We Don't Live by Spreadsheets

By Mark J. Drozdowski

Fund raisers love data. We're awash in it. Give us reams of names, numbers, lists, transactions, benchmarks, charts, and graphs. We use Access to excess and excel at Excel. And we kill more trees than annosus root rot.

Not surprisingly, the higher-education market is clogged with companies willing and eager to satisfy our data fix. Their services, naturally, come at a price, and it's usually steep. I could outfit my neighborhood with plasma TV's for what my college is paying for Lexis-Nexis each year. But it's indispensable.

So along come two representatives of a company dedicated to supplying colleges with various forms of data, including those related to development. They want to gauge our interest in joining a "collaborative" (yes, that's a noun, not an adjective) to share and learn best practices from (ostensibly) similar institutions.

From my perspective, the company does great work, very smart stuff. For a small ransom -- by our budget standards, anyway -- it would conduct research, quantify, and analyze any aspect of our operation and let us know how others fare with similar concerns. There are even opportunities to kibitz with peers at company-sponsored conferences and help shape future collaborative research.

From an intellectual standpoint, I was blown away. I dove into the sample studies thinking it would be wonderful to have such information at my fingertips.

Too bad I don't really need it.

The company's materials listed its 80 or so collaborative members. A quick glance suggested that we would rank, oh, about last in terms of the scope of our development operation. Most of the participants are major universities, university foundations, or private colleges. One university on the list has a development staff of 600 people. Not counting administrative assistants, we have six. Apples and mushrooms.

What are the best practices for managing large major-gifts operations? We don't have a major-gifts officer. Managing a decentralized office, including outposts overseas? We're decentralized only because we don't have the right office configuration to fit under one roof. Staffing and budgeting for a $1-billion campaign? Please.

Yes, data drives decisions, and university development offices would founder without it. That's because managing an operation of such magnitude and complexity requires scientific (i.e., quantitative) thinking. How do you evaluate the work of 50 gift officers? Do you sit down with each one weekly to say, "Hey, how's everything going, Fred?"

No, you examine metrics: numbers of calls, visits, proposals, and gifts. It's all about counting the amount of spaghetti on the wall -- and the resulting money. Not enough "touches" in a given quarter? You're on the hot seat. Subjective evaluations matter, too, but numbers rule.

And that's the science. This company creates better practice from better science.

For small operations like my own and like many others in academe, science matters less. We don't live by spreadsheets. For us, fund raising is more of an art. Let me rephrase that: Massive development operations use science to inform art; we puny ones just skip most of the science and let art guide us.

What do I mean by art? I suppose I'm more concerned with the nature of conversations than with the number of them. I focus more on writing compelling case statements or grant proposals than on managing moves and filling pipelines. Content -- not process -- rules art. Leadership and management -- whatever need there is for them -- occur daily, informally.

Don't get me wrong: We do evaluate performance and hold people accountable for numerical goals. But when I need to assess how effective our corporate and foundation relations program is, it's a conversation with one person. Likewise, we track direct-mail results to see if our efforts stink. If they do, we have six months to fix things.

To be honest, some of the company's findings are indeed more qualitative than quantitative. The company discusses how to move donors up the gift food chain and engage volunteers. It describes hiring and retention strategies, and good stewardship practices. We certainly could benefit from whatever wisdom might come from those studies.

Again, though, I question the relevance. If participating institutions run shops fundamentally different from ours, can we really adopt their best practices? At what point does the "it's just more zeroes" philosophy run out of steam? Do we even occupy the same fruit bowl?

Go ahead and call me naïve. But saying an Ivy League fund-raising operation is similar to ours because we both raise money is akin to saying the NFL is similar to Pop Warner because they both involve advancing the pigskin down the field. It's another ballgame altogether.

And I'm not implying that we in small shops are a bunch of backwoods yahoos fumbling our way along. I'm just saying we're different.

Sure, if you boil fund raising down to the essential elements, it's fundamentally the same. Building relationships lies at the core. Get together with a donor and talk about giving to your institution. Or have the president do it. At that point, art takes over. Science doesn't matter anymore. What will you say to engage this person, energize him, persuade him, inspire him? Never mind which digit he represents on the spreadsheet or gift pyramid. He's in front of you. Now what? You'd better have a good story.

Perhaps I'm dense, but at least I speak from experience. I was once the chief advancement officer in an office of one. I was also part of a 150-person advancement team at a Research I university. And I've worked at a few campuses in between. I don't purport to be an expert in the intricacies of sophisticated development departments, nor can I admit to being particularly fond of them, at least from an employee perspective. The numbers impress me, but the processes bore me. I'm more of a generalist, and find the clearly delineated lines between functions too limiting.

No, leave me my art and shelve the science (most of it, anyway). I'll be content to compare notes with real peers, learning from them how they get by and sharing whatever knowledge I can impart. To my corporate friends, I wish you all the best with your collaborative ventures. You're doing important work, and I would recommend you highly to any big-time development operation not already on your list.

For now, I'll manage in the minor leagues and enjoy every minute of it. If I ever return to the majors, I'll know where to find you.