their health, and get them out to socialize.’ Making the cause more specific made us more successful,” she says. Julius Jones says the “trick” is getting people to give for


the first time. “if they do it once, you usually will get a lifetime of support. And another thought, there are very few people who give below a high level that need to see their names on a plaque or a building. They give because they think it is right to do. They do not need recognition. They only need to know they gave to something that was worth supporting.” Laraine Robison G’99, director of the Annual Fund for


Springfield College, solicits donations with a range of strategies including direct mail, reunion class appeals, and peer-to-peer solicitations. “People tell me they couldn’t do my job - asking people for money. i say it’s simply talking with people and offering them an opportunity to which they can say yes or no. it’s always up to them. it’s about building relationships and letting the giving follow. Some people are philanthropic by nature, having grown up with it. Some you have to get to know a bit and do some educating about what they are giving to and what the impact will be. others you really have to sell to—but, ultimately, it is the choice of the donor. So for us, it is making a case on how they can make a difference,” she says. Karl Zacker ’78, G’83, who works in alumni development


at indiana University and was a former assistant director of giving at the College in the 1980s, saw success in personal appeals. “Here at indiana, and i know at Springfield College as well, we instill in donors that every gift is important. At Springfield College, i know that when we reached out to a classmate with a personal phone call the person was more likely to give because someone he was connected to asked. Post cards, letters or other non-personal contacts become very hard to react to,” he points out. There is a belief that educating students early on, even


those who are paying full tuition, about the need to give is a key because it can be argued that they, too, benefit from a college’s endowment and from alumni support. Robert Mosca ’97 who works in university relations at Wesleyan University says students need to understand the importance of giving, even small gifts: “one of the things we say here at Wesleyan is the power of your gift is 20 times what you give. A five percent return on a gift of $100 is worth $2,000 over time. So, cumulative gifts of $100 add up to something substantial over time. We also illustrate to them that high participation rates encourage bigger donors who like to see involvement. We try to show them that they have a stake in the future. Springfield College graduates have student loans, and i still do, too, but a good way to meet that objection for putting off giving is by telling them that they are helping the value of their diploma by keeping the College in good fiscal and physical shape. Professional fundraisers talk of a pyramid, in business they say you spend 80 percent of your


TRIANGLE 1 Vol . 83, No. 2


time on 20 percent of your customers. in fund raising they say you spend 95 percent of your time on five percent of your donors. We should probably try to build more at the middle and bottom because eventually that is where the bigger donors come from,” he notes. The strategies for


approaching donors have changed at Springfield College. Phil Dwyer notes that the College’s apologetic mindset about asking for money began to change in the 1980s. “Karl Zacker had a lot to do with setting the bar higher and meeting higher expectations; the College began do better when they changed the approach,” Phil remembers. Karl recalls that a partnership with business was the impetus: “There was a feeling that we should not be asking alumni who just paid a lot to go to school for donations, but we changed the thinking process by deciding to go after every gift we possibly could for the good of the College. i worked with Rocky Allen ’69, G’70, still a very active alumnus, who was then with Cigna Corporation. He was phenomenal at opening the doors of Cigna corporate offices all over the east coast for use by Springfield College alumni volunteers to call local alumni for gifts. We really focused on a percentage of giving and had an incredible run, boosting our numbers significantly because alumni were touching alumni. We were unapologetic about asking for gifts of any size, and i think it was a real turning point for the donation process at Springfield College. “it appears there are as many ‘selling propositions’ to get


people to give as there are reasons people give. And fundraising is also changing from the standpoint of how people want to feel about their gifts. Thirty years ago people would be asked to fund a building or a facility; it was more about ‘bricks and mortar.’ it’s different now. They want to hear that the kids who gather at the church and need a safe place to be are going to have that place,” says Phil Dwyer. “Today i’ve got to sell the human need, not the bricks and mortar. There is also a more hands-on motivation in giving. it used to be more prestigious to sit on a board of a charitable organization, today just washing dishes in the local soup kitchen resonates with people,” he adds.


Continued on next page 9


“... I know that when we reached out to a classmate with a personal phone call the person was more likely to give because someone he was connected to asked.”


Karl Zacker ’78


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