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Your Turn Lessons in Fund Raising During my first week as dean of the busi- ness school at Washington State University, I had coffee with one of WSU's most illustrious alums. This serial entrepreneur—the founder of a high-tech firm with a market cap of about $48 billion—wanted me to totally reinvent the way we taught entrepreneurship and promised mil- lions of dollars to help me do it. I was either the luckiest dean in the world, or I was about to learn a lot about fund raising. As it turned out, I learned a lot about fund raising—and not just from this potential donor. In my seven years at WSU, I've held a vari- ety of positions that required some fund-raising skill. I've been head of the business school's information systems program, dean, vice presi- dent for university development, and president of the WSU Foundation. I really began to understand fund raising once I got out of the business school and could look back at it as one of many hungry mouths to feed on campus. I learned a great deal that I wish I'd known when I was dean— and that I'd like to share. Be quiet and listen. Both as a depart- ment chair and as a dean, I was so passionate about what we were trying to accomplish that I couldn't wait to tell people our story. When I worked at the Foundation, I learned that it is much more effective to listen to donors than it is to talk to them. You can still sell your school and describe your needs, but you should spend less time talking. Spend more time asking questions and listening to the answers so you can learn what donors find important. 64 BizEd MAY/JUNE 2008 By Len Jessup I've become a better fund-raiser by asking a vari- ety of questions: When did you attend our program? Why did you choose our pro- gram? What did you enjoy about the program? If you make a gift to our program, what kind of impact would you like to have? Soon you'll be engaged in a productive conversation about what the donors want to help you with, for how much, and when. You'll also learn what barriers need to be removed or managed before they can make a gift. Realize that you don't own the donors. Len Jessup As a department chair, and to some extent as a dean, I assumed that we "owned" the alums from our program and that no one else on campus should consider them pro- spective donors. Not until I arrived at the Foundation and talked with a wide variety of donors—some alum- ni and some not—did I realize that donors have their own varied inter- ests, passions, and relationships with all parts of the university. More to the point, they can decide what they want to do with their money. Once you, too, reach this conclusion, you'll be significantly less stressed when business alums decided to put their money elsewhere—for instance, in a new campus sports arena. In fact, you should be glad when they invest in that stadium. As you think about the downstream implications of the stadium project, you soon realize that it ultimately benefits you. The new sports complex pro- vides an excellent venue for you to engage prospective donors. If the team is doing well, alums will come to campus to see the games, and while they are there, they can get a close look at your program. Similarly, you benefit from every gift any other alumnus makes to the university. That endowed chair in liberal arts might attract a top scholar who will teach business students their general education courses and who might want to collabo- rate on research with your faculty. Donors often make more than one gift, so if you keep up your relation- ship with them through a series of gifts to the university, some of that money is likely to come your way. Align your interests with the donors' interests. I once saw Bruce Flessner of the consulting firm Benz Whaley Flessner use an excellent prop to demonstrate the concept of inter- secting interests. Imagine two circles that slightly overlap, like a Venn dia- gram or the MasterCard logo. Your program needs are in the circle on the left, while the donor's interests fill the circle on the right. In the left-hand circle there will be plenty of program goals that this particular donor will have no interest in fund- ing; the right-hand circle will con- tain projects that a specific donor would like to fund but that you feel are wrong for your program. Some- where in the middle should be proj- ects that appeal to both you and the donor. The Venn diagram will look different for every benefactor. Find out what motivates donors and play to that. Your benefactors have varied interests, values, purposes, agendas, and levels of vanity. Some want to give small gifts annually; some want to make a major one-time contribu- tion; and some will leave money to your school in their wills and estates. Some donors want to see their names on scholarships, endowed chairs, classrooms, buildings, and programs, while others want to