Author: Eric Jacobs

After a year of evaluation, planning and searching, the DP Board of Directors in December hired the organization’s first-ever Director of Development to shepherd and drive the organization’s expanded fundraising efforts. DP Alumni: meet Steven Molberger, who you’ll be hearing from regularly in our alumni communications going forward.

Steven most recently worked for YSC Academy, a private school in the Philadelphia suburbs for budding soccer stars, where he raised more than $3 million over 18 months as the school’s inaugural development director. He previously worked for UJA-Federation of New York, as Director of Development for American Field Service’s US organization, and as Director of Annual Giving for Hofstra University. 

Following a decade-long decline in advertising revenue that mirrors the newspaper industry overall, the DP Board has positioned fundraising as a second pillar of revenue needed to support the DP’s operations in future decades. The decision to hire a full-time development professional was one of the key recommendations which emerged from a six-month study by a nationally renowned consulting firm last year.

“I’m excited to have Steven join our team,” said DP General Manager Eric Jacobs. “After working together for just a few weeks, he’s been immersed in the history, culture, and impact the DP has on both the Penn community and the alumni who have worked here, and I think he’ll do a great job in working improving and expanding our outreach to DP alumni.”

Molberger is similarly enthusiastic about the future. “There seem to be so many opportunities for alumni engagement in the things the DP is doing,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to talking to DP alumni about their DP experiences, and how we can better engage alumni in advancing the DP’s mission.”

Many DP alumni will be hearing from Molberger directly in the weeks and months ahead, but if you want to share with him the meaning the DP has had in your life, or any thoughts or ideas you have, you can reach out to him at molberger@theDP.com or call 215-422-4645.

As we have done each December for many years, the DPAA Board of Directors has published an Annual Report on the activities of the Alumni Association in 2019. The report was sent via postal mail to all DP alumni who have mailing addresses on file with the DP; a PDF version of the report is available by clicking here.

The DPAA regularly posts news about our alumni on the DPAA Facebook page DPAA Facebook page and emails news about the DP and DPAA several times each year. But in an effort to not lose touch with alumni who may not regularly follow the DPAA online, as well as to have a place each year to recognize and thank the alumni who have contributed to the DP and DPAA, we send this report, along with our annual membership appeal, at the end of each year.

2019 was an active year for the DPAA. The signature event was our second-ever alumni reunion on campus this past October, with nearly 250 alumni, guests and students in attendance. We also launched a new DP Alumni Hall of Fame, inducted an inaugural class of honorees, and presented the first-ever DP Young Alumni Award. We announced that longtime DP General Manager Eric Jacobs will be retiring in 2020, that the DP will hire a first-ever full-time Director of Development to elevate our fundraising efforts, and the formation of a student/alumni committee to define job descriptions and conduct searches for both positions. We selected Amy Gardner to replace Marty Siegel as President of the DPAA. And there’s more! Please click the link to read the PDF report if you didn’t receive it in the mail at the end of the year.

If you are a DP alum who did not receive the mailing, please email the DPAA with your current address, or simply click the “Join the DPAA” button on the right side of this website to enter your contact information to update what we have on file.

Feedback on the Annual Report, including suggestions for future editions or other communications you’d like to see from us, is welcome — just email dpaa@theDP.com.

 

A video first created in 2011, and updated several times since, offers a quick history of The Daily Pennsylvanian. Created for training new student leaders, after it was shown at the DP’s 135th Anniversary reunion, there were requested to be able to view it online. So now, you can.

The video was created by DP General Manager Eric Jacobs with help from Director of Sales & Marketing Katherine Ross. At the start of 2011, Executive Editor Lauren Plotnick said she wanted to start four days of training for new editors and managers with a session on the history of the DP — something that would make them better appreciate the magnitude of running the then 127 year-old organization.

Jacobs says the idea blossomed in his mind immediately: a video slideshow which would trace the paper’s long history, interspersed with alumni memories to inspire the staff. “Standing in front of the group to talk through the DP’s history would be dry, but I pictured a movie with historic photos, front pages, quotes from alumni which make you laugh and which make you cry, and dramatic music to heighten the emotional connection.”

Some of the content was pulled from research done to create a book about the DP’s history which was produced for the DP’s 125th anniversary in 2009. But there were only two hectic days to work on it, and the tools were a bit crude and labor-intensive, Jacobs recalls. It was well after midnight when the last slide was put in place — and there was no soundtrack.

“I picked out some bombastic action movie soundtracks I had on my computer, and figured we’d later go back and create some more contemporary soundtrack,” Jacobs says, “but the dramatic music proved timeless and added the drama I wanted, and so it stuck; I never went back and changed it.”

It took two hours for a computer to render the slideshow into a 15-minute movie, and Jacobs recalls driving home for a few hours of sleep with a laptop computer on his front seat doing the rendering for the first training session a few hours later.

Jacobs has updated the movie several times since its premiere to encompass the most recent moments of DP history, and he jokes that his last revision of the movie will likely come when he adds a slide about his own retirement in 2020.

The DP Board of Directors has set in motion two job searches which will reshape the organization’s small professional staff.

As we announced this past summer, longtime General Manager Eric Jacobs will be retiring next summer after 40 years working for the DP (plus 4 years as student), so the search has begun to find and hire the paper’s second-ever General Manager.

The DP has also launched a search for a Director of Development, to shepherd and drive the organization’s expanded fundraising efforts. Following a decade-long decline in advertising revenue that mirrors the newspaper industry, the DP Board has positioned fundraising as a second pillar of revenue needed to support the DP’s operations in future decades. The decision to hire a full-time development professional was one of the key recommendations which emerged from a six-month study by a nationally renowned consulting firm earlier this year.

The DP Board earlier this fall created a search committee of alumni and students to draft job descriptions and conduct the job searches. The three alumni members of the search committee are Board Lead Alumni Director Chuck Cohen ’89, incoming DPAA President Amy Gardner ’90, and Peter Canellos ’84, as well as Jacobs. The remaining members of the committee are the DP’s top three student leaders: President Julia Schorr, Executive Editor Sarah Fortinsky and Business Manager Remi Golden.

Here’s where you come in. The search committee is asking the DP alumni community for help in finding candidates for these two positions. If you know anyone who might be interested (or you yourself might be interested) in either the development or General Manager role, please check out or pass on these links which describe the Director of Development position and the General Manager position. The job descriptions include instructions on how to apply.