Inter­view with Vice Pres­i­dent for Insti­tu­tional Advancement

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE A CAREER IN DEVELOPMENT?

Actu­ally, I wouldn’t say I chose a career in devel­op­ment. It chose me. The first 15 years of my pro­fes­sional life were spent as a United Methodist pas­tor. Serv­ing the last seven years of that time in a new church start, rais­ing sig­nif­i­cant money was required to stay in exis­tence. The same was true for the six years I spent as the exec­u­tive direc­tor of a statewide non-profit agency. But beyond pro­duc­ing dol­lars, I dis­cov­ered a pas­sion and ful­fill­ment in build­ing up an orga­ni­za­tion or insti­tu­tion. The field of insti­tu­tional advance­ment is more than just rais­ing money. The dol­lars are sim­ply the means to the even­tual end – an insti­tu­tion that is more secure, robust and more effective.

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR PROUDEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS THUS FAR?

I am most proud of the times I have opened doors of oppor­tu­nity to donors who wanted to find real ful­fill­ment in their phil­an­thropic gifts. I truly con­sider it a priv­i­lege to work with donors who dis­cover joy and mean­ing through their giv­ing as it changes the life of another. I always laugh when some­one says, “Why would you have a job where you beg peo­ple for money?” I have never begged any­one for a dime. Beg­ging and guilt are poor moti­va­tors. My life is enriched when a donor is moti­vated to help and I am able to align the donor with an opportunity.

WHAT ARE YOUR INITIAL IMPRESSIONS OF WESLEY COLLEGE?

Wes­ley is rich in oppor­tu­nity. Built upon a firm foun­da­tion estab­lished over the years by so many fac­ulty and staff, alumni, com­mu­nity part­ners and United Methodist sup­port­ers, there is an air of excite­ment and pos­si­bil­ity that per­vades the Col­lege. I have been struck by the love and pride of Wes­ley demon­strated by so many alumni I have met, the per­sonnel I am priv­i­leged to work with daily, and the stu­dents I con­stantly encounter. That sense of expec­ta­tion and oppor­tu­nity is fre­quently affirmed by indi­vid­u­als I meet within the Dover com­mu­nity and beyond.

WHAT WOULD YOU DESCRIBE AS WESLEY’S GREATEST NEEDS FOR FUNDRAISING?

The sim­ple answer is sig­nif­i­cantly increas­ing dol­lars for unre­stricted giv­ing towards the Wes­ley Fund, dol­lars direct­ly invested in our stu­dents. With the cost of higher edu­ca­tion today, Wes­ley must pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial aid to enable deserv­ing stu­dents from var­i­ous socio-economic back­grounds to experi­ence the life-changing dif­fer­ence a Wes­ley edu­ca­tion offers. The Wes­ley Fund needs to grow so that at least one mil­lion dol­lars annu­ally can be assured for our stu­dents. That will require both new donors and more gen­eros­ity of our exist­ing donors in order to more than triple our cur­rent efforts. Wesley’s his­tory affirms this can be done!

With the recent adop­tion of a new cam­pus mas­ter plan by our Board of Trustees, we are begin­ning to address the cap­i­tal needs of our cam­pus commu­nity. A num­ber of exist­ing build­ings, par­tic­u­larly res­i­dence halls, are in criti­cal need of ren­o­va­tion. In addi­tion, to serve our stu­dents’ needs, new facil­i­ties are required. The first of sev­eral phases of the mas­ter plan needs to begin imme­diately. Those who love Wes­ley Col­lege will be asked to tan­gi­bly demon­strate their com­mit­ment through both annual and cap­i­tal finan­cial commitments.

Crit­i­cal to the long-term suc­cess of Wes­ley are planned gifts. Wes­ley has not his­tor­i­cally been the ben­e­fi­ciary of these gifts in equal pro­por­tion to many other sim­i­lar insti­tu­tions of higher edu­cation. A sus­tained edu­ca­tional effort con­cern­ing planned gifts will become a per­ma­nent part of our advance­ment efforts.

WHY DO YOU FEEL IT IS SO IMPORTANT FOR ALUMNI TO SUPPORT THEIR ALMA MATER?

One of my favorite verses of scrip­ture reads: “To those whom much is given, much is expected.” The lives of our alumni have been molded by Wes­ley Col­lege. Regard­less of the amount of money they paid in tuition, the cost of their edu­ca­tion exceeded those pay­ments. Thus, some­one else, in part, pro­vided for them the gift of a Wes­ley education.

As I travel and meet alumni of Wes­ley I am con­stantly hear­ing about “…the impact Wes­ley had on my life.” Those from the days of Wes­ley Junior Col­lege talk about the train­ing ground for that next edu­ca­tional step, while those from the four-year insti­tu­tion speak glowing­ly of their bac­calau­re­ate expe­ri­ence. All rec­og­nize that they would not be where they are today with­out the peo­ple who are Wes­ley College.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES THAT WESLEY COLLEGE FACES IN TERMS OF FUNDRAISING?

Our great­est chal­lenge is suc­cess­fully ask­ing for sup­port. In the­ory, we should-n’t need to “sell” Wes­ley to those whose lives have been impacted. The pride and affin­ity appears to be alive and well among so many Wes­ley grad­u­ates, yet we lag behind many of our peer institu­tions in alumni giv­ing, so we need to unashamedly and boldly invite our alumni and friends to tan­gi­bly demon­strate their desire to see Wes­ley pros­per by giv­ing finan­cially and doing so gener­ously. In turn, we pledge to be good stew­ards of those gifts so that cur­rent and future stu­dents can ben­e­fit from a Wes­ley Col­lege education.

With more than 20,000 alumni and friends, it is tough for the advance­ment staff alone to suc­cess­fully ask each and every indi­vid­ual to pro­vide their finan­cial sup­port to our stu­dents. How­ever, the advance­ment staff is not alone. We are sur­rounded by hun­dreds and per­haps thou­sands of indi­vid­u­als who have the abil­ity to give annu­ally and ask oth­ers to join them. One alum­nus who con­tacts class­mates and asks that they match his/her pledge makes a dif­fer­ence. Ath­letic team mem­bers ask­ing their fel­low team­mates to add their dol­lars to a major gift from the team given in honor of their for­mer coach make a dif­fer­ence. The list of pos­si­bil­i­ties is endless.

The finan­cial chal­lenges that lie ahead are sub­stan­tial, but by work­ing together I know we can meet the chal­lenges of this day as well.

DESCRIBE THE CONCEPT BEHIND THE WESLEY SOCIETY AND THE BENEFITS FOR THE COLLEGE AS WELL AS THOSE INVOLVED? HOW DO YOU ENVISION THE WESLEY SOCIETY FIVE AND 10 YEARS FROM NOW?

The Wes­ley Soci­ety is a group com­prised of indi­vid­u­als, busi­nesses or organiza­tions that com­mit $1000 or more on an annual basis or make an irrev­o­ca­ble planned gift to Wes­ley Col­lege. It is not sim­ply a “recog­ni­tion” soci­ety, mean­ing donors are thanked and rec­og­nized and noth­ing more. The Wes­ley Soci­ety is a “cul­ti­va­tion” soci­ety, mean­ing that we are inter­ested in form­ing strong relation­ships with and among Soci­ety mem­bers through fre­quent com­mu­ni­ca­tion and invi­ta­tions to events with Pres­i­dent John­ston and other insti­tu­tional leaders.

The Wes­ley Soci­ety was launched in Sep­tem­ber 2009. Ini­tially 69 donors qual­i­fied for mem­ber­ship. By Decem­ber the num­ber had climbed to 92. By the end of the fis­cal year on June 30, I am con­fi­dent that we will not only have met but sur­passed our goal of 125 mem­bers for the first year. A future gala cel­e­bra­tion will be planned to rec­og­nize and
thank our char­ter mem­bers and to encour­age oth­ers to join us. I have per­son­ally wit­nessed the momen­tum gen­er­ated by a cultiva­tion soci­ety and am excited about the addi­tion of The Wes­ley Soci­ety to the advance­ment efforts of this college.

What is my vision for The Wes­ley Soci­ety five and 10 years from now? It will be a dynamic group more than 500 mem­bers strong. From Soci­ety mem­bers will come more than 80% of the gifts to Wesley’s grow­ing advance­ment efforts. Planned gifts and trans­for­ma­tional gifts will be real­ized from the cul­ti­va­tion efforts with its mem­bers, result­ing in ren­o­va­tion and new con­struc­tion, some of which will carry the name of the donor. Finally, con­tin­ued growth in both the num­ber and qual­ity of Wes­ley stu­dents will be par­tially a result of the enthu­si­as­tic gift­ing of alumni, trustees, per­son­nel, busi­nesses, church sup­port­ers and other friends that are val­ued part­ners in the always unfold­ing Wes­ley story.