The Fund Raiser

It's Not Fund Raising, It's Friend Raising

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By Mark J. Drozdowski

Some people recoil when I tell them I raise money for a living. "I just don't have the stomach for that," said one cocktail-party conversationalist recently.

I knew what he meant. A former colleague had the same condition. The mere mention of annual-giving totals or direct-mail strategies would send her stumbling toward the door, hand over mouth, managing only a muffled "Excuse me!" while the rest of us nodded and tacitly reminded ourselves not to broach such topics in her presence.

She worked in alumni relations, and had little use for development. "I'm not in the fund-raising business," she would often point out. "I'm in the friend-raising business."

And that's how many folks in alumni relations (or alumni affairs) view themselves. Most don't toss their cookies at the very thought of fund raising, but they do draw clear boundaries between their roles and responsibilities and ours. Development and alumni relations may frequently be married by departmental moniker, yet in truth they rarely even date. Or so suggests conventional wisdom.

At the same time, fund raisers are always called upon to raise friends. That's because enemies don't give you money. So we tend to approach relationships with -- let me say this with just a hint of cynicism -- a certain ulterior motive. We seek donations and are ultimately judged by how much we get, not by how many friends we make.

So it was with that profound understanding that I donned my friend-raising cap during last fall's Alumni Weekend, our version of homecoming. Everyone in our department was assigned tasks according to his or her special talents; mine, for some reason still unknown to me, would involve a fair amount of drinking.

The festivities began Saturday morning, and my first job was greeting people as they arrived on the campus. They came young and old (but not that old, because our first class graduated in 1966). I saw the familiar faces of the core group who come every year but who seldom visit the campus otherwise. I watched as old acquaintances battled each other for the best parking spots, and smiled at the chap who avoided the fray by landing his helicopter right on the manor lawn. He evidently wanted everyone to know he had, indeed, arrived.

It turned out Mr. Whirlybird sat next to me at lunch, a four-star catered affair for the earliest reunion classes. He had flown up from Pennsylvania with a couple from the same graduation year; they were also at my table. We had a lovely conversation reminiscing about the halcyon days, back in the free-and-easy '60s, when they were idealistic college students and I was in diapers. Searching for some common ground, I turned the conversation to Philadelphia, where they lived and I'd spent my formative four years.

"Philly's a great town," I blurted as our overzealous waitress refilled my wine glass yet again. "I went to college there."

"We live just outside the city," replied the wife, who then mentioned a suburb with which I was familiar.

"I stayed at a little motel in that town while I was doing my dissertation research," I continued. "It's right across from a large shopping mall."

"Yeah, I know that mall pretty well," said the husband. "I own it."

"Really," I said, trying not to actually levitate from my chair. For the remainder of lunch we had the relationship of a shark and a bleeding squid. I probed and prodded, trying to learn more about my prosp-- ... uh, friend, hoping the truth serum we were imbibing would loosen his lips. I didn't get much.

After lunch, I staggered back to my office to do a bit of database research on Mr. Philly. Sure enough, he was listed as "proprietor" of a real-estate development firm. And he was already a donor. He and his wife had given consistently over the years -- never a lot, but with great regularity. That's a sure sign of a major-gift donor in the making. I had work to do.

My afternoon assignment was a two-hour wine-tasting gig. I had to get there early and make sure all the cheese was aligned properly, and I managed to get a head start on the tasting duties. Before long I was embroiled in conversation with various folks, chitchatting about meaningful topics like the weather and the foliage. I graciously excused myself from the group when I spotted my new best buddy entering the room.

"Hey, doctor," he said with a smile and handshake. He called me "doctor" because my nametag identified me as one. I wasn't sure if he said it out of respect or derision, but I didn't really care.

"Welcome to the party," I replied. "Can I get you a glass?"

He said yes and I gladly obliged. We chatted a bit more and I asked him why he returned to campus every year.

"It's the only chance my wife and I have to catch up with old friends," he said, "though we do seem to lose one or two every year. And it's good to see the school that means so much to us."

His wife joined us as we continued our conversation.

"So what it is that you do here, exactly?" she asked.

"I'm in development," I said. "I raise money for the college."

Under normal circumstances, that would be my self-induced cue to start into a pitch for fund-raising priorities, followed by a suggestion that we talk at some point about how we might offer them appropriate outlets for their philanthropic interests. Not today.

No, today, I realized, was most assuredly about raising friends, not cash. Like their classmates, this couple had returned to reminisce, to relive a slice of life that was so important to them. They were here simply to have a good time. And I wasn't going to give them any impression we'd invited them because we hope to inspire donors.

I'll again concede that that's true to some extent, just as it's true that people who remain involved in the life of the college are more likely to give at all levels. If a young grad attends alumni-chapter events, he's probably more apt to contribute a $100 annual-fund gift. So it's all fund raising and it's certainly all friend raising. The professionals who staff those advancement positions may see the fine distinctions, but we're all playing the same game.

I ran into my new friends a few more times that evening, during the cocktail hour and over dinner. By then I had long since switched to Diet Coke, so I knew the warm fuzzies were not due to fermentation. I was just having fun listening to people talk about how college had shaped their lives, and how their lives had since evolved. Grads from the '60s made friends with folks from the '90s, all because they shared a common experience. I didn't share that experience, but it didn't really matter to me.

And it didn't matter -- for this day, at least -- that I was a fund raiser.