What exactly is a culture of philanthropy? For me it is an appreciation within an organisation, from the top all the way down, of the importance of donations, grants and bequests. And of the givers themselves, including volunteers who are givers of time and effort. The top means the board and the senior executive group, not just the chair and the CEO. All the way down means including those vital people who meet and greet visitors at the reception desk, who answer the phones or who serve the drinks and nibbles at our events. In the very centre, of course, are the program people, the operations staff: the field workers, artists, teachers and researchers who actually do the work that donors and volunteers support.
How do you grow a culture of philanthropy? And whose responsibility is it? Well the good news is it is uses exactly the same skills you use every day as a fundraiser. To grow a culture of philanthropy, you talk to people. You tell your colleagues stories about what you do, the people you work with, their challenges, hopes and frustrations. But more, much more, than that, you listen.
The enjoyable times and successes in my fundraising career happened because development teams I have worked in were social hubs. Thier spokes radiated to lots of other people in different parts of the organisation. So we had conversations, listened to criticisms, and built relationships with all kinds of colleagues surrounding us. This led to our discovering donors, learning about projects and developing great cases for support. It led to those surrounding colleagues sharing and enjoying fundraising. And it led to those colleagues becoming donors themselves.
The first signs of an incipient culture of philanthropy are when a development office becomes the “come to” office. When people drop by because they want to chat and engage with the development team. In an arts festival where I worked, the development office was the first place where people would come to learn about the programming plans. These weren't secret. It was just that the programmers, the artistic team were to wound up in their own daily grind to share their information. So marketing staff and the education people would learn in advance what they needed to know about the program from the development team. In return, we discovered opportunities and got involved in things the marketers and education team could plan which we then could take to potential supporters.
Another example involved a development office in a university that was, unfortunately, having something of a leadership crisis. The development office, which was very new, was in danger of losing its ability to engage with donors and continue to raise funds because of that. But we identified worthwhile projects (and even donors) and started some green shoots of philanthropy. This was because between us we engaged widely with colleagues across faculties and the administration. Ultimately, the university was lucky enough, eventually, to recruit a dynamic VC who believed in development and prepared to invest in it. It subsequently has been very successful at development.
This brings me back to the point that a culture of philanthropy has to run from the top leadership through all points below. Once the CEO, the chair, board members and senior staff feel comfortable dropping into the development office to share their experiences you can be sure that there truly is a culture of philanthropy at work.
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