Fundraising in tough times: award-winning fundraisers are locking in more dollars than ever--even in a recession. How do they do it?

How has higher ed fundraising been affected by the decelerated economy? The jury is still out until June, at least, but a preponderance of private and public institutions are reporting that they continue to attract dollars as if the country weren't in a recession.

According to Fred Wheeler, associate vice president for Development at Fairfield University (Fairfield, CT), "Our annual fund is running 12 percent ahead of last year; a positive sign. I admit I'm surprised, because there's been so much media attention focused on concerns about philanthropy, as a result of the economy and September 11. But college and university fundraising may be less susceptible to economic changes in the market, or to tragedies, because we have a built-in constituent base of alumni, corporations, and foundations."

Attitudes are positive, too, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where a $1.5 billion capital campaign will be announced in April The campaign is one of the most ambitious ever instituted by an American public university, and it's launching right on the heels of the worst economic environment the country has seen in years.

In fact, say many top college and university administrators, the ability to plan, launch, and properly implement strategically powerful fundraising initiatives has never been more essential. That's why college and university officials are hungering, more than ever, for successful fundraising models. To put it simply, "Who's doing it well and why?" is the question most often overhead at higher education industry conferences and seminars. Interestingly, many of the top models are not the ivy-covered private institutions you might expect, but state, community, and even technical schools that have become adept at isolating their most promising avenues of fundraising--and then pursuing those channels with innovation and determination.

FUNDRAISING AWARD-WINNER: Monroe Community College 

Brenda Babitz, Foundation president and college chief development officer at Monroe Community College (Rochester, NY), reports the school's annual fund is up a remarkable 36 percent over the previous year, despite the recession. In fact, says Babitz, she actually used the tough economy in her "connect-the-dots" appeal to the private sector.

"Large corporations in Rochester are experiencing difficult times, but they know they need a trained workforce in order to come out of this economic slump," she says. "They also know that, unlike at other larger universities, go percent of our graduates remain in the community. So, we've made them understand that education at our institution offers a direct promise for the future of their workforce. We point out that to ensure the levels of instructional quality needed to maintain a skilled workforce--and our community's competitive edge--we must continually increase private sector investment." Recently named Professional Fundraiser of the Year by the American Fundraising Professionals (Genesee Valley Chapter), Babitz has helped her school's foundation raise more than $5 million during her tenure, and MCC is now ranked in the top 5 percent of community college foundations nationwide. But when Babitz arrived at the school 11 years ago, the sense that public institutions were not deserving of private sector support was pervasive.

"I was told I was crazy for taking the job," she recalls, "but I had heard that there were over 200,000 alumni who had never even been asked for support. I figured: How hard could it be? I didn't know there were no addresses," she laughs.

The power of the Board. Babitz knew she would need plenty of ammunition to convince the private sector of the importance of giving to a community college. So, the first thing she did was set about to build a highly effective Board of Directors to govern the MCC Foundation. "The effectiveness of the Board is the single most important driver in successful fundraising," Babitz states unequivocally. It wasn't easy, she now admits, but she dug in her heels, and finally found individuals who could help her get the school on the giving agendas of their own foundations and corporations.

"We were the last kids on the fundraising block," she remembers. "The larger private schools in our area had been in the fundraising business for many years. Initially, it was tough to get those `high profile' board members; they had already made commitments to bigger universities, and few had attended community college."

In attracting those individuals, the ability to describe a structured plan of board members' activities and responsibilities was crucial. Babitz followed guidelines laid out by the Guidance Council for Advancement and Support of Education (www.case.org) and The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (www.agb.org).

Internal "esprit de corps." Prior to joining the MCC Foundation, Babitz was a Development administrator for a private university. The biggest difference between public and private school fundraising, she says, is that faculty and staff at private institutions know how to be a part of the initiative--they've been doing it longer. "My hardest job has been to get the internal audience--both faculty and staff--to work with us." So her office has created internal fundraising events like the annual Gold Star Dinner, now a four-year-old event. At the Dinner, faculty skills such as French lessons, Web page development, even fly-fishing lessons, are auctioned off to 250 members of the community.

Student/parent solicitation; greater alumni attention. MCC's annual fund ranks first in parent giving among the nation's nearly 1,300 community colleges. Babitz believes it's the school's "personalized" strategy that makes the difference: MCC uses a telemarketing firm that hires the school's own students to ask parents for contributions. Instead of commercial telemarketers on other end of the line, parents are engaged in conversations with students (just like their own sons or daughters) who need support in order to get a quality education. The campaign targets only parents with a predetermined income level

FUNDRAISING AWARD-WINNER: Greeneville Technical College

What does Greeneville Technical College (Greeneville, SC) have in common with Harvard and Duke? A 2001 Circle of Excellence Award in educational fundraising, from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. In the late '90s, the Greeneville Tech Foundation planned and initiated Partners Working For Success, a major gifts campaign. Three years later, gifts of cash, pledges, and planned gifts have hit the $6.2-million mark.

Cultivate big donors. The campaign philosophy--to raise big money, identify big prospects and ask for big dollars--sets it apart from the school's past philosophies. "In the past, Greeneville did a good job of identifying big prospects, but they then asked each prospect to donate $5,000," says Fred Payne, executive director of Institutional Advancement. The problem? "It takes a lot of $5,000 gifts to raise a million dollars," he points out. Targeting big donors, he says, presents real advantages in a tough economy, when small-gift solicitation can, proportionately, yield smaller return for dollars spent. That's why, this year, administrators at Greeneville Tech decided not to pursue a small-gift phon-a-thon at all.

"The slower economy doesn't make much difference to people who are worth $100 million. Maybe they lost 20 percent of their income, but they're still worth $80 million," Payne says, and they still need to make use of tax devices to protect assets. But, "a recessionary economy hurts smaller gifts," he explains. "A lot of people say, 'I just lost my job, I can't give:" So Payne advises: "Focus 80 percent of your time on the 20 percent of donors who give you 80 percent of your money. It's not that we aren't looking for new donors," he explains, "we're just not looking for new small donors right now," he says, adding that he needs his resources for development of his '20 percent' prospects. "When you're dealing with the wealthy, it's a long-term cultivation process."

Make giving `addictive.' Despite the economy, the concentrated effort has paid off, says Payne, and strategic relationship building has even had a curious ripple effect. The largest gift of the campaign--$2 million--came from an individual who fundraising consultants predicted would give only $10,000. After the school went out of its way to recognize the donor and feature him in focal news stories and on public television, the contributor came back and asked what else he could do.

"I told him we were in need of a major gift. He said, 'I can give 25 percent of charitable remainder trust that I am setting up. Its total value is $8 million; Greeneville's part would be $2 million: Suddenly, we had a $2-million gift.

"Someone might make a first gift of $500, yet have the potential to give half a million. We learned that we need to build those relationships, and make the donors feel so good about their gifts--no matter what the size--that they want to keep working with us."

Raise the bar; create a win/win. But Payne believes fundraisers must also use pledges and gifts-in-hand, to maximize the contributing power of other potential benefactors. Greeneville Tech used the $2 million gift described above, to raise the bar for others: When the school asked another donor to name a building for $1.3 million, that individual came back and asked if he could name a whole branch campus. But Greeneville Tech's Development officials replied that the minimum gift to name a campus was $2 million. The benefactor declined, but in November, Greeneville Tech got a $2-million offer from a different donor to name another campus.

In a prime example of a win/win scenario, the college received Greeneville Hospital System's support after describing a mutually beneficial relationship for both institutions: The hospital needed more nurses, and acknowledged that it was more cost-effective to hire them locally. So Greeneville Tech fundraisers argued that a pledge of $250,000 in Greeneville Tech scholarships for nurses, would go far to meet that need. They were right: The hospital's investment paid off, and in December 2001, it committed to another $400,000 to help recruit and retain nursing faculty at Greeneville Tech. Then, when the Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital System got wind of the partnership's success, that institution, too, came on board with a contribution of $200,000.

"To create a win/win situation, you have to ask people what works best for them," Payne says. "Then, make sure you let others know about those partnerships."

FUNDRAISING AWARD-WINNER" Fairfield University

In the midst of a $100-million capital campaign (led by George Diffley, vice president for University Advancement), Fairfield University garnered a 2001 CASE Award for fundraising excellence. Fairfield's Wheeler claims the award resulted from an ability to smoothly manage a capital campaign while still keeping a steady hand on annual fundraising. Four factors, he says, contributed to the fundraising success:

Meticulous planning. Don't rush the planning process, says Wheeler. "We entered this campaign meticulously. We conducted a feasibility study up front, to make sure our constituency base had a complete understanding of what the university was trying to achieve. That way, when we did speak with them about their organizational donations, there were no surprises. As a matter of fact, our constituents were part of the planning process, a step I see as a key factor contributing to our eventual success."

PR and marketing. "We produced a truly comprehensive campaign brochure," says Wheeler, "mostly for major gift prospects and for the campaign leadership. It clearly spelled out the campaign's needs, goals, rationale, institutional impact, volunteer readership, etc. Three times a year, we also publish a newsletter for distribution to a portion of our own population. It reports on progress, announces leadership gifts, and profiles selected donors. Our campaign video is one more marketing tool that has played an important role in our fundraising efforts." And, "don't underestimate the power of internal marketing," Wheeler says, "You never know where your next good lead or suggestion will come from."

The annual fund. In your efforts to promote a capital fund, don't neglect the annual fund, he adds. "When we did ask for major campaign gifts, we also asked donors to maintain their annual giving, layering any capital campaign gifts on top. Often, annual funds are flat or even decrease during a capital campaign, because donors address the capital campaign needs, and assume one will take care of the other. For a modestly endowed institution such as ours, it's important to hold the line on the annual fund and even increase it. Once they understood that, parents and alumni responded tremendously."

Exploit the Internet. "More and more donors are making gifts online," says Wheeler. "We've only been enabling online contributing for about a year, but clearly, it's a convenient way for donors to respond to our campaign. We marketed www.fairfield.edu in university publications and via postcards. Without question, it proved to be a real boost to our annual fund. In the future, we'll be marketing it even more aggressively."