Survey Results (5/24/20)


              When Mr. Biggar, Ella, and I were establishing our project, we discussed the importance of obtaining firsthand information and statistics from students and alumni. Ella and I had a preconceived notion and assumption that there was disconnect between students and their understanding of philanthropy at Hawken. We were not sure why exactly the students did not seem service minded and philanthropy oriented. We believed that education, lack of meaningful experience, and lack of philanthropic culture were all possible reasons for decreased giving from young alumni. We believe that there is a link between current student attitude and future alumni giving. Early in February, Ella and I created survey questions for both students and alumni. For the alumni, we wanted to understand specifically what things they did and did not like about the school. (Especially what they disliked.) If we understood what people did not like about the school and it was consistent, then we could try to find solutions to aid the school. Unfortunately due to COVID-19, we had to send our survey out later than we planned to. Once we sent the email out, we got over 300 combined survey results within the first few days. We were extremely happy with the turnout of respondents. Ella and I briefly went through the surveys and we found that the current students at Hawken have a misconception that the school has unlimited funds. We think that we can solve this problem by creating a Hawken Philanthropy week similar to what Western Reserve Academy currently does. We also learned that a surprising amount of alumni had a wide range of opinions and beliefs about Hawken and philanthropy (mostly positive). For the alumni, we created surveys for different age groups and crafted each survey to them specifically. This was highly effective and we were able to get a lot more information that is definitive from alumni of all ages.

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