I was not a great student in high school, so when I went to college, I didn’t take school seriously and eventually flunked out. I found myself in the office of a transfer counselor at St. Petersburg Junior College in Florida — and she changed my life. She helped me get tutoring, scholarships, and academic support services and met with me every Friday to ensure I stayed on track. She held my hand, kicked my butt, and patted me on the back — but she made sure I stuck through school. I eventually transferred to the University of South Florida but my start and passion for Community Colleges began at St. Pete JC.
Today, I have the opportunity to work with Community Colleges across the country to raise funds so today’s students have the same financial and academic support and help that were there for me. I take great personal and professional pride in helping Community College’s keep the door to a college degree open for anyone who wants it.
Joe has more than 30 years of experience in community college resource development programs as a staff member and consultant. His professional expertise includes major gift campaigns, planned giving, and strategic planning for foundation boards and advancement teams. As a consultant, Joe has led more than 55 feasibility studies, development assessments, foundation strategic plans, community summits, industry forums, and alumni strategic planning efforts. Since 2012, he served as a partner and executive vice president for two consulting companies where he was the lead consultant on over 30 projects, including 13 major gift campaigns, all of which exceeded their funding goals.
As a former Region I Director for the Council for Resource Development (CRD), he has chaired three of the organization’s national conferences. In addition to CRD, Joe is actively involved in the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), where he regularly speaks at their regional and national conferences.
Prior to becoming a full-time consultant, Joe served as the Chief Advancement Office at the following institutions: Holyoke Community College, MA; MassBay Community College; and the Community College of Rhode Island. This wealth of experience makes Joe an invaluable resource to our community college clients.
Personally solicited and closed over $40 million in major and planned gifts as a staff member of various college advancement teams.
Practical, hands-on experience leading numerous institutions from campaign into a diversified, comprehensive, and sustainable development program.
Possesses a strong record of creating mission-focused staff and volunteer teams, including recruiting a completely new Foundation Board and Alumni Council at MassBay Community College.
Led six comprehensive major gift / capital campaigns, which collectively secured over $55 million, exceeding goal in each.
Campaign consultant on over 30 major gift / capital campaigns which raised a total of over $265 million.
Frequent conference speaker, including keynoting the 2015 AFP Iowa State-Wide Conference where he presented on generational giving trends.
Joe April is a consummate professional who always has the best interests of the client at the forefront of his work. I’ve been around for a while and I know the cookie cutter approach when I see it. Joe doesn’t work that way. He quickly assessed our situation and provided unique solutions to the issues we faced based on research and his own vast experience. He is the expert when it comes to fundraising and practical leadership issues for community colleges.
In a short period of time, Joe helped us assess the state of our development program and board involvement and effectiveness, as well as community support. His expertise and knowledge of best practices in the community college world is outstanding. Joe took my board from a one-dimensional mission to a broad and compelling vision and mission, encompassing the college as a whole, effectively setting our Foundation up to succeed now and into the future.
Working with Joe April to prepare my college for its first comprehensive capital campaign has been a joy. His wealth of advancement and community college experience, as well as his strong leadership and fundraising skills, have greatly benefitted our institution and me, personally.
Mobility has the power to give consumers exactly what they want, in a single moment. I believe that mobility cannot be viewed as a product any longer. Instead, mobility should be viewed as a living, breathing culture of its own. Your business should implement a mobile-first digital transformation strategy. Let’s take a look at exactly what that means and how you can develop it quickly in your organization.
What does it mean to be mobile-first? It’s become a bit of a buzzword recently, but are you sure you’re certain of the definition? A few years ago, it was decided that websites should be responsive, created to work seamlessly with mobile devices. However, we have come so far in a few short years that responsiveness is not enough.
It is a fact that 90 percent of millennials state their cell phone never leaves their side and out of the seven billion people on this planet, six billion of them have mobile phones. Businesses can now operate solely on mobile devices with new technologies making connection and collaboration possible. A whopping 62 percent of smartphone users have made a purchase online using their mobile device in the last six months. All of these stats and facts add up to say one thing: mobile matters.
To be mobile-first, businesses must begin their digital transformation focused on creating a user experience that is just as effective on mobile devices. The idea is this: if we can create a user experience that converts using a mobile device, the rest of the devices will follow.
Mobile isn’t just another silo or channel. Instead, it is an all-encompassing catalyst for applications, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and other future innovations. Mobility can be used to remove other silos within your business, bringing an end to self-limiting technology and behavior that your digital transformation should bring to an end.
Beyond driving your digital transformation to success, being mobile-first has many other benefits, probably too many to name.
Your Business. Anywhere. Desktops don’t travel (unless you’re the guy that sets up an entire computer in Starbucks, but that’s another story). Mobile devices such as cell phones, tablets, and watches are used for shopping, surfing the internet and social media while on the go. A business that is mobile-first has built a culture of providing the best experience possible on these devices while being virtually anywhere in the world at any time.
Being Ahead of the Game. Did you know that some millennials are not only embracing the mobile-first culture but a culture of mobile-only? Do you have a computer still or do you work and live completely from a phone and a tablet? What about your kids? My son has a toy laptop and I bet by the time he needs an actual computer, we will just get him a tablet. If we put all of our focus on desktop and traditional platform methods, our businesses will soon be non-competitive with the rest. Will you be able to give your customers the experience they crave if you were mobile-only? Think about it.
Easier Communication. Mobility creates easier communication for all parties, employees and customers alike. Being able to quickly find a chatbot using your cell phone is a lot faster than calling a hotline and waiting to be connected. Video conferencing while on the go makes work-life balance easier for remote employees. The list of communication enhancements is endless.
Relationship Building. Mobile devices are used for relationships. Whether it be through social media or a chat application, conversations and connections happen through mobile. Your business should be building relationships with consumers by speaking their language.
Are you ready to jump in? Becoming mobile-first and fostering that culture within your business has a lot to do with mindset and a little to do with planning. There are two goals that businesses must achieve for mobile-first status: they have evolved beyond simple mobile development to adopt a mobile-focused culture across all or most organizational efforts and they can accurately measure their mobile spend and the cost to acquire and retain mobile users.
How do we get there? We must step out of the silo. We should stop focusing on individual mobile goals such as optimizing your website for responsiveness and start focusing on setting a foundation for customer experience. We should also assess our mobile maturity. Are your business processes in line with a mobile strategy? If not, it is time to make some changes first, before investing in anything else.
A mobile-first digital transformation strategy should have less to do with phones and tablets and more to do with culture. Our world around us is changing its view on work, leisure, and communication. Being mobile-first means embracing all the freedom that technology can give us and sharing that freedom with our consumers.