Million Dollar Baby
Posted on August 8th, 2007
My latest Chronicle of Higher Education column is out this week. This time, I recall the final frantic day of our fiscal year, during which my office tried to reach a fund raising milestone.
Here's a bit:
People often ask me, I suppose just to make conversation and appear curious, if fund raising has a "busy season." The question implies there are cycles in the development calendar, with some "seasons" involving heightened activity and others offering rest, relaxation, and spa treatments.
The answer, of course, is yes. We do have our busy seasons, at least in my experience. Two, to be exact. One is December, when folks scurry to make year-end gifts in order to realize tax benefits the following April. Christmas has concluded, and the credit-card bills haven't yet come home to roost. I call that sudden realization of tax strategy "emergency philanthropy."
Our second busy time occurs at the end of the fiscal year. At most colleges, that is June 30. I don't know exactly why the higher-ed gods chose that date when drawing up the master plan, but someone got the bright idea that it made eminent sense to kick off fiscal festivities on July 1, and it stuck. So June 30 signifies our year end. Naturally, that confuses folks whose calendars conclude with December. I can instantly recognize the quizzical look when I remind someone in September that he's yet to make a gift "this year," even though he wrote his last check in April.
Come May, my fund-raising staff kicks into overdrive with an 11th-hour direct-mail and phone blitz. I call board members who haven't given since July and encourage them to accommodate our fiscal time frame instead of theirs. Most comply. By the time late June rolls around, we get rather frantic.
A few alumni and friends have grown accustomed to our June stampede and routinely drop in on the 30th or thereabouts. Others ask us to drive across town and pick up checks or to rendezvous in some convenient location. I'm always happy to oblige, even when the donation will hardly cover lunch, let alone a hot-oil Pedicure.
That task became infinitely more complex this year because the city fathers decided that June 29, the last business day of the month, was the perfect date to hold the annual bike race through the campus. The event actually spanned the entire region, but this particular leg brought racers right by our front door. Most of the streets around the campus were closed, and parking was essentially impossible. We were on our last fund-raising lap, with the finish line clearly in view, and we couldn't even cross the street for fear of getting flattened by a blur of spandex.
Read the rest here….
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