5/1/2008

Jaques & Co Hits Milestone

In the Fall of 2007, Jaques & Company celebrated 20 years of service to the non-profit community (1987-2007). We are proud to continue to help our clients achieve new levels of excellence in strategic planning, fund-raising, governance, and financial management. Since we’ve been around, and we’ve got a great team, we decided (like our beloved Boston Red Sox) to celebrate at Fenway Park on Nov. 15, 2007. It was our honor to host our “team” – current and past clients, trustees, industry colleagues, current and former employees of the company, and other friends. The assembled group played a large part in the history and success of Jaques & Company over the past 20 years!

5/1/2008

Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away.

The legendary songwriter and singer, Paul Simon, wrote the above lyrics as the chorus for his 1977 classic song, Slip Slidin’ Away. He just didn’t know that he was describing the state of alumni participation in today’s world of educational fund-raising.

Across the landscape of nearly 5,000 colleges and universities, independent and other non-public elementary and secondary schools, the flight of alumni donors is well known. Institutions that had enjoyed decades of broad-based support – exceeding 40% and sometimes 50% – have seen alumni participation totals plummet 10% to 30%. At Jaques & Company, we’ve worked with dozens of these organizations, trying to understand the reasons for this trend and, of course, trying to help our clients reverse it.

Recently, we decided to talk with some of our clients, and with other institutions that we admire, about best practices in addressing the participation challenge. We chose institutions/programs with strong track records of success in building, maintaining, or rebuilding fund participation. Not surprisingly, these institutions have simultaneously achieved excellent track records of dollar growth. We hope there is something of value here for all of our readers.

Theme 1: Relationship Building at the Core – In our interviews, many reasons were cited for the breakdown in participation. Some have to do with institutional behavior (development program resource constraints, focus on dollar growth vs. participation, etc.) while others appear to be market phenomena (philanthropic competition, market message overload, etc.). Responses are different, but our sample institutions share a common strategic thought: relationship building must be at the heart of all they do.

These programs emphasize high levels of proactive personal contact with alumni. At Noble and Greenough School (Dedham, MA), which enjoys 50%+ alumni participation year after year, the reunion program is a focal point: staff members are aggressively outbound, personally recruiting committee members and making dozens of qualifying, cultivation, volunteer recruitment, and solicitation visits, sometimes paired up with volunteers. According to Nat Chamberlin, Director of the Annual Nobles Fund ($3.6M goal in FY08), a cumulative benefit of this work over time is that almost every Nobles prospect is personally known by one or more staff members. At Bucknell University, one “front line” fund officer is exclusively focused on the alumni of the last decade. Josh Grill, Director of the Annual Fund, describes this person’s work as “personally engaging alumni, getting first-time gifts, and (when appropriate) getting leadership gifts.” Phillips Exeter Academy’sWayne Loosigian, Director of the Annual Fund, points to the importance of the longstanding philosophy that permeates all of Exeter’s work: “Equal value is placed on all the parts of Alumni Affairs and Development programming.We’re all relationship builders.”

Alumni recognize very quickly whether or not the institution is interested in them and is making a genuine effort to know and engage them. Participation takes a hit when institutional behavior focuses (only?) on the yearly gift transaction.

5/16/2007

The philanthropic community of greater Boston may have an extraordinary opportunity to kick off a “Golden Age of Philanthropy” according to new research by Paul Schervish and John Havens of Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy*. In a 2006 report for The Boston Foundation, Schervish and Havens found that the $41 trillion wealth transfer that they predicted in 1999 – with $6 trillion expected to go to charities - is very much on track, despite the slow start identified by Giving USA last year. And Boston is expected to receive its philanthropic dollars earlier than other areas of the country because its population of wealthy households is older, on average, than that of the nation as a whole.

5/16/2007

“It’s a lot tougher raising money for endowment than for bricks and mortar projects, isn’t it?” We at Jaques & Company are asked this question regularly. With major campus building projects behind them, many of our clients are now focused on building “sustainability” through the power of endowments. One such school, Tenacre Country Day School, a PreK-6 elementary school in Wellesley, MA, launched its Endowing Excellence campaign in late 2004 to raise $7.5 million for faculty, program and financial aid initiatives. At the kickoff gala in January 2007, the School had passed the $6 million mark (81% of goal). With Tenacre barreling towards its goal, what factors played a strong role in the campaign’s early success? And, what does this say about the essence of a well-managed endowment campaign?

8/24/2006

8/24/2006

Noble & Greenough School!