Cygnus Research Project

The Foundation for Fraternal Excellence partners with Cygnus Applied Research every few years to design, organize and deploy an Alumni and Donor Engagement Survey. Information gathered leads to series of strategic recommendations that all fraternities and sororities can use to strengthen their fundraising activities, enhance member engagement and generate greater support for programs and services.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The 2025 Foundation for Fraternal Excellence Alumni/ae & Donor Engagement Survey will explore the attitudes, opinions and expectations of fraternal members, as well as identify key factors which most greatly influence their decision to contribute philanthropically.

Through the responses of fraternal members and donors, the survey will reveal the opportunities that exist to grow both supporter numbers and contributions; identify the messages members and donors find the most compelling; and determine how fraternities and sororities can forge stronger relationships with members at all stages of their lives. This research will generate an invaluable set of data about our members’ preferences and desires. It allows us to see how alumni perceptions and participation have changed over the last five years and, from this, establish a set of national performance benchmarks for fundraising.

2025 KEY PROJECT DATES

  • Organization recruitment period begins: October 2024
  • Enrollment deadline: December 2024
  • Full database extractions from participating organizations: January-May 2025
  • Survey deployment to alumni/ae and donors of participating organizations: March-June 2025
  • National findings presented at FFE Seminar: August 2025
  • Custom organizational findings reports delivered: September 2025

View the full scope and timeline of the 2025 project.

PROJECT FEES

Organizations donating to the Amplifying Sorority Campaign or Fraternities Matter Campaign at $10,000 or greater will have their participation fee waived.

Organizations who have not met the $10,000 campaign threshold can choose to increase their campaign commitment with an additional one-time gift or through an extension of years in a multi-year pledge. Non-donor organizations must pay the standard participation fee — $5,000 for 2025 — to participate in the project.

Questions? Email FFE Executive Director Ashley VanDewark

HOW TO SIGN UP

To participate, all organizations will need to complete an enrollment agreement with FFE. To get started and secure your organization’s enrollment, email FFE Executive Director Ashley VanDewark.

Enroll today! Cygnus gives survey deployment timeline preference in priority order based on enrollment date.

Thanks to the following organizations for opting in!

List below updated on 12/4/24 at 9:45 am ET.

Alpha Chi Omega Foundation
Alpha Delta Pi Foundation
Alpha Gamma Delta Foundation 
The Educational Foundation of Alpha Gamma Rho
Alpha Omicron Pi Foundation
Alpha Sigma Tau Foundation
Alpha Tau Omega
Beta Theta Pi Foundation
Chi Omega Foundation
The Delta Chi Educational Foundation
Delta Delta Delta Foundation
Delta Gamma Foundation
Delta Sigma Phi Foundation

Delta Tau Delta Educational Foundation
Delta Upsilon Educational Foundation
FarmHouse Foundation
Gamma Phi Beta Foundation
Kappa Alpha Order Educational Foundation
Kappa Alpha Theta Foundation
Kappa Delta Foundation
Kappa Kappa Gamma Foundation
Phi Gamma Delta Educational Foundation
Phi Kappa Psi Foundation
Phi Mu Foundation
Pi Beta Phi Foundation
Pi Kappa Alpha Foundation 
Sigma Alpha Mu Foundation

Sigma Chi Foundation
Sigma Delta Tau Foundation
Sigma Kappa Foundation
Sigma Nu Educational Foundation
Sigma Pi Educational Foundation
Sigma Sigma Sigma Foundation
Tau Epsilon Phi Foundation
Theta Phi Alpha Foundation
Triangle Education Foundation
Zeta Psi Educational Foundation
Zeta Tau Alpha

2025 PROJECT FAQS

We expect that this project will significantly raise our understanding about the motivations, perceptions and intentions of alumni towards their Greek Associations. Collectively, it will help us craft better fundraising appeals, design more effective strategies for alumni/ae engagement, and identify where investment is best placed to increase philanthropic support.

Every fraternity and sorority in the project will receive a series of confidential reports containing the results and findings for their own organization. This includes:

  1. Aggregate data from every survey question asked of their members and, subdivided by meaningful demographic categories
    (e.g. age, giving history, etc.), as well as comparisons to national figures and a “peer group” of fraternities or sororities.
  2. An Observation and Recommendation Report highlighting key findings from their members and accompanied with
    conclusions and strategic guidance from the research.
  3. A Performance Benchmark Report revealing fundraising statistics about their own members’ participation in philanthropy,
    as well as a confidential performance comparison to national figures and their “peer group” of fraternities or sororities.

Participating organizations will also receive invitations to attend future industry events and webinars on implementing the findings from the research.

Yes, you will! We’ve retained the data of those fraternal organizations who participated in 2020 so that we can track how the response of their alumni and donors has changed over the intervening five years. One of the big benefits for returning organizations is that you will be able to see how the opinions and intentions of your alumni have changed over time. So, if your organization has changed its approach to communications, implemented new programs, or even enhanced how it engaged with alumni, we will be able to detect the impact of those efforts in the survey.

In addition, we expect key sections of the survey to be updated to reflect the issues and interests of fraternal organizations today (taking into consideration a post-pandemic world), shifting the research in new directions and providing new insights. To influence the 2025 study, we encourage key stakeholders to complete this survey by November 1, 2024.

It doesn’t matter if your fraternity or sorority was not part of the 2020 study. We would be thrilled for you to participate this time. The only difference for new organizations is that we won’t be able to show changes in their survey results from past iterations (2011, 2015, 2020). Otherwise you will receive exactly the same reports and have the same experience as all other Greek Associations.

The exact question topics will be developed over the coming months with the participation of the Greek Associations in this research, but we expect topics to include:

  • Fundraising case statements and their impact
  • Participants’ attitudes, preferences and philanthropic intentions towards their fraternities and sororities
  • Expectations for communications and content
  • Expectations and desire for donor stewardship and other related donor retention strategies
  • Transitioning alumni to donors
  • Participants’ engagement and volunteerism
  • Participants’ philanthropic capacity, and giving to other organizations
  • Demographic and attitudinal information from alumni

To influence the 2025 study, we encourage key stakeholders to complete this survey by November 1, 2024.

Reports for each individual fraternity or sorority become their own property at the conclusion of the project. They are confidential and will not be shared with other organizations. National aggregate reports will become the property of the Foundation for Fraternal Excellence who will be responsible for sharing this information among its members and donors.

All fraternal foundations are eligible to participate in the research project.

Each participating fraternity or sorority foundation must be willing to share their database records with Cygnus Applied Research so they can administer the survey to your members. Cygnus will provide each organization with detailed instructions on how to gather and upload database records and has an experienced team who can answer almost any question on data transfer. (More information about Cygnus and the security of your data is included in this document.)

We would ideally like to receive the following from each group:

  • The last five years of member/donor database records. This is so we can calculate performance benchmarks as well as determine who should receive the survey.
  • The current email addresses of alumni and donors so we can invite them into the research. Ideally, each fraternity or sorority will have a minimum of 5,000 active emails for its alumni and/or donors. However, the larger the number of emails, the better the outcome.

If your organization has a small number of emails on file, please talk to us, as we can always explore other solutions to get alumni into the survey, such as through your social media pages.

ABOUT THE 2020 PROJECT

The 2020 Foundation for Fraternal Excellence Alumni/ae & Donor Engagement Survey is the largest piece of research ever conducted on behalf of fraternal organizations. It gathered the thoughts and opinions of more than 128,000 alumni in a survey that covered more than 20 different topic areas and measured the fundraising trends from 37 different Greek foundations. After a project kickoff keynote at Seminar 2020, FFE offered a six-part webinar series, hosted by project lead Jeff Dubberley from Cygnus Applied Research, to take participants on an in-depth exploration of the findings and trends.

128,351
Alumni and donor respondents
23
Fraternities
14
Sororities
89%
Aware their fraternity has a fundraising mission

ACCESSING THE 2020 SURVEY DATA

The study data is only available to those groups that joined as participants or invested in a sponsorship. Access is based on participation level. For questions, email FFE Executive Director Ashley VanDewark at ashley.vandewark@foundationfe.org.

  • Can view the recording of the kickoff session at Seminar and the the special FFE-Cygnus 2020 Webinar Series
  • Receive the aggregate national findings report and related materials, including the expanded slides from Seminar
  • Receive custom, organization-specific reports comparing their members to the national findings provided directly from Cygnus. If you have questions about your organization’s individual results, contact Jeff Dubberley.
  • Can view the recording of the kickoff session at Seminar as well as the FFE-Cygnus 2020 Webinar Series
  • Receive the aggregate national findings report and related materials, including the expanded slides from Seminar
  • Can view the recording of the kickoff session at Seminar
Sponsorships are still available for those interested in signing up. For your $1,500 investment, sponsors receive:
  • The full 99-page national data report
  • Recordings of the project kickoff session at Seminar and the six-part webinar series from Fall 2020 that takes a deep dive into the data
To sign on as a sponsor, contact Ashley VanDewark.