Dear Hokie Club Member,
I am writing you today to let you know I am transitioning as Executive Director of the Hokie Club over to Athletic Administration. While I have thoroughly enjoyed my time working in the Hokie Club, my ultimate goal is to become an Athletic Director. So in the summer, I approached Whit with the idea of taking on athletic administration duties to better position myself within our industry. In addition, this move will provide Whit and Charlie Phlegar, VP for Advancement, the opportunity to restructure the Hokie Club in anticipation of the upcoming University Campaign. It's a win-win for everyone. The future is bright with the Hokie Club and Hokie Athletics. I am excited about the move and as always thank you for your support.
Go Hokies!
Bill Lansden
I'd like HokieFireman's thoughts on this, sending up the bat signal
Comments
I know Bill personally. He is a good dude. I don't know enough about his role in the Hokie Club or the perceived performance of the club under his leadership. But all my interactions with him lead me to believe is a top notch person. Just my $0.02, kinda off topic, but figured this was a good a place as any to mention it.
Get someone in there who values having a user-friendly donor portal. Please.
I don't understand why so many people bitch about this. I suck at computers and I have no problems making my donation each year.
Because a lot of people suck worse at computers.
Seriously.
In today's world, ease of use means EVERYTHING with the lack of attention span humans have these days. If you are dead set on donating, you may figure out a way to do it if you have a few hangups. Lots of folks will get frustrated and give up quickly if they encounter issues.
I'm pretty good with computers and likewise have managed to get my donation in. However, it's a common complaint and I've seen several posts on this site alone (note: we're on an internet forum. I'd wager the ratio of "good" to "bad" computer people is a little higher in this population) where someone had issues getting their donation to work.
For an organization that needs money so bad, the process needs to be as simple as possible.
Also we're Virginia Tech. We (at least used to) Invent the Future. That portal is not the future.
That's why I "bitch" about this.
Fix the UX and come up with a micro-donation campaign or a simple subscription model that gives you an inside look of the program.
Seriously the GenZ/Millennial generation is so cash strapped that they are really prone to monthly memberships at lower prices and will purchase things at like a low cost point and not think about how much it adds up over time. Maybe give some point system that gets donnars some inside access.
They really need to pivot away from the older demo to the younger and really think about what motivates them, their habits, etc.
Getting on mobile and having great UX is the first step.
They already offer monthly donation option payout and a 25 dollar entry level. But just like TKP you can operate on only a per month membership because what happens when people only keep it for the few months of football? How do they budget for scholarships?
The thing with micropayments memberships is that people forget they are actually paying for them. That's why the work so well, and why you see them absolutely everywhere. It's a proven business model that large and medium size corporations use. Fortnight for instance the first billion dollar video game, large in part because they are micropayment driven. You can constantly purchase new things in the game that cost very little, but doing that enough times over a period time, vuala, you just paid $80 dollars and you didn't even realize you did it. That's why the game is free for everyone to play much like many apps on your phone.
I can understand why TKP doesn't do it because its a nightmare accounting wise on the back-end and its a smaller organization, and I can imagine Joe does the majority of everything, with some minor stuff delegated out.
A large organization like VT Athletics should be able to handle the en devour and quiet frankly they need to do it because their normal donors are going to start spending their money elsewhere because the Boomers and GenXers are quickly approaching retirement, and are going to start using their money on their health problems, and their discretionary income is going to lessen.
They need a solid digital strategy or our current budget is going to keep dwindling. To do that you have to understand your demographic and also make the value proposition great enough to keep them involved.
Agreed.
"How do you budget for ____?" isn't an excuse for enterprises the size of HC or the VTAD where a major business function is collection of donations. These are common business models and there are plenty of techniques and planning tools available to support models like this. The antiquated model of relying on a single, often manual, donation every year is a hell of a lot riskier from a commitment perspective.
That's where y'all are losing me. The Hokie Club doesn't have to be a single once a year donation. You can setup monthly payments.
Well if we use this thread as a poll, the majority of tech fans don't realize you could pay as little as $25/month in some sort of membership.
Furthermore, it doesn't really tell the user what that money is going towards. I mean yes we know it helps support the football team, but what's the rest of the buyer proposition. Do I get to come visit the locker rooms or tour the stadium (low hanging fruit items that could be done for basically free).
It's not even 25 a month it's 25 entry level for the year to be a Hokie Club member. So less than 2.50 a month.
As for what you are supporting it's the Virginia Tech Scholarship fund. You are paying for all sport scholarships.
Yes. I mean that is pretty well understood, but it has to be clear to the user.
If someone just randomly landed there, not even a Hokie, it needs to be abundantly clear where your money is going and what the money is giving you the user.
I should be able to take my neighbor put him on the page, and he should know what he is paying for.
If you can pay as little as $2.50 that's great. They should promote the hell out of that. (I wonder where they got that price point, because I feel like its really low). They don't promote how you can help the program at a very small level.
Maybe I am missing something - and this is more of a response to the conversation as a whole..
I know there are some hokie club admin/members with connections, so maybe this could be a venue for more helpful than just "the UI sucks". I have no vested interest other than to help the Hokie club out...
1.) What specifically about the process is difficult? It seems like I login - hit a button, put my credit card info in and process? But are there specifics that people are trying to do that is making it difficult? Certain payment options? Trying to allocate the dollars to specific structures?
2.) It looks like you can write in an amount to pay, so if someone wanted to do a micro-lending program they could? Or a monthly subscription? Or would that now make them eligible for Hokie Club membership?
Not trying to attack people calling out issues - just trying to see if maybe we can expand to make it helpful and enact changes if they are needed...
if you could provide a link I could probably figure some of it out. I'm in school for it right now.
My best bet without looking at is that it's very desktop driven instead of mobile. Mobile just outpaced desktop internet I think within the past year or 2 and that will only continue to increase.
UX needs to be upgraded almost every 2 years because technology upgrades every 2 years.
The credit card process you described to someone like myself sounds taxing. I can literally click on something I want and be asked if I would like to pay via Apple Pay with my thumb and not upload any numbers... boom that's a problem and I am an older millennial. The younger Genz are more likely to get frustrated with something and bail.
Here's a good read on the UX behind designing a log in page. And this is a good case study on a payments process for a charity.
Anyways, Here's a picture of the HokieClub Login screen:
Here's where there's room for improvement:
If you login successfully, as an existing member, you'll be navigated to this page (orange box added to protect my personal info):
Questions/complaints here:
When you click on the 'Make your Hokie Club Donation,' you'll see this screen:
Immediate thoughts here:
Someone who is an actual UX designer could much more clearly point out all the issues, but I think my examples explain some of the issues.
I wouldn't say its absolutely terrible, as I have seen much much worse, but it can be upgraded.
Social Logins would improve easability.
Not sure what happens after you get past that last data entry page for the donation itself, but the easy grab right there is to add a donation completion window where you have the option to share via social media.
Why? Peer to peer influence and 3rd party stories are more trusted then anything else. I see you shared, I am already more likely to think twice about why I am not already enrolled in the HC.
Just checked it out. The homepage is great. It is adaptively designed, so I can actually read everything and scroll through the page no problem.
Clicking on the donate button (which I would change the color to RED, so it sticks out like a sore thumb, screaming hey user I want you to donate, that's why you are on my page to donate.) takes you to an unmobile responsive page that looks like responsive design (ie you pull that page up on any device it will look the same) clearly designed for a desktop only.
This is a huge issue! You are the target demographic that lands where I told you to go, and your probably thinking, "Man I have to zoom in on this page and I can barely read it as is". You lost your target demographic, they probably left the page in a few seconds.
That's all it takes .005 of second and they will just hit the back button and you lost that person.
I would love to see the bounce rates off that page in their google analytics page. I bet you it's extremely high!
All of this...
I don't think the problem that TKP has applies to Hokie Club:
Also, I figured out that I could donate as little as $1.67/month if I wanted to. Just an FYI.
What's amazing about the $25/hour donation a month is that that's the first time I have heard about it.
Do you think others have. Probably not. No one knows.
If you go down to Clemson though everyone knows about IPTT program.
The marketing of the Hokie Club stinks.
Yes their overall marketing does suck. Then their support of local volunteers is subpar. But comparing them to pretty much any football school in the south isn't fair. These places could have a system where you have to hand in donations in person in pennies and people still would give. At Tech that isn't the case, the school and sports programs are having to work an uphill battle to get donations.
I would argue there digital strategy needs transforming. It's not extremely far off, but its outdated.
These things need to be looked at every 18 months or so. Moore's Law is very true. If we don't upgrade soon, we could be completely pivoted out of the market.
Tell you one thing you don't do is turn away revenue because you aren't smart enough to figure out how to deal with it on the back end... Not if you want to run a business.
A sure fire way to lose your job is to be the guy that sacrifices customer relations (and therefore revenue generation) for back end bureaucracy.
Companies that do this go bankrupt and die.
Full letter from Whit (sorry, it's long)
HokieClub Plz
I've always wondered why they weren't already "well coordinated" with the rest of the athletic department.
It started for tax purposes not sure why it has been kept that way. Same with Alumni relations and Hokie Club, they wont work together well. Neither one works well with individual groups out of state.
Organizational inertia is pretty difficult to change. It's easy to get a 5-10 person team to pivot, much harder to get a 100+ person organization that relies heavily on network/relationships and volunteer support to change.
I know the Hokie Club doesn't have close to 50 employees much less 100 not sure about Alumni relations, but as Fernley and many others can't testify to its awful. Without local dedicated volunteer boards it would be even worse. Worse still neither group will take suggests about how to improve and grow.
I was counting volunteers as well in that 100 people. I know Atlanta Hokie Club has 3 'reps,' and I think their volunteers because I've found them on LinkedIn and see that they have full time jobs, but I'm not sure what they actually do (or what they should be doing). Anyways, I assumed that every major city has a rep, with DC/Charlotte/Richmond having multiple, and I guess I just thought they'd somehow find 100 people who (at least try to) make Hokie Club work.
Side note - this is another part of the problem; I have no idea what these people do, and their supposedly representing me (at least based on their title). Should they just be hitting me up for money? Should they be coordinating events? I met Bill Lansden at an event, and asked him how I could help out Hokie Club (looking for volunteering opportunities) and told me to give money.
Rant #2 - I've lived in Atlanta 6 years now, and there's only been a single Hokie Club event anywhere near the city of Atlanta. Atlanta HC completely ignores those of us who are ITP and makes no effort to embrace the city (or the young alums who live in the city) and it drives me nuts. I went to a Tennessee Young Alumni watch party with a friend years ago, and it was crazy. I'm very envious.
Hi bar1990 - you are correct - the Hokie Club in Atlanta is not really active. But the Alumni Association is (and has NO membership fee) and we host game watching parties for every football game. This year we moved to Taco Mac Perimeter (sorry it's not downtown) and you are welcome to join for all games. We had a pretty good crowd of 60+ for the first few games and it fell off this past week against Miami. Hopefully it will pick back up for the rest of the season. We also host Young Alumni events each year like happy hours and networking events. You can check out our FB, Instagram or Twitter accounts - all Atlanta Hokies. Or join our local email list by sending a subscribe note to AtlantaVTAA@gmail.com. We are also hosting a big tailgate for the GT game (which we do every time the Hokies are in town) and you can find details on FB or our website - www.atlantahokies.com
It is very difficult to get big athletics names to come do an event in Atlanta since there are not as many alumni here. It was pretty big to get Buzz Williams two years ago and Justin Fuente this past year. The events have been OTP due to cost restrictions and trying to keep the ticket price down for attendees. I understand that is frustrating for those that live ITP. There are a few others that have expressed interest in taking over the Hokie Club and perhaps you could come to an event and talk to them. Hope to see you soon. Go Hokies!
Wow, thanks for the response! I'll definitely make it to one of the watch parties this season.
This hire will be on the same level as every non revenue sport and maybe the OC/DC level for football. Tech is at a critical point for the scholarship fund. If Tech wants a national brand in basketball and especially football the capital campaign must start right. Finding donors to fund endowed coaching positions must be done. That doesn't even get into the user unfriendliness of the Hokie Club.
This needs to happen. At the VTAA Chapter officers conference this year a Hokie Club staffer gave a presentation about the Hokie Club and got peppered with questions that should have been long answered and only highlighted the fact that most Hokies don't know what the Club is or what it is for, and this audience was VTAA chapter officers! The other topic that was asked about most was ease of access to Hokie Club info. Where you stand, current giving levels, what types of transactions count for HC points and what does not. Someone asked if there was any thought given to an app, which I think would be a major band-aid and opportunity to push donation requests and updates, and the response was a mix of "not sure how we would make that work with our current software/system" which seems ridiculous in 2019.
I may be alone in this,
but my only complaint is that it is difficult to get involved with the Hokie Club chapters, for instance right now, here is a link to the volunteer page - what action are you supposed to take though if you were actually trying to volunteer?
Hokie Club Volunteering
Being in the 757 and having Hokie family in Richmond - I have heard similar things, its hard to get involved and if the events arent taking place (especially in the 757) in your city/area of town for richmond, its hard to participate.
Just wanted to see if I am alone, and if not maybe that can be a focus, assuming its not already, although I am sure it is.
Nope, you're not alone; I agree. I'm currently a grad student (aka unemployed) and asked Bill how I could help Hokie Club, and he just told me to donate money, and if I can't donate that much, ask my friends to donate more.
I think it'd be a good idea for the Hokie Club to leverage the Computer Science/Engineering departments to re-design/update the website. This could be done annually if necessary, there will always be new students that need a project. This is will not only keep the website up to date on the newest "trends" and ways people today access/use websites, but it will also get students involved in the Hokie Club early and they will want to participate after graduating.
I hit on this in another thread, but our CS students study a lot of theoretical concepts, and very rarely are up to date with new trends.
Beyond that, every 'big boy' athletic department employs a staff/consultants to do this stuff. Why should we be any different? It seems sloppy and too high risk to ask students to do this instead of hiring professionals.
And even if our CS department was amazing, do we really want them designing something that is so critical to the success of the athletic department? Would you be okay having an architecture student re-design Lane Stadium? If the answer is no, then this should be treated the same way.
I build web and mobile applications for a living. I'd work for free. Where do I sign up?
Well I uncovered another problem. Our Hokie Club social media pages don't practice social listening. I tweeted them directly and they still haven't responded.