Mutual involvement
The Tilburg University Fund helps Tilburg University contribute towards the quality of society of today and of tomorrow. A serious and important challenge! That is why we attract funding that enables us to enhance the impact that Tilburg University has on society, both in the Netherlands and beyond.
Tilburg University is an academic, open, inclusive and involved community that is dedicated to sustainable broad-based prosperity. It develops and shares knowledge in the life and social sciences for the benefit of society. Students are trained to be responsible leaders, with knowledge, skills, and character. The Tilburg University Fund attracts funding in order to help realize these objectives. With the help of the donations it receives, the university fund offers additional financial resources for research, for teaching, and for scholarships. This enhances our donors’ involvement with society. Close at home and further afield. Now and in the future. For each other.
It is precisely because our focus lies on attracting funding that we can target all our energies on carrying out our plans as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Objectives
The objectives of the Tilburg University Fund are:
1. The university fund aims to promote teaching, research, and impact at Tilburg University and everything related thereto in the broadest sense.
2. The university fund seeks to achieve this goal by:
a. attracting funding;
b. carefully and impartially managing and allocating funding received;
c. making available financial resources to Tilburg University and its employees, students, and alumni;
d. carrying out any other action related to the above in the broadest sense or which could be of benefit to it.
What this amounts to in practice is organizing fundraising programs – for example through a recruitment campaign, a ‘middle and major donor’ program, named funds, and bequests. This helps make possible a scholarship program (for talented students from all over the world, for example), research projects (such as Zero Hunger Lab) and educational projects (such as Pre-Bachelor’s study programs for refugees).
The Development and Alumni Relations Office (DARO) performs an initiating and facilitating role in the acquisition of funds for the Tilburg University Fund. It oversees an active demand for funding but is also supply-driven. The university fund is managed by a director who is also the director of the Tilburg University Marketing and Communication division, of which the DARO forms part. The director and the DARO jointly develop the university fund policies and are responsible for carrying out the fundraising activities, for selecting projects and the students who are eligible for a donation, and for the management duties. The director and board are assisted in their duties by a supervisory board of active and involved Tilburg University alumni. The Audit Committee provides support in the form of an opinion about the annual accounts and interim financial reports.
Results achieved
Thanks to the activities of the university fund, including Have a Seat, programs for medium and large donors, campaigns, smaller-scale activities, and contributions, a total of €358,778 was donated this year.
Alumni network
During the past year, the Tilburg University alumni network continued to grow, to in excess of 87,000 alumni. More than 6000 diplomas were awarded. Fortunately, all graduates were once again able to proudly receive their diplomas in graduation ceremonies that were open to the public: during the pandemic, alternative arrangements had to be made for this.
Celebration of quinquennium
The year 2022 marked the 95th anniversary of the founding of the university. As always in the event of a quinquennium, an alumni day was held throughout the university, at which alumni from every program and cohort returned to the campus. A very successful gathering at which alumni learned about all the different ways to remain involved with their alma mater, as volunteers or donors, for example. The daytime program was followed in the evening by a benefit festival of song at T.S.R. Vidar. More than 165 alumni drank a toast to the university’s 19th quinquennium. The activity raised €5,399 for the university fund.
Online contact
Links with alumni were also strengthened via email and social media (LinkedIn and Instagram), with the help of a donors’ newsletter, six alumni newsletters, and two online editions of Tilburg University Magazine, featuring the themes of ‘The value of values’ and, of course, ‘Quinquennium’. More than 50,000 alumni and donors were reached in this way.
Volunteers
In 2022, the volunteer program returned – finally – to being a physical, face-to-face activity. Students and recent graduates visited experienced alumni in their work settings, met up with them at various networking sessions and events, and were able to find each other more easily online, resulting in a smoother exchange of supply and demand. The volunteer program means we can help members of the Tilburg University community prepare for the labor market, work on their personal development, and build a valuable network. A total of 326 alumni volunteered as mentors, lecturers, and coaches at various events in 2022, and others were members of the alumni panel.
Campaigns
As a result of changes in legislation, it is no longer possible to organize telephone fundraising activities as we have done in the past. Using our experiences from the telephone campaign in 2021, we organized this year’s campaign differently. An experienced telephone campaign student spent the whole year calling alumni to ask them if they were prepared to extend their donations to the university fund, or to convert their one-off donations to an ongoing one. The telephone campaign raised a total of €154,125.
We also took part in a national campaign by various university funds in order to raise the profile of giving support to research at universities. Each university fund used a project to demonstrate the impact of research on society. In the case of Tilburg University, we used the Zero Hunger Lab.
Quinquennium campaign
During the second half of the year we held a special quinquennium campaign, in line with the 2021 Christmas campaign, with the climax in December. To mark our gratitude to all our donors and volunteers, we hung ribbons on the campus Christmas tree. The ribbons bore the wishes of our scholarship students. Employees, students, and alumni were also offered the chance – in return for a small donation – of hanging a ribbon in the tree bearing their own wishes, or those for someone else or for the university as it moves towards its centenary. The campaign raised €2,284 for the university fund.
Emergency fund
Some students found themselves in financial difficulties because of the situation in Ukraine. More than 280 people made donations in the wake of a special campaign to highlight the emergency fund, raising €19,495. This also resulted in 162 new donors to the university fund. In 2022, we awarded scholarships to 23 students in difficulties from the emergency fund.
Special donations
As well as many smaller donations, we were pleased this year to receive larger donations, including €100,000 for the Charitas Fonds.
The future
Tilburg University forms an involved community of students, employees, alumni, and collaborative partners who together create and share knowledge. Curious, Courageous, Caring, and Connected are the values that bind us, enabling us to benefit society. The Tilburg University Fund has an important role to play in that community.
Integrated relationship strategy
Tilburg University seeks to enter into long-term relationships with its alumni and other donors. They form a part of our knowledge community that is committed to helping society. This can be done, for example, by helping teaching and research through a donation to the university fund, but also by taking an active part in research, or by supervising students during the various phases of their studies. We have three levels of involvement with the university: connected, engaged, involved. With ‘connected’, involvement is passive or reactive, while ‘engaged’ entails an active involvement. The role of alumni in the ‘involved’ phase is significant to the extent that they actually give back to the university in the form of time or a donation. We are committed to creating valuable relationships that are tailored to the stage of a person’s life, what drives them, and their needs. We seek to create as large a group of people as possible, who really feel involved and who actually give back to the university. A group of people who are willing and able to do so, in a way that suits them. That is why it is important to work with a database and with overarching ‘customer’ knowledge, to encourage involvement at a broad level.
Campaigns
One way in which we attract funding is through campaigns that are designed to generate donations to the university fund generally, as well as being aimed at specific themes. In principle, the university fund focuses mostly on non-earmarked donations. To attract such donations, a continuous campaign is being developed that seeks to promote the objectives of the university fund, the values of the university, and its impact on society. The university fund will also set up specific campaigns from time to time for specific purposes, such as the emergency fund.
Large donations
For attracting large donations, attention will be focused not just on individuals, but also on such parties as asset funds, corporate funds, organizations, and groups that share the Tilburg University mission and identity and with which collaboration is an obvious step. We will also be setting up a program through which we can connect businesses in the region with Tilburg University and the university fund, as donors.
Tilburg University at 100
The university centenary is approaching, and that presents opportunities to improve the name recognition of the university fund and to attract more donations. This special anniversary will be an excellent chance to celebrate the university and to show what it can achieve with the support of its community.
Ambitions
The Tilburg University Fund supports:
Talented students who, without a scholarship, would not have the opportunity to develop into the responsible leaders in society that they are capable of becoming.
Several large projects aimed at advancing broad-based prosperity. For example, we have already selected the activities of the Zero Hunger Lab and the Zero Poverty Lab. Tilburg University is also devising research programs on an inclusive labor market, preventive and mental health, and the sustainability transition. Projects carried out by these research teams are also eligible for major donor programs from the university fund.
Smaller projects by employees and students that we can give an extra boost with a donation in the field of research, teaching, or social entrepreneurship.
Sound management of the resources
We feel a strong sense of responsibility for the resources that are entrusted to us. That is why we have recently had our administrative support and governance audited, and used this audit to further strengthen these aspects.
With these ambitions, we seek to help Tilburg University to continue to develop into an inclusive community in which we work in partnership on our joint goals. We invite everyone to take part and help us in our mission of making a sustainable contribution towards a better world.
