Washington, D.C.
October 14-16, 1998

Confronting the Challenges of the Digital Era

The Underpinning Principles of Fundraising
Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., President
University of Maryland

Introduction

Fundraising skill is among the core responsibilities of a library director. Indeed, superior skills in this area can launch an administrators career. Fundraising is a subtle skill and one that many do not learn about completely until faced with this responsibility directly. In an academic setting, the relationship among university administrators, deans, and development officers internal to the library is key. Some fundamental principles of fundraising are described by Dr. Mote that have proven successful over time in an academic environment. These key principles begin by setting an appropriate framework for the relationships involved, then move into developing a strategic plan for nurturing relationships with donors. Dr. Mote’s thoughts encompass the process before it reaches the “how-to” stage, providing a perspective development and clarification piece essential to the preparation of a successful fundraising campaign.

The Groundwork

In the beginning of any fundraising campaign, subtle decisions are made that set the course— determine the potential success or failure— the whole effort. Certain questions must be answered before those decisions can be made effectively:

• Are you on a long or a short time scale?
  
• Are you thinking in terms of a lifetime relationship or in terms of one project, i.e., are you approaching this as a project or as a culture?
  
• Who are your prospects? Corporations and foundations or individuals?
  
• What is your goal?
  

These are all fundamental questions and need to be thought through very carefully. But the most important question is the last one: What is your goal, or, in other words, what are you trying to do? The primary goal of a campaign must be absolutely clear. And, although it seems contradictory, your primary goal should not be to raise money. It should be to build the relationship with your support base and friends. This is the most important part of your fundraising program, and the critical answer to the question of what you are really trying to do. No one else can ask or answer this question except you.

For example, if you decide to hire a consultant, you should realize that consultants usually take a short-term view. Because consultants are expensive, the pressure is on them to produce gifts. This results in too much concentration on process, creating what I call a “rape-and-pillage” mentality in your fundraising program: go in, get the money, go on to the next one. And that is the death knell for any long-standing fundraising program of the type you should have. Major universities and major libraries need lifetime, multi-generational friendships between themselves and their donors. And consultants, unfortunately, can lead us in all the wrong directions.

Understand Your Dollar Goals

Capital campaign dollar goals are gravely misunderstood. People think very often that the goals have something to do with how much money is needed, which is generally incorrect. There is no possibility you will raise what you really need. There is no fund from which to get money. There is only vision. There is only opportunity. So, what is the dollar goal? The goal is how much money you can raise, not how much money you need, and it is vital that you understand the distinction between these. Every institution has a philanthropic dynamic, a certain rhythm, and a certain support base, which will produce a certain amount of money. Every campaign should have a quiet phase? months to two years— you will get a sense of how much money you can raise. During this time, you see how much impact your messages have, how many resources your donors have at this time, and how much they are willing to give to you. After this quiet period, you will be able to project fairly accurately how much money you can raise over the campaign period, which lasts typically between four and seven years. That projection is your campaign’s dollar goal.

If you don’t make your dollar goal, it is, of course, a disaster. But I am just as unimpressed by campaigns that make their goals two years early. That reflects bad management and an incorrect projection of capacity. If you set your goal based on capacity, and time it accurately, you should make your campaign goal approximately four to six months before the end of the campaign. Even a year before is too early, because momentum is quickly lost. People will work on goals as long as they are out there, because it is human nature to respond to deadlines.

What this Means for Libraries

You may think that the library suffers from not having any graduates and therefore no alumni. Another way of looking at it is that you have all the graduates, and they are all your alumni. This does not seem to be a common view. For example, I have observed that the library does not consider its former student-employees as alumni, which is a big mistake. Some of your very best prospects are the students who have worked in the library. They understand the library. They have a good feeling for it and, in fact, many had more connection to the library than they had to their departments.

You have to build human connection to the library. In fact, the big problem with electronic libraries— multi-media in general— a lack of human connection. Remember that there is always an agenda of possible great things to support at a university. Many of them are part of a potential donor’s direct experience, such as scholarships. When you come forward with cutting-edge initiatives— example, electronic libraries— are competing against a list of things for which donors already have personal feelings. That is the reason new and unfamiliar initiatives, despite their obvious and accepted importance, almost never rise to the top of donor preferences.

If it is difficult to raise support for very modern directions from general donor populations because they don’t understand these kinds of projects and have no personal connection to them, what is the alternative? It is to raise unrestricted funds for library directors, university presidents, and others. To do this requires developing the argument that you are trustworthy and know what is really needed for the library. The donors then give to you and to the library rather than to a project that seems impersonal and is unfamiliar. This is the most effective way I can think of for going in new directions. And unrestricted funds are not only useful for supporting the library but also for recognizing donors.

Important Issues

Let me go over some of the issues that are important for you to think about as you build your fundraising program.

Build Relationships

The first one is relationships: authentic, lasting, multi-generational relationships tied to the substance of what you are trying to do. This is a mandatory issue for libraries and, in fact, for every other part of university fundraising. To build relationships, you must have physical contact with your potential donors. They must come to your library. They must touch the walls, touch the people, touch the books, touch the computers. This contact is critical to building relationships, and no number of letters, brochures, phone calls, or videotapes will replace it.

You know that people want to feel good. Therefore, never surprise someone with a written proposal. You will never build a good relationship by flopping a proposal in front of somebody who is not prepared for it. That is not the way friends treat each other. Put your maximum effort into building the relationship with the library’s friends.

Plan Strategically

Strategic planning is absolutely essential. You need to know where you are going. For each of your top individual prospects you should have a written, multi-year plan that is constantly being revised as you get to know the prospect better, and as circumstances change. You need to identify your group of top donors: know their friends, their colleagues, and their foundations. They will warm up to you over time; but, once again, this is a long-term, multi-generational, relationship-building process. Your development officer’s job is not to raise money. It is to construct these strategic plans, establish the relationships, and manage the interplay that will take place between the librarians, the volunteers, the president of the university, and the donors that will lead to closing the deal.

Know Your Prospects

Nobody gives you money because you need it. People want to make a difference, and that’s what you have to offer. That is the objective you should have all the time. As George Bernard Shaw said: you get to a man through his religion, not yours. You really must know the person well, and you have to paint the picture that thrills her or him.

Maximize Donor Thrill

Speaking of thrill, never forget that donors want to tell their friends, children, parents, everybody they know how good they feel about their contributions. This is why your job is to maximize donor thrill. If you do that, and if you welcome your donors authentically and thank them to the point of redundancy (no one can be thanked too much), your fundraising program will propagate effectively.

The Outsider’s Perspective

Viewing your fundraising program from inside the library or inside the university is a major mistake that virtually everyone makes. Every decision you make should be related to how you look from the outside. How does your donor population view your operation? Supporters want to see an integrated institutional picture. Even people with narrow interests want to think that, as they support your library, they are also supporting your university. So that is the picture that should be projected. Nourish multiple unit interests. You build much stronger relationships if people think they can support the library and the football team at the same time.

Achieve an Integrated Campus Mission

It is really important that advancement, both in the library and throughout the campus, be part of the interstices of the institution and part of the culture of the place. Trivial positioning of your advancement program is always immediately evident, and the people you are trying to bring in will see that they are on the edge of the organization. So, when you get people who want to support the library, you always want to transmit to them that they are supporting the campus as a whole. Its a much more powerful message. Once again, it goes back to the external view. Every president of every university should promote an integrated campus mission.

Set Minimums

Never accept a gift at the expense of the relationship. The relationship is much more important than a gift. Let me illustrate that idea with a story. I was trying to raise three and a half million dollars for a school program in Oakland, endowing high schools to send scholarship kids to UC-Berkeley. I went to San Francisco to a private donor, and he put half a million dollars into the program. Then I went to a foundation in Los Angeles. They put in half a million dollars. Next I went to a major corporation in Oakland that is known to fund schools, kids, the community, etc. They offered $30,000 for the program. If one of your major sponsors puts in $30,000 for a three and a half million dollar program, it is dead. No one else will support it; it lowers the bar down to the bottom. I told them I could not take that money: it would be embarrassing for them and would kill the program at the same time. They came to agree with me. So they asked, “How much?” I said, “A minimum of half a million dollars.” That is what they gave.

Use Leverage Wisely

You must use your leverage strategically and shrewdly in order for it to be effective. Your leverage, of course, is your university’s president and, sometimes, your major volunteers. Using them wisely means not overexposing or underexposing them. The president of a university can always raise more money from your best supporters than you can, because the president has bigger levers to play and can say things about your unit that you cannot say with credibility. For instance, the president can say that the library is the most important institution on the campus and vital to the future of the university. The president can also say things, for example, about the librarians— kind of job they do, their stature in the community, and their vision. So never underestimate the leverage of the president in raising money for the library if he or she is used strategically and powerfully.

Strategic Questions

Finally, there are a number of strategic questions that arise as advancement operations get more sophisticated and that should be considered:

• There are too few donors out there, and they live too far apart; how do you work with those circumstances?
  
• How do you increase your prospect base?
  
• How do you steward donors and maintain their involvement?
  
• How do you serve your supporters around the country?
  
• How do you change your campus visibility, and what will that mean for advancement?

Conclusion

Developing a strategic direction, knowing when to leverage resources, and meeting dollar goals are successfully engaged when relationships have been developed and nurtured in the process of fundraising. Dr. Mote’s points were received as both useful and timely by the audience, people who have long been engaged in library fundraising as part of their current position responsibilities, for the practical wisdom of a campus leader is a gift for anyone who foresees taking on fundraising responsibilities over the course of a career. And, as Dr. Mote pointed out, laying out the groundwork before engaging in a campaign is a strategy that ensures a successful program.