What the stuff in your workspace says about you

Picture a skinny field goal kicker standing next to a 350-pound defensive lineman.

What Members Are Thinking and Sharing

Estimados amigos de nuestra organización. Forgive me if my Spanish is not quite perfect, as I am only a few lessons into my Rosetta Stone tutorial. During my recent visit to Mexico for Congreso CASE América Latina, where I had the benefit of translators and the people whom I met were kind enough to speak English to me, it became apparent that it was time for me to learn another language.

Three finalists were competing for a university's advancement vice presidency. One candidate was an alumni director at a U.S. public institution with more than 300,000 alumni. The other two had worked on campaigns and closed major gifts. The alumni director was a leader in his field, had built relationships and managed teams, and understood all aspects of advancement. He aspired to become a college president. Despite his qualifications, the search committee refused to gamble on someone who lacked fundraising experience.

When Chris Pipkins walks the exhibitor space at advancement conferences, he sees a wide array of products, many offered by new and unfamiliar companies. As the associate vice president for advancement information services at James Madison University in Virginia, Pipkins says he fields more calls and emails from potential vendors than he once did.

"I'm happy to do anything, except ask for money." Work in educational advancement long enough, and you'll probably hear those words from a foundation or governing board member. For some volunteers, asking for financial gifts produces anxiety—and most people are already dealing with pressure in their life. The last thing they need is more stress from a volunteer job. Discomfort with asking can be a major stumbling block for fundraising success. But the ask is only one step in a larger creative process that's intentionally managed to attract donor investment. Reluctant board members can still help our cause, even if they're not making an ask. Here's how to play to their strengths.

Despite the University of Melbourne's ranking as a top Australian university, people didn't always view it as a research institution that's tackling the world's challenges. In September 2015, Melbourne launched its "Collision" brand campaign—with an eponymous 60-second TV commercial as its centerpiece—to demonstrate that it is a place where great minds collide. The ad opens with a seated woman who suddenly leaps up, runs, and unexpectedly hurls herself into a passerby who catches her. University community members rush to the scene, then come together and move as one to form a human skull, a rolling sea, and a growing tree. Voiceovers of researchers discussing these subjects in audio clips are interspersed with sound effects such as ocean waves. The spot garnered more than 1.5 million views on Facebook and YouTube, achieved strong recall among target audiences, and improved people's perception of the university.

What Members Are Thinking and Sharing

In September 2016, Stanford University made a surprising decision: We eliminated our phone program for fundraising, the result of a dramatic rise in negative responses to our calling. In 2011, for every eight people who answered our calls and made gifts, only one said, "Never call me again." By 2015, the ratio was 3-to-1. From complaints in our general inbox to offhand comments in meetings with alumni, we knew that our calls were alienating prospective donors—and that we were compromising tomorrow's gifts with today's annoying asks.