TITLE: Department as Fundraiser
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: September 14, 2006  2:06 PM
DESC: An academic department head these days has an extra bullet in her job description: fundraiser.
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BODY:
The first session of our department heads' retreat is on
fundraising.  When I
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-05.html#e2005-05-18T14_36_09.htm">
   became department head</A>
I did not think of fundraising as a part of the head's job.
But in today's funding climate for universities, it is, even
for a small, public university that doesn't have massive
research infrastructure.  As this passage from an
<A HREF="http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2006/05/2006050201c/careers.html">
   article at Chronicle Careers</A> begins,

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
It's not uncommon to hear administrators at public universities
joke that their institutions once were "state supported," then
became "state assisted" and now are merely "state located."

The loss of state support has had a substantial impact on
academic programs, with universities often left scrambling to
fill the gap.  In light of those cutbacks, the role of fund
raising is ever more important to the health and development
of academic programs.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

University foundations do this sort of fundraising, but
increasingly the colleges and departments themselves are
taking active roles in raising the dollars for their programs.
And that makes a lot of sense, because departments and
colleges are much closer to the needs and potential donors
than foundation officers -- and we have the passion about
our programs and needs.

Our foundation has a collegiate development officer for
each college.  This officer focuses on "major gifts",
which here means gifts of at least $15K.  This includes
cash gifts and planned giving.  The CDO's basic plan is
to keep UNI on the radar of potential donors -- even of
current donors who currently give small amounts, because
many of those folks progress to bigger giving.  In fact,
that's where most major gifts come from; it's rare for
someone who hasn't been involved before suddenly deciding
to give a major gift.

What can departments do?  We have two primary target
audiences.  One is corporate.  Those who hire our students
have a stake in our efforts.  They are interested in the
sort of labs and software tools our students use.  They
also want to build name recognition with potential employees.

The second is alumni.  In terms of long-term giving, this
is perhaps the more important focus.  Here, we have some
control over the personal element that underlies a strong
fundraising effort.  We need to keep in touch; let them
know what their old profs are doing, what their old classmates
are doing, and how the facilities and buildings are changing;
and invite their ideas and feedback.  Many alumni still feel
a deep personal connection to one of their professors, or
even to a secretary.  What the department can do best is,
like our CDO, stay on their radar.  And many of our alumni
<EM>want</EM> to be in our radar.

When we approach these audiences, seeking funds for certain
purposes will be more successful, and more effective for
the department, than others.  Scholarships are a relatively
easy sell.  But we need to approach them strategically.
We want breadth of support through the student body, to
be sure that we help lots of different kinds of students,
but we also want depth in certain areas (say, support for
the best students, in order to raise the academic climate
of the student body).

Another dimension of fundraising is the liquidity of the
gift -- cash versus endowment.  Like many universities,
ours has a goal of increasing the number and size of our
endowments.  This is also a goal of mine, with the notion
of having a company endow a laboratory, a computer classroom,
or even a particular software platform.  Rather than chasing
dollars all the time to upgrade the computers in a lab,
wouldn't it be wonderful to have an annuity keeping the
lab fresh?  We'd be able to devote our energies to other,
more important items.

For us, any attempt to garner endowments will be most
effective with corporate donors, at least for a while.  We
are a young department, at a university offering young CS
majors.  We separated as a department from Mathematics in
1992, and the math department began offering CS majors only
in 1981.  Many of our alumni who are old enough to be giving
gifts big enough for endowments identify more with the
Department of Mathematics than with computer science.
Perhaps our most prominent alumnus, the CIO at a major
financial services company, earned his degree in mathematics,
with a "computer science emphasis", before UNI offered a CS
degree.  (Fortunately, he identifies himself as a CS guy!)

In truth, though we need a mix of cash gifts and endowments.
The number of donors capable of making an endowment-sized
gift is relatively small, and endowments grown from smaller
gifts need time to mature.  Furthermore, we need cash today
to do things that need to be done now.

With alumni, this all translates back to relationships.
Pay attention to the details -- for example, don't send
mail o Mr. and Mrs. if one of the spouses has passed away.
Send personal thank-yous to every donor -- even the donor
who gives $5.  Ultimately, don't think of people as potential
donors; think of them as people.  That sounds like trite
marketing-speak, but it is the best way to succeed in
raising funds -- and the best way to succeed in most
other respects as well.
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