A few years ago, I promised to maintain a more active conference schedule. I think attending one such meeting a year is about right. So I have to pick my targets carefully.
The choice this year was easy. The conference, sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), was designed for chief development officers, a level to which I recently ascended. The meeting was in Arizona, a state I had never visited. I knew it was warm there, even in early March, when we're still freezing in Massachusetts. I had also heard that Arizona has decent golf courses, and I assumed my schedule might permit a round or two.
Wasn't I pleasantly surprised to discover that the conference kicked off with a four-person scramble? And Arizona happens to be home to our most generous donor, who is -- not surprisingly -- our best prospect. So off I went in search of warmth, wisdom, wealth, and wedges (OK, that's a stretch).
I was right about the warmth, relatively speaking, and the good golf, and I did manage to have dinner with our donor and fit in some sightseeing. But the conference, the main reason for my trip, turned out to be a bit disappointing.
It's not that I didn't enjoy meeting colleagues and sneaking in bits of conversation when folks weren't engaged with their cellphones or BlackBerries, or that I didn't appreciate the variety of sessions we could choose among, or that I didn't delight in scooping up the various vendor tchotchkes.
Rather, I was surprised that the presentations so often assumed we knew little about development, and I was equally surprised that people were taking copious notes on those rudimentary ideas. Yes, I know we should use volunteers; they help us raise money. Yes, I know about the phases of a capital campaign; I've read the books. Was this conference for newbies or seasoned professionals?
Now, I don't purport to understand everything about this business, nor can I claim to have led armies of fund raisers in billion-dollar campaigns, but I do know "101" banter when I hear it.
By and large, conference participants listened attentively, asked a few polite questions, and rarely challenged authority -- except for one time, when a certain topic polarized opinion.
It seems several development colleagues, particularly those in larger shops, have taken to rewarding fund raisers for making prospect visits. That is, fund raisers stand to earn bonuses beyond their base pay for hitting prescribed targets. See 15 people a month and get an extra $1,000 in your paycheck. See more than 20 and get $1,500. That's what one university tried for three months, an experiment it deemed successful. Of course, only three of the 33 eligible employees qualified for a bonus in each month, so we have to wonder how inspiring that carrot was. But it did cost the university more than $30,000 to find out.
What's the big deal? If "fund raising 101" suggests that face-to-face visits lead to stronger relationships, which, in turn, lead to more gifts, then shouldn't we encourage such activity?
Well, yes, we should, but shouldn't we also just consider that part of the job? Why offer incentives to fund raisers to do what they were hired to do?
During the presentation on that topic, I whispered to my neighbor, "That's not a reward; it's a bribe. At what point do they scrap the system and find new staff?" He nodded in agreement. A few moments later, a fellow listener had the courage to ask the presenter that very question.
Many people in the audience admitted to using such incentives, in one form or another. A few tried linking prospect visits made to annual raises -- raises above and beyond what they would receive anyway. None went so far as to endorse a commission scheme, which violates every known code of ethics in our field. So you couldn't earn $1,000 for closing $100,000 in gifts, but you could rake in some amount for seeing a certain number of people.
All of which begs another objection: Why reward visits and not dollars earned? Why celebrate "the visit" as a desired activity, when most fund raisers (including bosses of those bribees) are evaluated primarily on the bottom line?
I know that we judge fund raisers based on how they move people through the donor pipeline, and that visits and gifts correlate, but this system focuses on the means, not the end result. Wouldn't a performance bonus based on hitting dollar goals make more sense?
In an effort to evaluate activities fairly, some institutions established guidelines for what constitutes a "visit." I heard comments about one or more colleges creating a new position, or at least carving out part of a position, to monitor visits and rewards. Run into an alum at the supermarket? Not a visit. Rub elbows with five donors at the holiday social? Not five visits. Have lunch with a prospect and talk about the proposed campaign? Now that's a visit. Only 19 more to go. You're on your way to a plasma TV. Thanks for playing "What's My Job?"!
There's more. While managers may make every effort to evaluate what constitutes a visit, I didn't get the sense that anyone was concerned about what transpires during those visits. Not all visits are equal.
Whom are you talking to, and what are you talking about? Are you seeing the same few people, or are you qualifying your entire prospect pool? Have you managed to move anyone along the gift pipeline, or are your conversations more of the "How 'bout them Red Sox!" variety? How effective is your sales pitch? What are you actually saying about the needs of your institution?
Process may guide us, but content is king. And when visits rule, we concoct all kinds of reasons for seeing someone, even if a visit isn't the best move at a given point.
Some in the audience also questioned the fairness of a structure that rewards fund raisers for doing their jobs while seemingly ignoring the contributions of those who support them. Should a prospect researcher work under a reward system that offers bonuses for each donor profile beyond some minimum? What about the people writing those fancy development brochures? Should a CASE award lead to a cash stipend?
It's no secret that fund raisers make more money than the people supporting the operation; a bonus system can only exacerbate those differences and potentially erode morale.
All that said, I have to admit I wasn't always above playing slave to some numerical master. My first real fund-raising job was in corporate and foundation relations at a major research university. My boss didn't insist on a certain number of visits because it's difficult to hold people in that area to similar quotas. First, they usually have fewer prospects. Second, many corporations and foundations don't entertain visitors, at least until some meaningful proposal is on the table. Even then, that meeting might involve academic leadership, not the fund raiser. Good luck trying to visit 20 foundations a month.
Instead, my boss believed in cranking out proposals and inquiry letters. Those were, I suppose, virtual visits, and she adhered -- so to speak -- to the spaghetti philosophy: Keep throwing it against the wall and some is bound to stick.
So I played the game. During my first month on the job, I submitted roughly 15 proposals, all to foundations supporting Judaic studies. She was thrilled. Never mind that I had simply grabbed a few paragraphs from various sources, written a generic proposal, looked up "Judaic studies" in the foundation directory, and run a mail merge with "Dear Foundation Officer" as the salutation.
And never mind that my effort resulted in bubkes. I had done my job. Or so I thought. Unfortunately, the only reward was that I stayed employed. Had I stood to earn a bonus for submitting meaningless proposals, I would have gotten rich.
As much as we shouldn't celebrate proposals submitted over grants won, we shouldn't celebrate visits made over dollars raised. And just as we shouldn't coerce grant-proposal writers to write grant proposals, we shouldn't coerce major gift officers to visit prospects. It's all part of the job. No, it is the job.
