Thanks to one pesky pie chart, I've been reminded that I work on the fringes of fund raising. I'm a sidekick solicitor, the Hank Kingsley of the development office, a Tonto-Robin-Kato composite. At best, I can win an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. I'm a team player to be sure, but a lineman, not a quarterback.
That's because I work in corporate and foundation relations.
The infamous pie chart appeared in a consultant's presentation of America's philanthropic landscape. There it was on Page 6 in black and white (and red and yellow and purple): In 2002, according to Giving USA, foundations provided 11 percent of the contributions to nonprofit institutions, including colleges and universities. Corporations gave those institutions only 5 percent. Simple math tells us that 84 percent of the money given to nonprofit institutions that year came from individuals. Let's flip the page, I thought.
It's not that those numbers surprised me, mind you. I just felt rather exposed before my colleagues and bosses. If they hadn't known already, then they'd just learned that corporations and foundations play a relatively minor role in American philanthropy. And I, by extension, represent that minor role.
Returning to my office, I scrambled to find what I suspected would be rosier news. I discovered it in the form of a Council for Aid to Education study, which examines giving to higher education specifically. This report shows that in 2002, foundations accounted for 26 percent of giving to colleges and universities; corporations, 18 percent. Individuals gave 48 percent of the money, while the remaining 8 percent came from various "other" sources. So I felt a bit better and wished these numbers had appeared on Page 7.
But we can't mask the essential truth: Individuals -- not corporations and foundations -- fuel philanthropy. Most headline-grabbing megagifts come from individual donors, and capital campaigns usually hinge on their involvement. Go beyond the numbers and the story worsens, at least from this perspective. As foundation endowments decline, giving will correspondingly plummet. What's more, many leading foundations have announced drastic cuts in future support for higher education. Corporate giving is already decreasing and shows little promise of rebounding anytime soon.
Will professionals in corporate and foundation relations thus become insignificant, reduced to bit players on the fund-raising stage?
Well ... no, I wouldn't go that far. Jobs in the field abound, and salaries typically are good. Titles have been elevated in recent years -- you now can assume the position of assistant vice president or associate vice chancellor for corporate and foundation relations. With those titles can come responsibilities for managing large staffs and budgets and for raising millions of dollars.
At certain institutions, corporate and foundation giving accounts for a much wider wedge of the pie. Universities strong in science and engineering find that their faculty research, student interns, and technology-transfer potential attract bountiful corporate support. Others are fortunate enough to have foundation sugar daddies. Indiana colleges can thank the Lilly Endowment, the nation's second-largest foundation, for distributing the vast majority of its money -- more than half a billion dollars -- within that state's borders. So yes, I think our status is safe for now, and we'll continue to play an important (if supporting) role in our institutions' development efforts.
Yet we seldom ascend through the ranks to become director or vice president of development. Major gifts remain the sine qua non of fund raising, so it stands to reason that most vice presidents will advance via that track or, to a lesser extent, via annual giving. Fewer vice presidents, by far, come directly from my specialty. Why? Because our methods of donor interaction differ from those related to individuals. Let's take a closer look.
As one astute consultant demonstrated to me recently, the work of securing major gifts pivots on the psychology of giving. Professionals in that field must uncover what motivates people to give, how much they might give, what opportunities might interest them, what measures will lead to successful solicitation, and what the correct sequencing and timing might be. It's a bit of a psychological dance, and each must be uniquely choreographed.
Corporations and foundation fund raising is more straightforward. When I call or visit a contributions manager or program officer, he knows my intentions. His job is to give away money; mine is to raise it. Philanthropic histories and predilections, assets, timelines, and procedures are normally public information. There's less guesswork involved.
With individuals, we don't have ready access to that information; we have to dig for it or extract it from them carefully. Don't misunderstand -- when dealing with institutional donors, subtleties do come into play, and our job essentially boils down to people and relationships. But we're not as consumed by psychology, concentrating instead on matching ideas and common interests. And there's less wining and dining. I've won seven-figure grants in a matter of a few months by passing papers with foundations I never visited. Try that with an individual.
Further, once the philanthropic spirit comes alive, major-gift fund raising focuses on the transaction of money. Some transactions are simple, involving only cash or stock. Others become rather complex, using planned-giving vehicles such as remainder trusts or annuities. In other words, donors seek ways to help charities and realize tax and other advantages simultaneously. Major-gift officers must be able to suggest appropriate ways of giving as well as reasons for it. With corporate and foundation donations, the transaction rarely matters, at least to us. We almost always receive cash, and we don't need lawyers and accountants to intervene.
We also maneuver differently. As I've suggested, major-gifts work requires frequent face-to-face contact, which translates into more travel (and more parties). Those professionals will manage donor portfolios of about 250 people, organized by giving levels or geographic regions, or both. (I can't imagine trying to psychoanalyze 250 people.) We handle roughly 50 institutional prospects and donors and spend comparatively less time on the road.
Instead, we spend more time with faculty members. We get to know their research plans and ideas for programs, and help translate them into opportunities worth financing. Of course, dealing with faculty members presents its own set of psychological challenges, but I've covered those in previous columns.
Finally, our "transactions" may not involve sophisticated financial planning, but we do have our own set of complexities. We're always writing proposals, reports, and inquiry letters, often about subjects with which we've only recently become familiar. We need to understand how to design and evaluate programs and must account for every dollar spent. And we devise operational budgets that can become as intricate as most planned-gift arrangements.
So if your pedigree consists solely of corporate and foundation work, and if development leadership is your goal, you'll need to convince others that you understand individual giving despite your lack of direct experience. Certainly your expertise with managing budgets, hiring staff members, and (perhaps) working with volunteers will serve you well. But dealing with individual donors -- and overseeing those who do -- requires a different mind-set. You'll need to convey this to a search committee if you hope to become an exception to the unwritten rule.
Then again, if you're inclined to stay put in corporate and foundation relations, that's fine. Many people on this track suppress the urge to move into development leadership because they're not comfortable with individual giving. Nonetheless, you have plenty of opportunities to make a real difference on your campus. Just be sure to ignore those vexing pie charts.
