Which is better: a Facebook Page or a Facebook Group?
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On Oct. 29, 1929, the most devastating day in the history of the New York stock market, Wall Street began its great economic descent. But on the same day in the northern Bronx, people were casting aside the calamity on Wall Street and celebrating the arrival of a new high school building.

More than 2,000 people crowded through the marbled halls to the auditorium of DeWitt Clinton High School on Mosholu Parkway to hear Mayor James J. Walker inaugurate the ambitious all-boys institution, which cost the city $3.5 million. Mayor Walker remarked, “This temple of education will well repay us even after we are gone, by training future generations to be good citizens.” Indeed, Clinton’s impact would not only give back to New York, but repay American society in significant ways.

Its alumni include Ralph Lauren, James Baldwin, Stan Lee (creator of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men), Richard Rodgers (writer of 42 Broadway scores, including “Oklahoma!”), and more.

Read more at NYTimes.com >>

The last time Miriam Korn Haimes used Syracuse University’s career services, she was a kid. Twenty-one? Twenty-two, maybe?

When you’re the Class of ’76, that’s ancient history. The bachelor’s degree nestles at the bottom of a rich résumé filled with professional benchmarks, including a 23-year career at JPMorgan Chase, topped by the title of senior vice president.

“I hadn’t kept up with the university at all,” said Ms. Haimes, of Montclair, N.J. “It was so long ago.”

Until this spring, when Ms. Haimes’s department was relocated to Columbus, Ohio, and she found herself unemployed.

In the new world order of job searches, networking is everything, so she gamely dusted off her 33-year-old Syracuse affiliation. Armed with her business card and her 60-second “I’m in transition” speech, she went recently to a cocktail party for alumni.

Read more at NYTimes.com >>

Advancement administrators at the University of North Texas have come up with a nifty way to use the “six degrees of separation” principle to connect alumni, supporters, and friends. With the public research university’s “Six Degrees of UNT” program, constituents will be contacted via e-mail invitation and asked to forward the invitation to former UNT classmates, faculty, staff, and supporters. Subsequent e-mails ask each invitee to provide current contact information.

Officials hope to wind up with clean print mail and e-mail addresses for more than 190,000 people in a contributor relations database when all is said and done. But it’s not all about getting a good solicitation list in an efficient manner — the contact info will be used for programs such as the North Texas Alumni Association’s online community to keep people involved with the university and with each other. “It’s just as important to keep alumni and friends connected with one another as it is for us to keep in contact with them,” says Derrick Morgan, executive director of the alumni association. “We need to make it easy for them to engage and conduct business together.” The program is a partnership with The Pursuant Group, a Dallas-based online fundraising firm.

Now, just one question remains for six-degree principle fans:  How is Kevin Bacon connected to UNT?

This originated from the blog of University Business Magazine.

Shelby Academy membership votes 52-10 to keep financially troubled school open

Posted by Scottie Vickery — Birmingham News July 14, 2009 8:39 PM

The membership of the financially troubled Shelby Academy voted 52-10 tonight to keep the school open.

After the board vote, the crowd erupted into cheers.

Shelby Academy’s membership — made up of board members, parents of current students and parents of former students who pay a $100 membership fee — voted.

Mitchell Spears, attorney for the school, said the school is about $576,000 in debt. It owes $376,000 on the mortgage, and the rest is in unsecured debt and salary and wages owed to the staff. He said it would take about $80,000 a month to run the school if it had 100-110 students.

Paige Watson Phillips, who is a member of the alumni association, said before the vote that there were 1,000 alumni ready to help.

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You’ve defined your requirements, talked to vendors, seen demos, found the right donor management software for you and worked through the contract—now you’re done, right? Not so fast. You still need to implement the system, which requires additional planning, teamwork, configuration, data migration and testing . . .

Read this Idealware article by Keith Heller