COACHES: WHAT WILL YOUR PROGRAM LOOK LIKE AFTER YOU’RE GONE?
- Ted Priestly
- Aug 7
- 2 min read
One of the conversations we have regularly with coaches at Fundraise4U is about alumni relations.
Not transactional fundraising. Not just asking former players for money.
Relationships.
Your alumni are the history of your program. They wore the uniform before your current players. They experienced the wins, losses, bus rides, practices, friendships and moments that created the culture you inherited.
And whether they graduated last year or 40 years ago, most still want to feel like they are part of something.
The question is: Are you giving them a reason to?
Strong alumni relations don’t happen because you send an email when you need money. They are built intentionally over time.
At Fundraise4U.net, some of the best practices we encourage coaches to consider include:
• Communicate with alumni consistently—not just when you need something.
• Create an accurate and growing alumni database.
• Establish an Alumni Leadership Team to help connect generations.
• Host alumni calls and program updates throughout the year.
• Bring alumni back to campus for games, practices and special weekends.
• Create and deliver Alumni Mentoring Nights that connect former players with current student-athletes (we can help you with that).
• Celebrate alumni accomplishments personally and professionally.
• Recognize important teams, anniversaries and moments in program history.
• Give alumni meaningful ways to contribute their experience, relationships and expertise.
• Make your current players understand that someday they will be the alumni.
But there is a bigger point here.
Alumni relations requires caring.
You have to care about the people who came before you.
You have to care about the program beyond this season’s record.
You have to care about its history.
You have to care about what it will look like five, ten and twenty years from now.
And ultimately, you have to care about how you leave it.
That approach isn’t for everyone.
Some coaches are focused primarily on the players and season in front of them. Some are trying to win, advance their careers and move on to the next opportunity. Alumni engagement, longevity and program sustainability simply aren’t priorities for everyone.
And that’s their choice, but it’s not the way I would recommend coaching.
I believe that one of the responsibilities—and privileges—of being a head coach is recognizing that you are temporarily entrusted with something that belongs to generations of people.
Your job isn’t simply to coach the team. It’s to steward the program.
Win games. Develop players. Graduate student-athletes. Build culture.
But also build relationships, preserve history and create something sustainable enough that the next coach inherits a stronger program than the one you inherited.
Because eventually every coach leaves.
And when that day comes, there are two very different questions you can ask:
“What did I accomplish while I was there?”
or
“What did I leave behind?”
The best programs—and the best coaches—can answer both.
If you’d like to chat about a few quick, simple and sustainable ways to improve your alumni relations strategies and thus your program’s connectivity, drop me a line at Ted@Fundraise4U.net. I’d love to hear from you!
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