By Amy S. Turbes
“We must be both mission-driven and donor-centric.”
I often use this simple tag line to spark discussion about fundraising. Despite its simplicity, embedded within it is an important tension: The truth is that what donors may want is not always aligned with being true to an institutional mission.
Institutions of higher education are under scrutiny for the high cost, and the need for more resources to limit those costs has never been greater. But despite this challenging context, Jesuit colleges and universities are, or ought to be, animated by mission in every area of their operations. Everything they do should serve the ultimate goal of forming “people for and with others,” and this should be no less the case among those responsible for cultivating donors as it is among teachers and mentors, campus ministers, or student affairs professionals.
In fact, the work of fundraising is the work of expanding the circle of those who are responsible for mission. In his book, The Spirituality of Fundraising, beloved spiritual writer Henri Nouwen put this beautifully: “Fundraising is proclaiming what we believe in such a way that we offer other people an opportunity to participate with us in our vision and mission.”
Gregory Boyle, S.J., founder of Homeboy Industries, has proclaimed a message of kinship and hope in such a way that inspired award-winning actresses such as Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin (above) to participate in Homeboy’s vision and mission. Photo courtesy of Homeboy Industries.
So, what happens when donors want to participate, but their ethical compass or personal motivation aren’t mission-aligned? Some argue it’s better to accept funding and use it for good rather than risk the money being used elsewhere for something less noble. Others say we should draw the line at taking funds from someone whose public and private life, or how they made their money, aren’t aligned with mission.
I want to suggest that there are no simple answers to this question. The ethics of fundraising to advance an institutional mission can be complicated, and individual cases call for careful reflection. But fortunately, Jesuit institutions have some ready tools that can help in discerning the best answer in each particular case.
One such tool is the Mission Priority Examen (MPE) process in which each U.S. Jesuit college and university is now invited by the Society of Jesus to participate every five years. The MPE offers a valuable opportunity to think critically about current donation acceptance policies and due diligence procedures, and it affords institutions a chance to ask serious questions about how donors may either support or impede mission. Unfortunately, such evaluations have historically been conducted by a select few institutional leaders. But if we undertake them as part of our institutional MPE—inviting students, faculty, mission integration leaders, and others to help fundraising professionals in discerning how best to support mission—institutions have a powerful accountability mechanism at the ready.
Of course, everyone who thinks about these questions must understand that, even though we work in the not-for-profit sector, higher education has been becoming more business-like, a development which requires fundraising departments to be data-driven. Using data in fundraising is a good thing because it often provides a clear focus in our work and allows us to be better stewards of limited resources.
At the same time, something is lost when we dwell on the numbers. In Jesuit higher education we boast that our students are more than a number. We recruit on the belief that our students are individual persons with innate human dignity and are educated to see others in the same way.
Yet even in Jesuit institutions, fundraising is singularly evaluated on numbers: unrestricted operating funds raised, alumni participation rates, number of donors retained, or scholarships or endowed chairs funded. Such categories make it easy to see donors in dehumanized terms: million-dollar-level donors, members of a particular donor society, LYBUNTS (those who gave Last Year But Unfortunately Not This Year), SYBUNTS (those who gave Some Years But Unfortunately Not This Year), and other such abstract groupings.
I should state that I believe in employing datadriven fundraising efforts and segmenting donors into recognizable categories. Having worked in this field for almost two decades, I know that introducing these practices has improved our work, allowing us both to do more with our resources and to better serve our mission. But we should never use abstract data at the expense of honoring the humanity of everyone our mission touches, including our donors.
Though his example is one from a very different historical time and place, we can look to St. Ignatius for some help. He was, in the true sense of the word, a fundraiser, and he was a good one. Ignatius cared deeply for his benefactors; he prayed for them, not for their resources. What we can learn from Ignatius, I think, is that fundraising is best understood as a ministry, the purpose of which is to allow others to serve God and humanity.
Inspired by Ignatius, fundraisers should create opportunities for meaningful dialogue with donors, listening deeply to discern what greater good they seek to serve. Theirs is the work of trying to match individual passions and aspirations for the greater good to institutional mechanisms for reaching the good.
Ignatius would further challenge fundraisers, though, by asking them to examine how their work serves donors. Tax breaks, family legacies, the opportunity to invest in a beloved institution—these are the standard benefits we think of today.
But Ignatius would undeniably ask fundraisers to think beyond these standard categories and to ask: What about the benefit to the donor’s soul? If fundraisers take that question seriously, they will have to consciously give up an approach based simply on racking up the numbers and expanding the resources. They will have to love donors as human beings who are valuable beyond the resources they can provide.
Again, Nouwen said it best: “We must have the courage to go to the rich and say, ‘I love you, and it is not because of your money but because of who you are.’ We must claim the confidence to go to a wealthy person knowing that he or she is just as poor and in need of love as we are… We do not need to worry about the money. Rather, we need to worry about whether, through the invitation we offer them and the relationship we develop with them, they will come closer to God.”
And yes, as hard as it is to hear, there are times when helping someone draw closer to God might mean not accepting their resources.
Taking a cue from Ignatius, fundraisers at Jesuit institutions should aim, above all, to become ministers of fundraising. They can and should be more than relationship managers, more than stewards, more than solicitors. They can and should be people who provide a pathway for donors to draw closer to God by identifying and supporting that greater good which they seek to serve. Doing this will help make our institutions truly mission-driven and donor-centric.
Amy S. Turbes is senior director of principal gifts operations at Creighton University.
The featured cover photo (above) is courtesy of Homeboy Industries.