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Leaving Before the Campaign Ends

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By Jennifer Jacobson

In the world of university fund raising, you don't have to finish what you start.

Ronald D. Vanden Dorpel, vice president for university development at Northwestern University, will leave the fund-raising campaign he started there 15 months before it ends to become Brown University's first senior vice president for university advancement.

Observers of the field say the move is neither unusual nor frowned upon -- given the nature of the business: Colleges and universities routinely compete with each other to hire the best fund raisers they can find. Besides, they say, Mr. Vanden Dorpel's departure, though premature, will not affect Campaign Northwestern, the institution's $1.4-billion fund-raising drive, because the university has nearly completed it.

"We're at 92.7 percent of our goal," says Mr. Vanden Dorpel of the five-year campaign set to end in August of 2003. So far the institution has raised $310-million for new buildings against a goal of $400-million; $527.1-million for its endowment against a goal of $592-million; $450-million for operating programs against a goal of $408-million; and $10.7-million in undesignated gifts for a total of roughly $1.3-billion.

"Because we're doing so well, because we're out ahead, and because I'm immodest enough to say that I have built a strong infrastructure and staff and because we have great volunteers, I think we're in the home stretch," Mr. Vanden Dorpel says. "My leaving won't really affect anything."

He decided to take the top fund-raising job at Brown -- where he'll oversee a newly consolidated advancement office that used to be organized into three separate offices (development, alumni relations, and international advancement and volunteer engagement) -- because "it seemed like an interesting opportunity." He and his wife, Diane S. Vanden Dorpel, who is a lawyer and a member of the Rhode Island Bar Association, have a condominium in Newport. "We're both 55 and we thought, Well, we may have one more job in us, and we'd like them to be back in New England, which we kind of consider home," says Mr. Vanden Dorpel, who starts his new job in August. He received a master's degree in history from Brown in 1971 and was director of Brown's Office of Corporate and Foundations Relations in the early 1980's.

"We've loved our experience here in Chicago," he says. "Northwestern is a great university. I'm profoundly grateful for the opportunity it gave me." Which is why Mr. Vanden Dorpel, who plans to remain a season ticket holder to Northwestern football games, considers his decision bittersweet. "I had to decide whether to stay here for another 10 years and set the all-time record for vice president for development at any place," he says. He's been Northwestern's chief development officer for 15 years -- that's already "twice the amount of time any of my predecessors have spent in the position," he notes.

Although he wouldn't be leaving if he thought the campaign were in doubt, "if I'd had my druthers this would have happened a year from now," he says. "But Brown has a new president building a new senior administrative staff, so the timing is never what you exactly want." The university's corporation has already approved a campaign to support nearly $80-million worth of academic enrichment efforts, such as hiring more faculty members and increasing their salaries and benefits.

John H. Lippincott, vice president for communications at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, says Mr. Vanden Dorpel's departure in the midst of a major campaign is not unusual: "There's a fairly high rate of turnover among advancement officers and fund raisers at colleges and universities because there's a very high demand for people with the kind of talent Ron has."

Asked whether it's generally considered a good thing for chief fund raisers to leave before a campaign ends, one development consultant said it all depends. "If they're rotten, it's great," says Robert E. Carter, president and CEO of Ketchum Inc., a consulting firm based in Pittsburgh and Dallas that advises colleges on fund-raising activities. "In an ideal world, the trustees have taken ownership of the campaign so that administrators can come and go because the momentum and energy of the campaign are driven, not by administrators, but by the trustees." If a campaign is staff-driven, however, the departure of the vice president for development before a campaign ends can be more damaging, he says. But the reality, he says, is that "people have lifetime opportunities that don't come up to coincide with an existing campaign."

A recent survey of CASE members -- in fund-raising, communications, and alumni-relations -- found that the median period of time they've all been at their current institution is five years. "The fact that Ron was at Northwestern for 15 years is probably the more remarkable aspect of this than that he happens to be leaving at this point," Mr. Lippincott says.

Anecdotally, he says, when CASE talks to its members about fund-raising efforts, "near the top of everyone's list is recruiting and retaining good development staff," Mr. Lippincott says. The demand is there, he says, because more and more institutions are engaged in larger and larger campaigns. The bigger the campaign the more people you need, Mr. Lippincott says, because campaigns are built on relationships, and you need people to develop them.

Those who are most successful at building relationships -- and thus, building endowments -- get lured away first. Northwestern's president, Henry S. Bienen, acknowledged this fact in a statement he made last month announcing Mr. Vanden Dorpel's resignation: "One of the hallmarks of a great university is that other institutions seek to hire your best faculty and administrative leaders, and I believe that's what occurred here."

Asked about Mr. Vanden Dorpel's departure, Mr. Bienen notes that Northwestern has actually increased its campaign goal to $1.4-billion from $1-billion, that it will hit the new target, and that Mr. Vanden Dorpel has been "instrumental" in that success. "He has done fine work," the president says. "He had a commitment to see the campaign through August 2003. When Brown was interested, I released him from that commitment."

Richard R. Spies, executive vice president for planning at Brown, says it couldn't control the timing of its hire. "We have our needs now," he says. "Northwestern is where it is. It would be better for everyone if it had been slightly different." He adds: "I talked to lots of people about the job. Some were engaged in a campaign, some were in the beginning, some were at the end. It's the nature of the business."