Creating A Culture of Philanthropy

In the next few blogs I will offer specific ways in which colleges and universities can create and deepen a culture of philanthropy, to include culture of “accountable gratitude” that will sustain it over many years.

The seeds of true philanthropy should be planted at freshman convocation. All too often, colleges and universities merely exhort their new charges to give by stressing the critical importance of private support to the life of the institution. But creating the rationale for fund raising is not the same as creating a culture of philanthropy. The latter could be achieved if the president were to say,

“Today, we formally induct you into this institution. In so doing, we provide you a wealth of life-changing and life-deepening opportunities. The more effort and open-mindedness you bring to the task, the more this remarkably rich culture will yield, though the full value of it all may take decades to realize. We also pass along a gift of immense, immeasurable value, one that previous generations have passed on to us. Each generation of students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends has enhanced its value. In the dedication to their duties and to the place itself, each has added depth and dimension.

Many have given of their time, talent and treasure. The impact of their generosity is all around you, in the quality and capabilities of the faculty, in the range and depth of curricular and extra-curricular programs, in the beauty of the campus, the elegance of the architecture, the functionality of facilities, and in a thousand other ways that are less perceptible but nonetheless most certainly redound to our repute and ennoble our ethos.

Today, the generations of (institution’s name) bequeath this gift to you, the Class of (graduation year). In philanthropic support alone, we estimate the sum total of their support to be a stunning (amount). Today, we ask only that you enjoy that gift, and make the most of it, in every way possible, while you are here. But when you leave and start to benefit from what you have been given here, we ask that you begin to think about doing for the next generation what the previous one did for you. The farther you go down that road and the more you achieve, the more we hope you will reflect on the gift that was presented to you today, and ask yourself in what state your generation will leave it. To date, each generation has left a greater gift that the one it has received. We hope and trust your generation will do the same. In presenting this great gift of generations past to you, we remind, therefore, you that the future greatness of this institution is now in your hands. “

I hope you see how the framing of an inter-generational compact is far more effective in creating the long-term conditions for philanthropy that the mere exhortation to give. In my next post, I’ll offer another example of how we can continue to inspire and foster true philanthropy.

The Kind of Campaign We Need

The kind of campaign more institutions should be running is much different from the campaigns we have been running for many years. This new campaign would:

-not be framed or announced in terms of dollar goals but mission goals;

-have evolved those goals from soul-searching, participative discussions with current and prospective donors who shared the institution’s core values;

-not speak to how the institution would benefit but how the funds secured would benefit those the institution serves;

-have created means and mechanisms, including the creative and selective use of volunteers, to ensure those services were delivered cost-efficiently;

-make clear it would persist in the pursuit of those service goals over time because this would not be about getting a certain amount of money within a certain amount of time but about fulfilling a mission no matter what;

-demonstrate where cuts had been made or how costs had been contained to ensure clarity of mission and reassure donors that their contributions would add strategic value and advance core purposes;

-be nested in a 10-year plan to demonstrate a commitment to continuity of purpose; and

-seek to achieve the highest degree of participation from its external and internal stakeholders to ensure that the mission was widely understood and deeply held.

When times were good and lots of folks had growing financial reserves, you could get away with a “comprehensive campaign,” which was all-too-often a roll-up of internally generated wish lists. Now the times call for something more purpose-driven and service-oriented. Even in difficult or uncertain times, many people will give generously if a philanthropy-seeking organization shows them precisely where and how they can make a significant and lasting difference.

Philanthropy as a Value Proposition

Philanthropy is about a value proposition. Yes, donors “give,” rather than “buy” but they still assign a relative value to the causes and institutions they support. In short, they give more to some and less to others. So how do they make those calculations and what can we learn from them?

Donors give the most to organizations whose mission best corresponds to their own value systems and/or those with whom they enjoy the closest and deepest emotional connections. The two are inter-related in that donors grow closer to causes that share and advance their values, and become more aligned with an institution’s values if it nurtures deeper emotional ties with them.

Yet many philanthropy-seeking institutions diminish their perceived philanthropic value by:

1. Speaking to the functions they perform rather than the values that underpin them. West Point, for instance, does more than prepare officers; it asks them to live by a lifelong code of “Duty, Honor, Country.” The articulation of that code taps into something far deeper, and therefore creates a more powerful connection .
2. Failing to show donors how gifts advance institutional values. Even when institutions espouse deeper values, they don’t always link them to their fund-raising initiatives. A university may say it is committed to admitting students on scholastic merit, then finding a way of meeting their financial needs, for instance, but they must show donors how each new gift is creating a new opportunity for another worthy striver. Too many prospects are subjected to too many requests to give to a worthy cause without being shown the growing human impact of their giving. If they are asked to give more merely to maintain the status quo, the philanthropic value of that organization will decline in their estimation.
3. Soliciting before eliciting the value systems of those that might support them and, therefore, failing to understand and align with them.
4. Forgetting to reinforce donors’ values systems or deepen emotional connection in their gift recognition, donor relations and stewardship functions. Value systems can sometimes be most effectively reinforced through the use of symbol and ritual in various events but very few organizations think in these terms. Imagine if “grateful patients” who had given generous gifts were invited back to the medical center where they had been treated each year for a “State of Care” address, either about all the center is doing to in general to provide more sophisticated and human care, or about a particular “center of excellence” such as cardiovascular or cancer care. Imagine further if that medical center arranged for their grateful patients to have their cars valet parked and be greeted by a member of the staff who personally ushered them to the auditorium where the address was to take place. Imagine further if at the front of the auditorium there was a receiving line of staff, nurses and docs celebrating their arrival and, symbolically, their survival. Imagine further still if they were then led to VIP seating in the front of the auditorium and recognized at the outset of the address by the most prominent personage at the center who said, “We want to start this ceremony by celebrating not what we have done or are doing but what you have achieved. We want to not only share with you what we have learned and what we hope to accomplish but to ask that you share with us so that we may learn from your inspiring example. “ And, finally, imagine if they left with some simple pin or certificate that somehow signified that they were the heroes of the hospital’s medical staff. This reversing of the spotlight, away from us and on to them, of celebrating the survivor through the imaginative use of ritual, is exactly what has allowed the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to enjoy such significant fund-raising success.

When philanthropy-seeking organizations listen to and align with the values of those that might support them, they create communities of purpose. When they work with their potential supporters to carefully define the larger possibilities of those shared purposes, they create the foundation for productive philanthropy. When the stop expecting their supporters to laud their accomplishments and begin bestowing recognition of the achievements of those who have and might support them, they begin the process of building reciprocal relationships, of giving and receiving. As they do, their perceived philanthropic value grows and their connection to their supporters, and their supporters' affinity for them, deepens.

Volunteer Spirit Versus Volunteer Slots

I continue to maintain that organizations that take best advantage of America’s untapped volunteer potential will generate and sustain the most philanthropic support in the second decade of the 21^st Century.

We know from research conducted by Fidelity Gift Fund and Volunteer Match that:

Seventy-two percent of Americans have volunteered at some point in their lives;

Seven in ten say that supporting a cause they care about is their major reason for volunteering;

The more years of formal education one has, the more likely one is to volunteer;

Active volunteers are “more likely” to increase their contributions;

Sixty-three percent cite a “renewed sense of the value and importance of community service within their network of friends and family.

Eighty-four percent say they expect nothing in return for the volunteer work;

Sixty-six percent believe “true philanthropy” includes the giving of both time and money, and

Volunteers’ charitable contributions are ten times that of non-volunteers.

So, why aren’t all philanthropy-seeking organizations tripping all over themselves to involve and engage these well-educated, civic-minded, altruistic volunteers? The major reason is that they are locked into three false and related assumptions.

The first false assumption is that boards are the best way to cultivate donors. Too often a board is created for the sole purpose of cultivation. Soon the lack of real work wears on both the volunteers and the staff that has to make up something for them to do. Both come to think of volunteer boards as superfluous or counter productive. The key is to give volunteers real work and to recruit for the purpose of bringing their specific skills to bear on an important issue, problem or opportunity. Give your volunteers specific assignments and tasks. Put them on task forces and blue ribbon panels. Give them finite work to do within a finite time, work that matches the time they think they can commit and the talents they would like to bring to bear, and watch what happens.

The second reason that most organizations fail to take advantage of the vast volunteer potential out there is that oxymoronic function we call risk management. Too often risk management involves grossly overstating the risk to avoid managing it all together. There is no more risk in incorporating volunteers in an organization that there is managing any group of intelligent, committed, conscientious people – which is next to nil.

The third false assumption is that the mere act of putting people on boards will cause them to become philanthropic. And that assumption has led many an organization and many an advancement professional to labor endlessly, and to lecture repeatedly on the philanthropic obligations of board members, with little or no effect. You must award your precious board slots, spend all your care and feeding on those already possessed of a true volunteer spirit, those who believe they have a debt to society, or an obligation to give back. When you put true volunteers into interesting volunteer slots, your investment of time will be rewarded many times over. Remember, even if you find those who have served on other boards or given to other organizations, it does not mean they are true volunteers. Be alert to pseudo-volunteers who may have given only a tiny percentage of their wealth or given for self-serving reasons. Don’t look for just wealth, or even evidence of giving elsewhere; look for those with strong value systems who have a record of acting on them.

Remember, time, talent and treasure is not just a nice alliteration; it’s a sequential strategy. When we find people of substance and offer a way to make good use of their time and their specific talents, they will give generously of their treasure over time. We just have to take the time to find the right people and find a way from them to make a real difference. The rest will take care of itself.

On Earning Support

One of the most productive prospect calls I ever made was also one of the shortest.

I met the prospect, who had achieved distinction in Washington and on Wall Street, in New York after struggling long and hard to get the appointment. He came into the small conference room where I had been waiting and said, “I have very little time. What is it that you would like to accomplish?”

“I would like to learn how to earn your support,” I said.

“Do you mean you’d like to figure out how to get me to give a big gift?” he parried.

“That would be ideal,” I said.

“Well, if I were to give a gift, I’d have to spend time with your president,” he said. “And the only way I could do that is if he came to New York two or three times a year and met with me and two or three other successful CEOs – very significant and substantive people that I would benefit from being with – and engaged us in a very frank discussion about what he is struggling with and hoping to achieve. If he laid it all out for us – I mean warts and all – and gave us an opportunity to offer candid advice and tackle the toughest issues, I’d be far more inclined to give a big gift because I’d have a far better sense of where and how I could make a difference,” he said. “Absent that, I’ll might write a nice check every now and then but it won’t be that big.”

And with that challenge, we parted after a handshake. The meeting was most productive because the prospect, knowing why I was there, had given serious thought to what might induce him to give most generously, and succinctly stated his terms. The ball was then in our president’s court.

Yet, I cite this experience because of its larger lessons. The first speaks to the importance of candor in building trust. We live amid a crises of public confidence, one in which a majority of Americans express a lack of trust in the majority of institutions. Only by being more candid can we convince our constituents of our determination to be more accountable. Engaging in purely promotional public relations and one-sided self-congratulatory communications will have the opposite effect. Intelligent, discerning constituents respond most favorably to responsive institutions.

The second is that we must give what we hope to get back. We must value the experience and ideas of those we hope will make valuable contributions to us. Presidents who genuinely seek out the help of others by sharing their greatest struggles and deepest hopes attract those who genuinely want to help. And, like the aforementioned prospect, substantive people want to help with their time and talent, not just their treasure. And the great irony is this: the more we engage in overt and painfully obvious treasure hunting, rather than talent seeking and problem solving, the more we fall short of our long-term philanthropic potential.

The third is that philanthropic support is not what we hope others will give but what we strive to earn. When we make that clear, and put the proposition directly to our potential donors, we will get very straightforward answers. The ball of philanthropic obligation, which we often serve up to so many prospects, will then be in our court.

Depth of Impact

There is no shortage of hard-working professionals in the field of advancement. They hold themselves to high standards and seek to do more each year with same, or even fewer resources. Those are very laudable traits but increasing the volume of activity does not always achieve a greater depth of impact.

To make my point let’s look at events, which, for many advancement operations, consume the largest portion of staff hours expended each year and the largest chunk of the operating budget. That means events, if improperly conceived and executed, could be the single greatest drain on our human and financial resources and the largest barrier to greater productivity. To ensure that is not the case, I recommend the following steps:

Zero-base your calendar. Over the summer, or whenever you can find the time, look at your entire calendar of events. If you are like most institutions you will find they have accreted over time with little strategic rhyme or reason and are being perpetuated in the name of tradition or through insidious, unchallenged inertia. To determine which events should be discontinued, ask if they deliver a message to an important constituency, or deepen their understanding of your institution, or move them to a more specific commitment to it. For instance, you may have a number of fun events, such as alumni evenings at a professional athletic events that are generally well-attended but don’t really deliver, deepen or move anything or anyone. That is often borne out when you look at the volunteer or giving record of those who have attended those events over the past few years. On the other hand, your scholarship dinner may not have been as well-attended but, when you check the records, has proven to deepen the connections and commitments of those in regular attendance. It’s not how many attend it what they do afterward.

Storyboard your events. It’s a technique used in filmmaking where by the creators sketch out each scene and lay them side by side to ensure that one flows to the next and that each advances the plot. What’s the plot of your year-long calendar of events? What institutional story do they tell? Who do they engage? Does each event advance the plot, deepened the story line, and move the audience from engagement to engrossment to whole-hearted captivation? Does your institution have a dramatic story to tell and is each event move the audience through that story, chapter by chapter?

Personalize your events. Do you use one invitation for everyone or do you segment the intended audience by affinities so that you can invite each group in such a way to make each feel as if there is a special reason for being there? For instance, if you want to make a reunion more successful, you could invite couples who met and, perhaps, married on campus to come back for a marriage vow renewal service. Or generations of the same choral group back for sing-along or performance. Or intergeneration intramurals (the Boomers vs. the Gen-Xers). Or former members of the student newspaper to engage in a discussion about the state of journalism in the virtual world. You get my point. The more targeted the invitation, the more each invitee feels a reason for, a tug to, come back and the higher your attendance will be. In the case of smaller events, like a salon event for 20 VIPs to preview of a new initiative, call or visit each person beforehand to help them understand the relevance of the event of the importance of their being there. Show them how the event will not be same without them. A week in advance, call and ask if they would share some ice-breaker information – their favorite quote, their proudest accomplishment, what gives them the greatest hope and the greatest pause. This will remind them of the event and show that there is an interest in them as individuals. Share the icebreaker information with your senior officers so they can use them as conversation starters as they circulate among guests.

Deepen every event by employing the power of ritual. Have an official welcoming ritual for an alumni reunion – ask them to gather outside the front gates to campus at an appointed hour and ceremonially reopen them with the alma mater playing. Have the president there to welcome them as they come through. Then take them to first event and have them walk through a receiving line of the long-serving faculty. In these subtle but thoughtful ways you can show them the importance you place on their presence. Ritual has a powerful effect in underscoring the importance of an activity and making the participants feel valued.

It’s not about doing more; it’s about having a greater impact with what you do. It doesn’t have to take more time or money; in fact it could even take less.

Building A Prospect Pool

By my count, there are 7 basic ways of building a prospect pool:

• Deliver a high practical and emotional return to students or other key constituents and investors, including faculty and staff, engendering their gratitude and admiration, and causing them to want to remain attached to and interactive with the institution as a primary objective in their lives;

• Deliver measurable value to, and create strategic alliances with private and public sector entities;

• Recruit and re-engage alumni (or other key constituents) by aligning their personal or professional interests with existing programs or by creating new ones;

• Attract those with no current or previous connections through a set of inspiring actions, initiatives or decisions, or by living out great values;

• Align with causes and movements that have well-developed philanthropic communities associated with them;

• Stage compelling events that draw people in and, by virtue of the impression made, induce them to want to support the institution; and/or

• Deploy development officers to seek them out and cultivate them one at a time as donors.

In my experience, most institutions rely far more on the last two more than the first five, and, by paying too little attention to the first five, have rendered the last two less effective. Forgive me for making the point again but I am on a mission: volunteers give ten times more money than non-volunteer donors over time. It is in the enlightened self-interest of any philanthropy-seeking organization, therefore, to create a broad, rich, layered set of volunteer engagement opportunities. Those who engaged in this task with the most administrative openness, strategic foresight, and creativity will realize remarkable philanthropic gains over time.