10 • Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina
Opinion
May 1994
Time to act
Cmimunities have everything at stake in our children
/ f you haven’t noticed, life is a horror
for many of our children. Raised by
people who themselves were robbed of
their childhood, infants and young
sters today are cheated of health and security
even before they are bom. And once here, they
are battered by violence, poverty and sickness.
They grow up hungry, poorly educated, fright
ened and angry. The street — and its often vio
lent ways — are their family and their home.
These children are America’s future parents
and workers. What kinds of children they
rear? And what kind of society will they buUd?
In the face of the crisis of America’s children.
our leaders in Washington, in
Raleigh and throughout our
communities seem finally to be
talking the ri^t talk about children. Their mes
sage is that a community is a family, and every
member of that family is responsible for its chil
dren.
Now, we all must leam to translate that talk
into individual and collective acts that truly
make life better for our children.
Smart Start, Gov. Jim Hunt’s effort to ensure
that children get a healthy boost in their earliest
years, will succeed or fail on the ability of
diverse elements within local communities to
EDITORIAL
pull together for their chil-
dren.
Yet, already, there are
mumblings that territoriality threatens to stymie
Smart Start even before it can begin to crawl.
Marian Wright Edelman, America’s most
passionate advocate for children, says that
Smart Start can be a model for community team
work on behalf of children. But she also warns
that North Carolinians have a long way to go.
Children in our state have more serious obsta
cles to overcome than in most other states. And
Smart Start simply is the promise of community,
a promise that will be delivered only when each
of us is willing to contribute and to work togeth
er.
There’s no choice, really, because our chil
dren are our futoe. To make it a future we can
live with, we’re going to have to work together to
build our communities. Community organiza
tions and government bureaucrats must move
beyond their preoccupation with who’s in con
trol and begin working together for children.
Business and religious leaders must get more
involved, and use their resources for children.
And each of us must take the httle steps and the
large ones to create communities that care
about children.
A noble task
Development a tool
of university advocacy
“I
sn’t it difficult to be always
raising money?” This frequent
ly encountered comment
reflects the perception that uni
versity presidents spend their energies in the
distasteful business of raising money.
In my experience as president of Wake
Forest University, this notion is wholly mistak
en. Having devoted considerable time to Wake
Forest’s successful Heritage and Promise capi
tal campaign and other development efforts, I
find that fundraising has not dominated my cal
endar during my 10 years in office. Moreover,
nothing about development is unpleasant, nor
does it resemble begging or coercion.
Fundraising is a positive part of my life as
president.
As Wake Forest’s chief spokesman and
advocate, I count fundraising as one important
part of institutional advocacy. Presenting my
university’s strengths and opportunities is a
primary task of my office, one which I am
proud and honored to perform. It would be odd
to regard the development part of this respon
sibility with distaste.
Fundraising arises from the
great tradition of charitable giving
in the United States, one of our
nation’s most notable and noble
features. Successful individuals
and corporations share a commit
ment to the creation of strong edu
cational and human service institu
tions. No other society matches this
commitment to voluntarism and
THOMAS
HEARN
Thomas Heam is president
of Wake Forest University in
Winston-Salem.
undraising
is a positive part
of my life
as president.
philanthropy on
the American
model. From this
natural commit
ment arises the
mission of devel
opment. Most successful Americans want their
success to count for public as well as private
benefit. Were individuals or corporations not
possessed of charitable intent, no president
would ever talk to them about a university’s
needs.
The American imiversity is, tor the best of
reasons, a favored object of charitable giving,
for its engages in two of society’s most basic
undertakings — the pursuit of truth as the
basis of civilized life aud the preparation of the
young for lives of service. Education is the cre
ation of the human future.
Long relationships established between
donors and educational institutions give
donors a thorough understanding of the instito
tion and its needs. Such relationships bring
deep personal satisfaction to the donor as well
as value to the institution. Twenty-
five years ago, the Carswell family
of Charlotte created a scholarship
program at Wake Forest. Until her
death, Clara Carswell came each
year for a birthday party the
Carswell Scholars gave her. I sat
with her on several of these occa
sions, and she told me that nothing
in her life gave her more personal
satisfaction than knowing that her
late husband’s generosity had con
tributed to the education of so
Look for HEARN, page 11
A fundraising model
Cultivating corporate
gifts takes creativity
“r'T ^ithin an eight-month period
I ^ / this year, Duke University’s
^ ^ School of Engineering acquired
f f gifts of sophisticated comput
er-aided design software worth more than $36
million. The ^s in turn helped win impressive
discounts on computer workstations.
Oim work su^sts a new model for corpo
rate fundraising that can be duplicated to fit
the needs and resources of other institutions.
The same volunteer who spearheaded the
strategy and did most of the legwork also artic
ulated the five-point fundraising model.
1. Establish the “internal champion.” The
individual, usually a faculty member, “owns”
the project for the educational institution. He or
she is the person on whom donors can depend
to get the maximum benefit from their contribu
tion. The champion must be willing to work
hard, provide quick responses to donors’ ques
tions, alter the strategy “on the fly” and inte
grate donors’ varying expectations into the
overall fundraising strategy — in short, do
everything that communicates total personal
commitment to the project.
2. Define the requirement. The
fundraising project must be pre
cisely defined and tangible. In
Duke’s example, before a single
solicitation was made, the engi
neering project was given a proper
name; the Design Automation
Technology Center. This important
step framed the requirement in real
Pamela Mattox is associate
director of corporation relations
for Duke University’s develop
ment office.
orporate
donors in the '90s
ask "wh/' and
expect specific,
tangible answers
and results
for their largess.
time and space,
and provided the
gift with a home
grounded in an
academic environ
ment prepared to
receive and use it.
In today’s intensely competitive business
environment, corporate officers face increas
ingly strict scrutiny of stockholders. So a uni
versity finds it tough to raise support for
research, for instance, if it has not clearly artic
ulated the tangible benefits of that research.
But corporate donors also want to improve the
education of undergraduates and graduate stu
dents who will make up their industry’s labor
pool. Since corporate donors help ensure their
own future technical competitiveness by seed
ing today’s university labs, we easily convinced
our prospects of the benefits of providing stu
dents with advanced software and computers.
A well-defined, specific project focused on
improving student education is far more com
pelling than a general proposal seeking funds
to support broader institutional
goals. Corporate donors in the ‘90s
ask “why” and expect specific, tan
gible answers and results for their
largess.
3. Articulate the strategy.
Traditionally, corporate solicita
tions consist of specific requests
seeking specific solutions. Since it
is difficult to coordinate the diverse
interests of a university’s schools
or colleges, we often under-ask our
most capable donors, turning
Look for MATTOX, page 11
Philanthropy Journal
of North Carolina
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of North Carolina
is a monllily publication of
*The New and Observer Foundation,
a 501(c) (3) private foundation
funded by The News and Observer
Publishing Co., Ralei^ N.C,
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Charles Kuralt finds home on the road
' harlotte native Charles Kuralt
m * may have retired from CBS News,
■ / but in his retirement, he’ll be
retracing the tracks that consis
tently helped him find America’s home.
In his career, which led from The Daily Tar
Heel at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill to The Charlotte News to CBS,
Kur^t tracked down a lot of stories.
The world has become an uglier place since
Kuralt began reporting in the 1950s. Millions of
people today live in despair, their lives engulfed
in violence, poverty and sickness.
Yet looking back, Kuralt sees a world today
with more promise and hope.
“We really do care more about one anoth
er,” he says. “This is a far more human and
decent country than it was when I was working
here in the ‘50s.”
Indeed, he says, America’s saving grace is
the philanthropic impulse of its people.
“'There is such a thing as a national con
science,” he recently told the annual meeting in
Charlotte of the Foundation for the Carolinas.
“That conscience has been touched and awak-
ABOUT CHANGE
ened.”
What’s more, American philanthropy has
grown up “outside government, even in spite of
government.”
And that philanthropy, Kuralt says, is naive:
“We believe there is a solution to every prob
lem. We are problem-solvers.”
Another North Carolina native and former
Daily Tar Heel editor, 'Thomas Wolfe, wrote a
novel, “You Can’t Go Home Again.”
But, after a distinguished and passionate
career on the road as a newsman, Kuralt has
concluded that Americans have indeed come
home. And they are graced in their belief that
“even in a complex technological society, it is
true that one man or woman can make a differ
ence.”
Since Kuralt’s youth, American attitudes
have changed radically, thanks to the work of
pioneers who fought for civil rights, environ
mental protection, consumer protection and the
ri^ts of women.
“I have found a lot
there on the road to be
confident about,” Kuralt
says. “I have hoped we
may be growing, not just
in numbers and we^th,
but in more important
ways, in wisdom and
humanity.”
Philanthropy is do
ing good, building com
munity and making a
difference. In his years
on the road, Kuralt told
the stoiy of American philanthropy, treating us
to tales of people who, each in his or her own
way, saw a problem and figured the best way to
solve it was to tackle it strai^t on.
Kuralt told us their tales. And in doing so,
he ended up embodying the spirit of American
philanthropy he celebrated. 'Through his cho
sen medium, he has helped to connect us with
one another, strengthening our community.
Todd Cohen
Charles Kuralt