‘Tis the giving season.
Oh not the gift-giving season of Christmas or Hanukkah.
No, all fundraisers know that December is that busy time of
year when a wave of gifts wash in before the tax year ends. Better to give
where you choose than to give it to Uncle Sam. It can feel a bit transactional
at times.
But some days, I am reminded that what I get to do is
incredibly important and incredibly meaningful.
I awoke this Christmas Eve morning to an email from the
mother of a young woman who lost her life a handful of weeks before she was to
graduate from college. Her parents want to create a scholarship in her memory. Together, we
will work to establish a legacy that lasts beyond all of our lifetimes to honor
this girl whose life was cut too painfully short. To be able to help someone memorialize
a child, a sibling, a parent, a professor, a friend is a humbling
responsibility. It’s what makes a fundraiser’s job rewarding.
I’m asked from time to time about the most significant gift
I’ve ever secured. In some ways, the answer to that is ever-changing. New
gifts, new moments happen regularly. But there’s story I tell every time I am
asked that question. It’s not about the biggest gift I’ve ever gotten, far from
it. But it’s one I will never forget.
Early in my career as a fundraiser, I approached a retired
professor about naming an office in honor of his wife. Although it was in a new
building, by purpose, the office represented where she worked when they first
met decades before. He liked the idea and agreed to make the gift.
We decided that it would be a surprise, that the gift would
be announced at a reunion of alumni from the program, people to whom she was
very dear. For several weeks, he would stop in my office to chat, to ask how to
keep the secret from her… they had never had secrets before. We would agree on
what he should tell her that did not cross the line into deception but also
didn’t let the cat out of the bag. At the reunion dinner, the gift was
announced amid tears and smiles. It was a perfect, special moment.
The next week, she learned she had cancer. A handful of
weeks later, she was gone.
On occasion, her husband still stops in my office. Some days,
he talks about how happy he is to have made the gift when he did, to have
created that memory before illness enveloped them. And he thanks me for
bringing the opportunity to him. He thanks me.
People who look at fundraising from the outside in often
talk about its similarity to sales. They aren’t wrong; but they aren’t
particularly right either. What we do depends upon our ability to build deep,
trusting relationships with people, to hear what they say and what they don’t.
Donors trust us with something immense, not by virtue of the dollars they are
giving but with the intent their gifts fulfill.
Of course, we work for the
organizations that employ us to fill the gaps that plummeting government
funding and an aspirational vision for greatness engender. The best among us
know that we also work for our donors. Finding ways to help them accomplish their
goals, in concert with those of our organizations, allows all of us to create
transformative change. It is far from transactional.
At Purdue, and particularly in Liberal Arts, we crack wise
about rocket science a lot. As the alma mater to the first and last man to walk
on the moon, as well as many other astronauts along the way, it’s not terribly
uncommon to bump into a rocket scientist. And we do concede that what we do,
fundraising, isn’t rocket science.
But some days, we are reminded that what we do, in a profoundly
human way, allows us to reach new heights as well.
