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Some people approach chairing a class reunion as if they were throwing a party. They buy balloons and wait for people to arrive.
Leslie Morgan ’83 is not one of them. She’s been a fundraiser, Republican Party and “fixer” of small companies for the past 20 years. Now, as managing partner of TS Morgan Associates, she co-owns and manages a Holiday Inn franchise in Wilmington, Del.
And she tackled the Class of ’83’s reunion like any other marketing problem—with a plan.
“I told them I wouldn’t do it without a group,” said Morgan who began meeting with fellow alums Tim Lucas and Ellen Porilles Wiler at the Wayne, PA, Starbucks in 1982. “A successful reunion is like a Tupperware party. It’s a pyramid thing and you get there by cutting demographics.”
In this context, that meant reaching out to alums via their most-powerful links with the college, i.e., their fraternity, sorority, athletic and academic connections. In each of those niches, Morgan and Lucas found people who agreed to help. Bingo: A 30-person reunion team.
“Of course, we had to stay on ‘em,” she said, “but . . . that’s what I do.”
Morgan’s career as an organizer goes back to her first days out of college when she raised money for underprivileged children by putting together parties in the Hamptons on eastern Long Island. She’s since raised money for political candidates and sold bonds on Wall Street before launching her own company.
Morgan’s goal for the Class of ’83 reunion was to raise $50,000. Instead, the Class of ’83 raised $125,000. Morgan, however, was disappointed that “only” 44 percent of the class showed up—a 25 percent increase over the 35 percent turnout in 1998. Her goal had been a 50 percent increase.
“I think that’s one thing I got from Lafayette,” she said. “We were a Type-A bunch of street fighters whose goal was to go out and eat life. We hated to fail.”