The Six R's of International School Fundraising
This is how Fundraising (with a capital "F") works
For Boards of Trustees of international schools that have committed to launching a fundraising program, the difficult decisions may seem to be limited to if and how to fund the position of Advancement Director, and who to hire. But the commitment must go beyond this, to an understanding that the Trustees themselves (and those who follow them) will be called on to to play an ongoing role in ensuring the success of the school’s fundraising efforts.
Successful Advancement Directors do not operate independently. They do not possess magic pixie dust that they sprinkle on people to make them want to part with their money. The ideal Director of Advancement is like a conductor of an orchestra. And a conductor needs musicians, otherwise she’s just standing up there waving her arms around and humming to herself while people wonder what she’s doing. She’ll attract a few inquistive people, but we’re unlikely to fill the hall with a paying audience.
There is a maxim in fundraising, that it works when the right person asks the right person for the right amount at the right time in the right way for the right project. These are, “The Six R’s.” For now, let’s focus on the right person asking the right person.
Similar to other charities with nuanced Cases for Support, fundraising in international schools is based on personal relationships and trust. A new Director of Advancement knows no one. She may be the right person to ask the rest of the Leadership Team, and maybe even some Trustees. And over time, she’ll certainly get to know more people. But she’ll never know everyone, and despite all the emails, cards, speeches, and brochures, almost no one will give until they get a personal ask from the right person. If we expect the Director of Advancement to do this on her own, we will never achieve the culture shift necessary to become a Fundraising school. So we need an army of canvassers who can speak passionately about the why’s and how’s of fundraising at our school.
Where do we find these people?
To start with, it must be a given that the Board of Trustees understands that their main role (after hiring the Head) is to ensure the future financial security of the school, and doing that depends very much on becoming a Fundraising school. Whatever else they may feel is their duty as a Trustee, they must believe that the Case for Support of the school is worthy of their own philanthropic support, not just the support of others. They must want to understand how and why the school fundraises, and they must be passionate enough about it to be able to answer questions and start conversations. It may take 20, 50, or more, years to achieve an Endowment that secures the school, but without their unwavering support, that day of financial security will always be somewhere in the distant future.
Next, schools that have committed themselves to fundraising know that they need an Advancement Committee, but very often they’re not quite sure what that committee is supposed to be doing. Should they be giving ideas? About what? Fundraising? Marketing? Alumni? Communications? Unless the school has hired someone with no experience in the sector at all, knowing what to do is not the problem… it’s having the bandwidth to do what she already knows needs to be done. So meeting each month with a group of well-intentioned volunteers so that they can give their opinions on what should be done isn’t really going to help very much, and in the end it’s going to frustrate those volunteers (“What are we doing here?”). That’s a real shame, because these people do very much want to help the school achieve its mission. To that end, the Advancement Committee should be plain and simply a hands-on Fundraising Committee, with agreed-to numeric goals. Meetings should be about training in all things fundraising (Case for Support, Annual Fund, Endowment, etc.) so that they can act as Ambassadors in the community when they’re not actually canvassing for donations.
In addition to the Advancement Committee, we want a PTA* Annual Fund Committee; similar to the Advancement Committee, these volunteers speak passionately and clearly about the why and how, but only for the Annual Fund, and only for current parents. They have training and numeric targets, and their goal is to outperform last year (how much easier and scalable is that than having a gala?!).
And finally, we want to develop an effective Alumni Council with a sub-committee for Giving. Their focus is on effective education and canvassing of (surprise, surprise) Alumni.
Remember that with all of these volunteers, it’s not just about the ask; perhaps even more importantly, it’s about the conversation and the explanation. The majority of our community wouldn’t ever ask me to explain the how’s and why’s of fundraising at our school, even if they found themselves face to face with me. But they may very well bring it up at dinner with their friend or acquaintance who they know is on one of these committees. “Why should I give to the Annual Fund when I already pay so much for tuition?,” they ask. If the response is, “I don’t know, ask Clive,” that’s it, the moment is gone. That person was saying, “You’re the right person for me to ask, not Clive.” The correct response to any question for which the volunteer doesn’t know the answer is, “That’s a great question; let me find out and I’ll get back to you.” They call the conductor, the conductor gives the answer, the volunteer is now not only educated in how to answer the question in future, but is able to fulfill his role of being the right person to deliver the answer to the right person. And that’s a pretty good substitute for pixie dust.
By the way, if you’re wondering what the answer is to, “Why should I give to the Annual Fund when I already pay so much for tuition?,” let’s make that the subject of the next post.
*Parent Teacher Association or its equivalent parent organization.