May 1994
Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina
11
Hearn
Continued from page 10
many fine young people.
In my first experience with a
major donor years ago, I learned
what giving means to the giver. My
institution had a desperate need for
space for teaching the fine arts, and
a donor emerged who wanted to
build this space. A successful man
with no formal education beyond
high school, he had as an adult
acquired a deep appreciation for the
arts. His life had been immensely
enriched by these interests, and he
regretted having missed the opportu
nity to study the arts formally. The
building had a deep personal signifi
cance for him. It pleased him that
young people were being given val
ues and interests he had come to
cherish.
As we walked throng the build
ing after its dedication, with
painters, musicians, dancers and
others at work in every room, he
thanked me for the opportunity the
institution had given him. “Nothing I
have ever done has given me so
much satisfaction,” he said. We
remained friends until his death. It
was a satisfying relationship for both
of us, grounded in his generosity and
pleasure at the meaning of his suc
cess for generations of students and
faculty.
There are many such stories.
Successful people want their
achievements to serve values they
cherish.
Their values find expression in
contributions to the institutions
whose programs can make future
opportunities for many. Thus do gen
erous people of vision create a better
future.
Mattox
Continued from page 10
major fundraising opportunities into
minor ones simply because we fail to
articulate a vision and strategy that
captures the donor’s wider interests
and imagination. Better strategies
will contain (1) multiple require
ments that are well integrated; (2)
specific means of measuring results;
and (3) greater long-term benefits to
the recipient institution than the sum
of the parts would indicate.
4. Identify and empower the solic
itor. James F. Girand of Palo Alto,
Calif., a 1959 graduate of Duke’s
School of Engineering, served as our
the solicitor. We worked with Jim
and the project champion. Assistant
Professor David Overhauser, to iden
tify tangible, achievable goals and
begin the strategy to achieve them.
The solicitor is the critical link.
Jim served as intermediary between
our champion and donors, reconcil
ing their diverse interests. The soUci-
tor structures and shapes the cham
pion’s strategy to appeal to the
donor. He or she also identifies the
donor’s motivation and interest and
shapes the university’s strategy to
satisfy the donor’s needs.
The most effective soHcitors work
closely with prospective donors, and
already have relationships with the
key executives whose support is nec
essary to closing the gift.
5. Individual recognition. Every
nickel the university invests in care
fully targeted ways to recognize
donors and volunteers is critical. But
while public recognition ensures
some good wiU, it doesn’t guarantee
the project’s overall success.
6. Bypass the bureaucracy. Even
the best organizations contain peo
ple who simply want to continue
doing business as usual. The most
creative fundraising strategies can
stall out if the champion, solicitor
and development staff wait for the
bureaucracy. Schools that recognize
the partnership matches they need,
and the ability to cut red tape to
seize opportunities at crucial
moments, will reach their goals and
build a reputation appreciated by the
aggressive corporate world.
To bypass the bureaucracy, how
ever, is not to bypass institutional
leaders. The fundraising team —
internal champion, outside volunteer
solicitor and development staff —
that employs our model should culti
vate high-level support within the
organization. Deans and administra
tors must see the project as a priori
ty to enable the team to focus on
areas of defined importance. Success
depends directly on high-level, inter
nal support.
The development team’s task is
to build consensus between institu
tional players by creatively linking
their diverse institutional goals. Our
model will not replace traditional
corporate fundraising, but it can
work for a specific project in a par
ticular industry. From a development
officer’s perspective, the return on
time invested was well worth the
effort — and risk — in securing sup
port on campus for our test case.
While our overall approach is new,
then, our model still relies on those
time-tested elements of all successful
fundraising: building relationships
and matching interests.
Letters
It’s all right to care
TT^hile the overall information
VV contained in the Philan
thropy Journal is most helpful to my
work in the nonprofit sector, an arti
cle by Stephanie Smith titled
“Women Prisoners Search for A
Voice” (April 1994) is, for me, the
best article published to date.
Besides identifying with her work
with criminal offenders (I serve as
Director of GAPS — Greater After
Prison Support), I appreciate even
more the understanding and compas
sion she shared in her writing.
Regardless of the focus, strategy,
needs or population served, Ms.
Smith seems to personify the type of
dedication to which all in human ser
vice work are called.
Though they are very different
from herself, she appears to know
firsthand the frustrations and hopes
of the clients with whom she works.
She writes with an obvious display of
sharing their frustrations and their
hopes.
Yet she handles her own frustra
tions with those angered by crime
and criminals. Though such citizens
are also very different from her with
regard to solutions, she seems to
understand and be non-judgmental of
them as well.
Thank you for pubhshing her arti
cle. For me, it reinforced not only
that it is OK to feel strongly about
what you are trying to accomplish,
but in fact, it is exactly how we
should feel.
I hope the Philanthropy Journal
win consider more articles that: 1)
reveal the very human condition of
many persons in our state, and 2)
challenge us in the field of human
service to Keep on caring deeply.
CATHY EPPERSON
Executive Director
GAPS (Greater After Prison Support)
Gastonia
The News and Observer Fouadatloii
Boaed op DiapcTOBS
FrankDanielsJr. Patricia Woronoff
Wrrr Clarke Mel Raw Jr.
Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina
Board of Advisers
Barbara Aten
Joyce Fitzpatrick
Coiinne Alien
: Joel Fleishman
Joyce Adger . ,
»» Barbara Freedman
William Aniyan Jr.
r iam«Goodmon
George Autiy
Marilyn Hartman
John Bell
Jane Kendall
David BHievides
Thomas Lambeth
PhilipvBlumenthal
Elizabeth Locke
William Bondurant
Michad Manacano?
tonefth Brown
Todd Milter
Robert Bush'
Mary Mountcastle
HeniyCrter '"
.1 JohnNiWock
Julius Chambas •" ’
Jane Patterson
RayCope - '
Michael Rose
Julia Daniels
SiannonSt.John
Gayle Dorman
Chartes Sanders
John Doman
Donald Sanders
Ronald Drago
Mary D.B.T. Semans
Weniworth Durgin
‘ Patricia Smith
Martin lakes*
Sherwood Smith
Blucher Ihringhaus 111
Wiliam Spencer
Meredith; Emmett
Ronald Swain
Elizabeth Fentress
SmedesYork
Ideas
Sharpening the focus
Incoming Independent Sector president looks ahead
Independent Sector, the national
organization for nonprofits, has
named Sara Melendez to suc
ceed Brian O’Connell as presi
dent on Sept. 1. Melendez, a
Puerto Rican native who grew
up in Brooklyn, N.Y., is presi
dent of the Center for Applied
Linguistics in Washington.
O’Connell, who founded Inde
pendent Sector, will join the
Lincoln Filene Center at Tufts
University in Boston. Melendez
talked with the Philanthropy
Journal the day after she was
named, and the week before
national nonprofit leaders met
with President Clinton in the
White House.
JOURNAL: What are your top
priorities?
MELENDEZ: Two major issues
are the role of the Independent
Sector, meaning both grantors and
nonprofit organizations, as we move
into the next century. And, as we look
at changing demographics in the
United States, the changing nature of
work, and the implications of
increased needs for services that gov
ernment cannot and probably in
some cases should not provide, ^^at
does that mean for the kinds of non
profit organizations we have? Does it
mean we have new ones, with new
visions and new strategies, or just
that the ones we have need to incor
porate new visions and new strate
gies? That’s a very important dia
logue and I think that Independent
Sector should be at the forefront of
that dialogue.
We still have work to do in
strengthening public perception
about the nonprofit world, and that is
a two-way process. Those organiza
tions that have been having difficulty
need help in improving their manage
ment and governance. Some organi
zations that have had difficulty with
their image may need to work on
improving their management and
governance. Some of them may need
to do a better job of getting out the
story about their good work. So
Independent Sector could play a dou
ble role — one in helping organiza
tions improving accountability proce
dures, improve their decision-making
that uses the values and ethics that
the sector has been talking about.
The other side of what the
Independent Sector could do about
perceptions and image is to get out
the stoiy more. The good story. The
good organizations that are doing
good work all the time with the hip
est standards of values and ethics
and of accountabflity.
Also, there is a lot of work to be
done in terms of increasing the
awareness among Americans of the
importance of their contributing both
their funds and their time to volun
teer work. That is a major part of
what Independent Sector does, and I
continue to see that being a major
part of its work.
JOURNAL: What specific tactics
wiU you use to put those strategies
into effect?
MELENDEZ: The organization
has been doing some work in ethics
and values and developing some tools
that organizations can use in self-
assessment. They have been doing
some work in evaluation models that
organizations can do to evaluate the
effectiveness of their work. Obviously
Q&A
a strategy is to disseminate this infor
mation as broadly as possible and
perhaps to provide some technical
assistance to organizations to im
prove their own organizational pro
cesses.
JOURNAL: Partnerships are
becoming increasingly important to
bring about social change. What do
you see as nonprofits’ role in forming
partnerships? How can you increase
partnerships while at the same time
avoiding turf problems?
MELENDEZ: That is one of the
roles that Independent Sector can
legitimately play, being a forum for
bringing together people from all the
sectors to talk about how we can best
leverage one another’s resources.
How can we combine resources to put
together collaborative partnership to
do the things that each one of us can
not do alone, to avoid any possible
duplication or reinventing the wheel?
Also, I think that that is a way to
make sure that we are not working at
cross purposes.
So we need to have an ongoing
conversation between government,
the nonprofit world and the private
sector so that we can understand one
another’s needs, and the limits of the
resources of each sector. So that
when we devise a joint strategy, it’s
one that we all understand, we all
understand our role in it and our
piece of it, and we reduce any possi
bility of both waste and a strategy
that may benefit one sector at the
expense of the other.
For example, some nonprofits do
job skills training. They really need to
be talking on a constant basis with
Sara Melendez
people in the
private sector
to make sure
that the job
skills they are
providing are
what the pri
vate sector
needs. We also
need to be talk
ing with the
private sector
on an ongoing
basis to ensure
that if they are teaching technology,
they have access to state-of-the-art
technology.
And we also need an ongoing con
versation between the private and
nonprofit sector and government, and
one topic, for example, that I think
that conversation mi^t deal with is
the desirability of a nonprofit sector
that can engage in advocacy. In
Congress at the moment, there are
proposals to require what the sector
feels is excessive and unnecessary
reporting on advocacy activities.
There seems to be a desire on
some people in Confess to limit the
amount of advocacy that nonprofit
people engage in. Think about it.
Look at what advocacy achieved for
us in terms of the civil rights move
ment and civil ri^ts legislation. And
think of how the ri^ts and status of
women have changed as a result of
the women’s movement. And we need
to have advocacy for the arts and the
humanities because they don’t have
many champions. So I think our soci
ety needs organizations that can play
an advocacy role as well as render
services.
And without tax exemption, it
becomes almost impossible, because
these organizations depend on contri
butions.
JOURNAL: You mentioned the
role of government. Under the cur
rent administrations in Washington
and Raleigh, there’s a new role for
the nonprofit sector. What are the
challenges and opportunities in that
newTelationship?
MELENDEZ: I have a sense that
that is still being worked out, but
there is a definite role for, at the very
least, a lot of cross-poUination among
these sectors. For example, the White
House has invited a group of leaders
in the nonprofit sector for a meeting
[April 12]. That’s the result of work
among many people in nonprofit sec
tor to make that happen for a while.
Part of what the nonprofit sector
is looking for is more exposure for
the sector to the administration, and
vice versa. There is an incredible
amount of expertise and knowledge
and experience of the people who
work in the nonprofit sector. So when
they are looking at designing new pol
icy and looking for new legislation,
there is this great collection of people
who could be a resource to them. Part
of what people in the nonprofit sector
hope will happen is they will be called
on more for information and advice
for policies in which they have this
experience.
Part of what’s been in papers
recently is welfare reform. I don’t
know to what extent the administra
tion has reached out to groups that
have worked in welfare issues. And
health care, education, the arts and
housing. There are nonprofit organi
zations working in almost every sin
gle issue that the administration has
to deal with from a legislation and
policy perspective.