the overall success of the program.

Based on 2016-2017 NCAA Finances, our Athletic Department sits at 44th in the country with $87M in Total Revenue.

Now. Despite our struggles, I am confident in stating that our Athletic Department (specifically a combination of Football and Men's Basketball as revenue generating sports) would be ranked higher than this if you did a sort of "Power Rankings" for the NCAA.

There are plenty of schools above us that are in no way surprising. I don't expect to ever compete with Texas or Michigan, but color me surprised that we're $7M behind Colorado, $9M behind Rutgers, $23M behind WVU etc.

Now, we can talk about the ACC's inability to get the ACC network off the ground and Tobacco Road's frustrating fixation on basketball over football, but we're still behind FSU ($144M), Louisville ($120M), Clemson ($112M), and UVA ($92M) in conference. Those may all make sense based on the overall football success of FSU, recent rise of Clemson football, Louisville's corporate sponsorship and UVA's deep pocketed donors.

But what is it that we're doing wrong?

We all know that Weaver's Athletic Department was both fiscally conservative and woefully behind the times when it came to modernizing from a technology department. Are we still being weighted down by that?

I know that I've been frustrated by the Hokie Club's site and the difficult process to donate. I've seen plenty of people who have stated that they've never been contacted by VT Athletics for donations.

But Hokies travel well. They buy tickets and apparel. We have Engineering alumni that make good money. I'm sure we have some big time donors that I've never heard of who are the real movers and shakers behind the scenes from a boosters perspective. But I know that a vast majority of my friends don't donate and I don't understand what sets us apart from other fan bases/alumni networks. Wikipedia says we have ~250K alumni, how do we harness their donating prowess?

According to the drum (or dead horse) that HokieFireman is repeatedly beating, Clemson's success is directly linked to the success of IPTAY, their fundraising arm. How do we revamp the Hokie Club to look more like theirs (without the on-field successes...)