My colleagues and I support a lot of searches for advancement leaders across the country – big universities, regional institutions, liberal arts colleges, specialty institutions, just about every kind of 4-year institution there is. We talk to a lot of presidents and chancellors, board chairs, foundation leadership, alumni association leaders, and campaign chairs. We write a lot of position descriptions with a lot of different wants and needs. By and large, they have two things in common. One is that the institution wants to raise more money. The second is that they want to do it in a way that is seamless, coordinated, and rational.

What they want is an integrated advancement program.

Gone are the days of friend-raising (only) by alumni professionals and fund-raising (only) by development professionals. What were once two relatively distinct missions has become one continuum, and all advancement professionals – whatever their tactical responsibilities – are being measured and held accountable for deliverables. Those deliverables vary, of course, depending upon the specific responsibilities of the job, but the chief advancement officer – and the chief alumni and development officers – are first and foremost being judged by the bottom line of what the advancement program as a whole delivers in support of the institution’s mission.

My colleagues and I had been hearing this for years, but the moment that I knew that times had really changed came about three or four years ago when I was invited to speak to the Council of Alumni Association Executives at their annual conference. A search consultant from another firm and I were asked to speak about the future of leadership in alumni relations. My co-presenter and I agreed to give it to the group straight, without nuance, whatever the reaction.

We told those present – many of them friends and some of them people we had placed in their jobs – that times had changed. Colleges and universities could no longer support alumni programs that simply made alumni feel good or that had as their primary goal providing deliverables for the alumni. From this point on, we said, it was deliverables for the institution that were going to be the measure of success. It was still, as it had always been, the job of the alumni relations professional to create meaningful, substantive, and lasting engagement between alumni and their alma mater, but that engagement alone will no longer be sufficient to claim success. Something of value was going to have to be provided to further the institution’s mission, and it was going to have to be measured.

Understand, I am a former development professional. I have been going to CASE and other conferences for a very long time. I have lived through and with the tensions between development and alumni relations, and I knew what the reaction to this message could be, especially from someone with my background. My co-conspirator and I had our bags packed and the cars running at the door, expecting torches and pitchforks, if not tar and feathers, to greet our apostasy.

It didn’t happen that way.

It turns out that we were largely preaching to the choir. The senior alumni professionals present had already identified the trend and were working on how to move their programs in that direction. I was relieved. More than that, I was impressed. But I shouldn’t have been surprised.

As I noted, we write a lot of position descriptions, and I have done a lot of searches for chief alumni relations officers. For those of you who aspire to leadership of an alumni program, plan on seeing this in your job description.

• “Integration” of the advancement program, with a seamless approach to external relations that includes not only alumni relations and development, but also communications and marketing, enrollment management, and even student affairs – regardless of to whom those operations report

• “Deliverables” for the college or university, one of which will always be money but some of which will always be other things of value – recruitment of students, jobs for graduates, contacts for faculty, and/or public advocacy to name only the most obvious

• “Metrics” to measure those deliverables

• “ROI” to measure the value of those deliverables relative to the cost of producing them – i.e. return on investment

It is a new world out there for advancement professionals, one in which ROI will indeed be king. The advancement leaders of the future will understand this, maximize it, and be rewarded for it.

Good luck.

By Jeff Molter

You don’t wake up every day and expect to be engulfed in a crisis. But no matter what business you are in: higher education, healthcare or drilling oil from the sea, you have to plan for the unexpected.

A crisis has been described as a significant business disruption that gets media coverage. The public scrutiny that follows will affect your organization’s normal operations and could have a political, legal, financial and government impact.

The important issues to remember when faced with a crisis are the following: crises happen, you have to deal with them, your company or institution must deal with them, and you must strive to help recover your institution’s reputation as soon as possible.

We had a crisis at Duke University Medical Center in February 2003. A teenage girl received a heart and lung transplant at our institution. Unfortunately, an unthinkable mistake had happened; the transplanted organs were the wrong blood type. A media firestorm erupted placing the university, its doctors and staff into its most severe crisis to that date.

This tragic medical error began a difficult time for Duke and its communicators. However, Duke’s media team helped the institution restore public confidence and trust by collectively facing the hard questions from hundreds of news media across the globe, including 60 Minutes and US News and World Report. In fact, Duke’s response to this situation even resulted in improvements to the nation’s organ donor and transplant systems.

How did the institution recover?  To learn the entire story, it would be wise to take some time and read the entire chapter (see link below).

But if you take anything away from reading this, it should be that preparation is essential to survive and thrive in a crisis.  The leaders of many institutions think that bad things will never happen to them. Even when a crisis occurs, the prevailing thought by many is that they can “control” the situation and continue to go about their regular work.  Too often it’s thought that the situation will “fly under the radar.”

In a crisis, there are many things (and some people) you won’t have control of. You must be prepared in advance to have a game plan, and you must persevere to keep your institution true to that game plan.

Your game plan should include:

Prepare a crisis response plan

Prevent crisis situations before they happen

Know your company, client, or institution’s “culture”

Know your media spokespersons

There are many good crisis plans out there to review; do some homework and find a couple from various institutions to learn from.  Colleagues from your industry are often a good place to start to find solid crisis plans to study and emulate.

Many crisis situations can be managed or even avoided with persuasive public relations counsel. This doesn’t mean communications expertise can make the problem magically disappear; it means provide counsel to deal with an issue immediately, provide the necessary information to the media and others if necessary, and manage the issue into becoming a one- or two-day story instead of a problem that drags on and becomes a crisis, or even eliminate the situation before it escalates into a true crisis.

What kind of “culture” do you work in? Is your company public, private, government; open and transparent, or tightly held and close-lipped; polite or bullish? It is important to understand your organization’s culture and not let it get in the way of dealing with a crisis. You can’t change the culture, but you can alter how the outside world perceives you during a crisis.

That means engaging in media and platform training before a crisis occurs so you can help your spokesperson use the best of your culture, become a strong and coherent mouthpiece for your organization, and avoid parts of your institution’s culture that don’t translate well via the media in crisis situations.

Have a good, honest and close relationship with your leaders in advance of a crisis – and knowing who will be your key spokespersons or information providers – is key to surviving and thriving in a crisis. Who will be your lead spokesperson?  Will it be your CEO or others? Is he or she willing to do the job? Is he or she strong enough, tough enough and courageous enough to do the job? Will he or she do a good job? Will he or she be trusted by the company – or the board? Will he or she get the necessary help from others on the team to do a good job?

Have the proper spokespersons trained and ready for a crisis. Some leaders aren’t the best spokespersons. Make sure the CEO is trained and ready to go, but also plan to have others prepared, too. Ask the CEO to assure other spokespersons that this is a team effort and that they are supported as well.

Molter is a veteran health communications professional who has worked at JAMA, Duke University Medical Center, Emory Health Sciences Center and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Molter lives in Atlanta and is a member of the Patouillet Consulting LLC Advisory Board. For further information about crisis communications, contact the author @ jeffreylmolter@gmail.com.

Read the entire chapter at:

http://www.jeffreymolter.com/2011/08/crisis-communications/

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of failure lately.   Working with numerous organizations that are looking for a means to sustainability, the question often arises – if we merge, does that mean we failed?  What if we choose to dissolve?  What does that say about us?

Recently, I worked with a client to explore the potential for a merger.  We researched numerous organizations, and found a prospective partner with mission alignment, financial stability, and a great deal of interest in partnering with my client.  We entered into discussions between the two agencies, and within a few weeks discovered a number of key factors that were prohibitive to the merger.  Discussions were discontinued, and although the client was gratified at having engaged in the exploration and due diligence, the question remained.  Did we fail?

Why?  What makes us so risk-averse, so uncomfortable with uncertainty?  Generally, risk-taking has always been taboo in the nonprofit sector, most likely because our agencies are “owned” by our communities, and thus we must be responsible with the investment (financial and otherwise) that the community makes in us.  But often, that aversion to risk may deter us from progress and innovation.

Recently, there has been a spate of articles exploring the concept of failure, and what it means to both for-profit and nonprofit business.  The Harvard Business Review dedicated an entire issue to the concept in April 2011. In March, the Nonprofit Quarterly published an article called Foundations Embrace Failure: Real Lessons Learned.  A big part of the debate is whether we feign tolerance for failure to appear entrepreneurial, or whether we are actually learning real, impactful lessons from our failures.

From a consultant’s perspective, mergers and partnerships are the most complicated and risk-fraught processes that we take on.  Although in recent years there has been a focus on mergers and partnerships as a salve for the stresses on nonprofits, the process certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. Numerous factors – finances, legal issues, organizational culture, and mutual trust, to name a few – can get in the way of achieving an alliance.  On day one of negotiations, there is no way we can assure stakeholders that a collaboration or merger is going to be successful.   That being said, I will most likely advise an organization to take the risk and enter into negotiation, if it potentially means greater long-term stability and mission impact.

This is not to say that we should not try to mitigate risk when possible.  That is the whole reason we conduct our due diligence when exploring a merger, or making some other kind of risky decision.  But avoiding uncertainty and risk altogether will leave us paralyzed, not safe.

We are awfully quick to label our efforts a failure if they don’t achieve the results we envisioned when we started.  Yet rather than assuming guilt or placing blame, the better option is to learn from our failures.   Often, we find a better path, one that engenders learning and growth, on the second or third try.   Even if the result feels catastrophic, there still are meaningful opportunities to learn and apply lessons in the future – ask the thousands of serial entrepreneurs in this country.  If we successfully manage expectations of what is “supposed to happen”, and are willing to take the leap, we leave ourselves open to greater opportunity.  The end result may not look traditional, or like what we thought; it may not leave our organizations with the same structure as they began; or happen within the timeline we set out.  But if we are open to exploration and risk, and ultimately the concept of failure, we may achieve even greater impact than we ever expected.

Kate Sphar’s work with Dewey & Kaye focuses on nonprofit financial sustainability, organizational planning, restructuring, and collaboration. For further information, contact Kate at ksphar@deweykaye.com.

1.    Additional Revenue- As government funding is declining and organizations are facing challenging economic times, there is a need to generate revenue in new and creative ways. Organizations must be more dependent on philanthropic support if they are to advance their respective missions.

2.    Effective Strategic Planning- Developing a solid strategic plan focused on the organization’s mission, values, vision, strategic directions and measurable goals is one of the proven strategies to move an organization from good to great. Noted thought leader Jim Collins states, “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”

3.    Informed and Passionate Advocates- In today’s high tech world, there is still nothing more powerful than an individual person becoming an informed and passionate advocate for their given cause. For some organizations, it entails an alumnus talking with a legislator about the quality education he or she received and the importance of federal or state support to the educational enterprise. In other cases, it might be a mom or dad telling neighbors about a wonderful after school program for children with special needs. Both advocates speak with passion and give a voice to that particular cause.

4.    Committed and Effective Board Members- Educational and nonprofit boards are needed to provide key deliverables such as oversight, counsel, expertise, resources and ideas. Effective boards continually assess how well the organization is carrying out its mission, and they consider what other groups are doing in an effort to adopt and adapt new ideas as appropriate. High performing boards create a culture of open inquiry. Historically, we have observed that the most effective boards are those which ask the “tough questions” in a respectful manner, while not being complacent with the status quo.

5.    Dedicated Volunteers- It is inconceivable to think of how educational institutions and nonprofit organizations would function without a cadre of dedicated volunteers. Volunteers are the lifeblood of both types of organizations. They provide the time and talent needed to make these operations work. Did you ever calculate the billable hours of your volunteers’ time associated with a given event or board meeting? It tends to be a staggering number, and should remind us to be respectful of their time, while always extending a sincere thank you for their help.

6.    Opportunities to Tell Their Story- With increasing use of social media, organizations are seeking new ways to capitalize on these communication channels to tell their stories. It often comes down to how well organizations can demonstrate that they are truly making a difference and engaging their constituents. It is interesting to compare the number of people who visit an organization’s website or the activity level on a group’s Facebook or LinkedIn pages with the number who attend particular programs, and then analyze the amount of resources the organization dedicates to each effort. This calls into question whether we need to rethink our definition of engagement and redeploy our resources accordingly.

7.    Greater focus on Metrics- Metrics is one of those hot concepts like dashboards, which many education and nonprofit leaders are discussing today. How do we know our organizations are advancing our missions without some sense of measurement? Many organizations are struggling to identify what should be measured, exploring ways to track these metrics and then attempting to assess their impact. Dashboards present a quick “snapshot” regarding how the organization is doing over a given length of time, based upon a series of agreed upon metrics. We have collected a number of excellent examples of different kinds of dashboards used by various organizations and would be glad to share them with you if this would be helpful.

8.    Engaged Constituents- Research from the Independent Sector along with research we conducted in higher education clearly reveals a very strong correlation between engagement and investment. This investment comes in the form of giving of one’s time, talent and/or treasure. A study at a major research university revealed that overall 15 % of the alumni gave in FY’10 compared to 30- 79% giving among different cohorts we identified. Engagement clearly leads to investment.

9.    Valued Partners- In this era of having to do more with less, a key strategy is to forge effective and valued partnerships that play to the strengths of all parties involved. When is the last time your organization completed an environmental scan to see which groups might be natural partners?

10. Communities of Practice: There is a real need to continue to learn from similar organizations, and one such strategy to accomplish this objective is to be part of a community of practice. If you don’t enjoy this kind of support, consider doing a Google search, checking your LinkedIn connections or contacting your professional association to find out who might be doing similar work. Given the power of the web, online communication allows for communities of practice to be global in participation yet targeted in focus.

As we work to help advance the mission of both educational institutions and nonprofit organizations, we hope you find comfort in knowing that various enterprises within the social sector have much in common, and can learn a great deal from each other.

I welcome you to post your thoughts in the comment section below.

Thank you for all you do to advance the social sector.

Post Updated on May 20, 2011

• Introduction to Patouillet Consulting LLC
• Article Topics that will be discussed on this blog
• Ways to Participate in the Discussions

Introduction to Patouillet Consulting LLC

Dr. Lee Patouillet, president of the firm, brings more than 30 years of full-time institutional advancement experience in higher education, nonprofit management and teaching to his consulting practice. Patouillet Consulting LLC helps college, university and nonprofit leaders generate additional support and increase constituent engagement.

Patouillet has led three different alumni associations: the University of South Florida, the University of Pittsburgh and most recently the University of Florida. At all of these institutions, he served on the senior leadership team responsible for all aspects of advancement including two different capital campaigns in excess of one billion dollars each. Patouillet also has extensive experience working with nonprofit boards and organizations. He is a faculty member of Nonprofit University and serves as a consultant with the Georgia Center for Nonprofits. Patouillet Consulting enjoys the involvement and support of an advisory board comprised of industry leaders from throughout the country.

Patouillet Consulting LLC assists our clients in revenue generation (including capital campaigns, feasibility studies, annual funds, membership dues and affinity programs), creating mission focused and metrics-driven organizations, developing dynamic strategic plans, conducting program reviews, and enhancing board and staff effectiveness.

The firm also specializes in the development of constituent engagement strategies, tracking and data driven decision making, measurement and evaluation, integrating fundraising and alumni programs, and involving alumni in legislative advocacy, student recruitment, career development and student development.

Patouillet began consulting in the 1980’s and is a full-time consultant based in Atlanta, Ga. He contracts with other professionals as needed for given assignments. The firm works with public and private colleges and universities of all sizes as well as the nonprofit sector. A client list is on the website.

Article Topics

This blog will feature articles and blog posts on various advancement and nonprofit related topics including but not limited to the following topics:

• Advancement in Higher Education
• Nonprofit Organizations
• Management

Ways to Participate in the Discussions

1. Subscribe, Follow, and Connect with Patouillet Consulting

Connect with the Patouillet Consulting Blog through an email newsletter and participate in the discussion by posting comments to the articles and blog posts.

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