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Building a Culture of Philanthropy
12 Plays10 days ago
Today I'm joined by someone I'm genuinely honored to call a thought partner — Jim Langley. Jim is President of Langley Innovations, and he spent 30 years in higher education advancement before founding it. He led external affairs and advancement at three major institutions — Georgia Tech, UC San Diego, and Georgetown — and at each one, he didn't just hit fundraising numbers, he changed how those institutions thought about philanthropy altogether.
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Transcript
Introduction to Jim Langley
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome back. I'm Dan Montoya, Vice President of University Relations and Development and CEO of the Long Beach State Foundation. And today I'm joined by someone I'm generally honored to call a thought partner, Jim Langley.
00:00:34
Speaker
For anyone listening who doesn't know Jim, I want to take a minute because his background matters for everything we're about to discuss. Jim is president of the Langley Innovations, and he spent 30 years in higher education advancement before founding it.
00:00:52
Speaker
He led external affairs and advancement at three major institutions, Georgia Tech, UC San Diego, and Georgetown. And at each one, he didn't just hit fundraising numbers, he changed how those institutions thought about philanthropy altogether.
00:01:10
Speaker
At Georgetown, he led an initiative that interviewed thousands ah of alumni around the world to uncover what he calls their animating passions and connected those passions to the new university's mission.
00:01:26
Speaker
And that work helped launch a campaign that raised over $558 million.
Jim Langley's Contributions to Philanthropy
00:01:31
Speaker
At UC San Diego, he led the university into what was, at the time, the largest campaign ever attempted by a post-World War II institution, a billion-dollar campaign.
00:01:45
Speaker
At a school, people said didn't have the alumni base to support it. He also is the author of five books, including his most recent, The Future of Fundraising, Adapting a new philanthropic realities adapting to New Philanthropic Realities.
00:02:04
Speaker
And he's written extensively on exactly what we're here to talk about to today, including a piece for AGB's trusty magazine called Cultivating a Culture of Philanthropy.
00:02:16
Speaker
So there is generally no one better to have with us this afternoon to have a conversation with Jim.
Building a Culture of Philanthropy
00:02:24
Speaker
Jim, thank you for being here. Thanks so much, Dan. I'm honored to partner with you and with Long Beach State, which I think is just so full of potential.
00:02:32
Speaker
It's so nice for you to be here. And i want to just have a discussion with you. And really just, we just had the board retreat. We talked about a cultural philanthropy. We talked about a lot of that stuff.
00:02:44
Speaker
And, ah you know, our foundation board has continued to grow and evolve. And I just really want to, you know, highlighted a lot of those themes because I know as you consult around the country, you talk about this stuff and you've talked about it in your books and some of the stuff you've you've worked on with AGB and so on and so forth. But, um you know, the foundation board is talking about something that doesn't get talked about enough in our field, culture.
00:03:15
Speaker
ah No campaign, not campaigns, not gift tables, not so solicitation strategies like we talked about today, but culture, ah specifically what it means to build a genuine culture of philanthropy on a university campus.
00:03:31
Speaker
Jim, um let's let's dive into that.
Defining Cultural Philanthropy
00:03:35
Speaker
You bet, Dan. I'm very encouraged by what I saw, and I would argue that it's the single most underinvested aspect that I see in higher education today. People want the results, the outcome, but aren't willing to invest in the time that it takes to listen and to build that culture. Almost no one wants to do the years of unglamorous work, person by person, building block by building block of building that culture. And I'm so encouraged that you and the team at the foundation is.
00:04:06
Speaker
Thank you. that's That's the whole conversation today. What is cultural philanthropy? Why does it matter? How do you actually build one? And maybe hardest of all, what does it look like when you've achieved it?
00:04:20
Speaker
ah I'd add a fourth question underneath all of those, Dan, and that's, which is, why should anyone outside the development office care about this? conversation. and And because I think the honest answer is a culture of philanthropy isn't really about fundraising at all.
00:04:39
Speaker
It's about institutional health. Fundraising is just the most visible symptom of whether it exists. That's perfect frame for where we're we're trying to go. and so So let's get into it, Jim.
00:04:51
Speaker
let's Let's start with a definition because I think people hear culture of philanthropy and assume it it just means a lot of people
CSULB's Philanthropic Approach
00:05:00
Speaker
give money. I mean, even with even with my team, when I talk about pipeline, they just they didn't really understand it. but When you talk about culture, it's a different conversation.
00:05:11
Speaker
Right. And that's the trap. Giving is an output of culture. It's not the culture itself. When I talk about a culture of philanthropy, I'm talking about an institution-wide belief held by students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the surrounding community.
00:05:27
Speaker
That philanthropy isn't something that happens to a university. It's something a university does and builds together with the people who care about it and positive social change. And I'd add to this that you know giving becomes more natural rather than being solicitated or forced or transactional.
00:05:46
Speaker
At CUSULB, the way we're starting to frame this ah internally is with five conditions. We want alumni to stay engaged, industry that stays invested, students who stay connected, community that remains responsive, and philanthropy that becomes more natural, not something we have to ask for over and over, but something that people want to be part of.
00:06:11
Speaker
That's the last phrase, want to be a part of. That's the key. Believing, belonging. That's the tell. In institutions with a real culture of philanthropy, you don't convince people that giving matters. They already committed to giving. They already believe in it. Your job shifts some persuasion to invitation. Let's seize this moment, this opportunity.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah, you know and and that shift changes everything about how a shop like mine operates. If you're constantly persuading, you're always playing defense, right? Chasing the next ask, justifying the case.
00:06:46
Speaker
If people already believe, your job becomes stewardship and connection. You're matching belief to opportunity, and that's really the goal. And I've seen this across dozens of campaigns now. The institutions that hit and exceed their goals aren't always the ones with the wealthiest alumni base.
00:07:04
Speaker
They're the ones where the president, the deans, the faculty, the frontline staff all understand they play a role in philanthropy, even if they never make an ask themselves.
00:07:15
Speaker
So, Jim, can you give us listeners a sense of what the absence of that looks like? Because I think it's easier understood to understand culture by seeing what's missing.
00:07:28
Speaker
Sure. I've walked into institutions where the development office is talented, well-resourced, doing everything right tactically. and the campaign still stalls. And when you dig in, what you find is the rest of the institution treats fundraising as something that happens somewhere else, an out-of-body experience, in some other building, by some other team. The provost doesn't think it's their job to say thank you to a donor. Dean see advancement as a service they request from Central, not as a shared responsibility.
00:07:59
Speaker
faculty view a development officer walking in their department as an interruption, not a partner. None of that's malicious. It's just the absence of shared ownership, Dan. And the amount of talented gift officers can, no amount of talented gift officers can fully compensate for that absence.
00:08:18
Speaker
You know, that's a big point, Jim. And I want to underline it for anyone listening who is in a in the development office, Culture of philanthropy is not URD job. It's not my job alone or my team's job alone.
00:08:34
Speaker
If a faculty member writes a thank you note to a scholarship donor, that's culture. If a student ambassador shares their story at an event, that's culture.
00:08:44
Speaker
If a dean makes one phone call to a donor to say thank you, no ask attached, that's culture. Absolutely. And the flip side is true, too. If your best fundraisers are the only ones who understand why philanthropy matters, you don't have a culture. right You have a department to which authority is delegated or responsibility is delegated.
00:09:05
Speaker
A very good department, maybe, but a department is not an
Metrics and Alignment with CSU Forward
00:09:10
Speaker
institutional culture. Right. so So let's define it plainly for our listeners. A culture of philanthropy is when the entire institution, not just the advancement office, understands values in a and actively participates in the building of relationships that lead to investment in the university's mission. It's a shared ownership.
00:09:32
Speaker
And it compounds naturally, organically. The part people underestimate, that's it. Culture doesn't show up in a year one. It shows up in year five, year 10 and beyond when your donor retention is high because people were never treated like an ATM. When your board is fully engaged because giving was modeled at the top, when a $38 million a year isn't a stretch, it's a checkpoint.
00:09:58
Speaker
Right. and And I'll add one more dimension because I think it matters for how we measure this internally. So a culture of philanthropy isn't just a feeling. You have to be able to see it in the data.
00:10:10
Speaker
Are we establishing real baselines for things like donor retention instead of guessing? i think that's one of the biggest challenges I see is people are just making decisions without looking at past history or or informed decisions.
00:10:24
Speaker
So are we tracking earned media impact instead of assuming people know our story? Do we know what's happening with our communication? Culture has to show up in the metrics or or it stays as an aspiration instead of a discipline, don't you think?
00:10:39
Speaker
That's an important corrective because I've seen the opposite mistake too, too many times. Institutions that treat culture as soft, unmeasurable thing, almost as an excuse not to hold themselves accountable.
00:10:51
Speaker
The truth is between culture is built through soft things, stories, relationships, trust, but it has to be verified through hard things, retention rates, participation rates, dollars, and time.
00:11:05
Speaker
You know, i Jim, I think, you know, you know, this is a good place to pause because I want to talk about why this matters. And specifically for a university like ours right now.
00:11:18
Speaker
um So why now? At our board retreat earlier today and really throughout this year's planning, we kept coming back to three things. First, we have a new presidential president who is leading ah President Blanchard's arrival is a real inflection point. And one of the things I feel strongly about is that a campaign has to be the university's campaign as a whole.
00:11:45
Speaker
Culture has to align with the vision. And right now we're in the window where that alignment gets set. And we heard about it today, and for you especially from the president, as to how we want to go about this planning and how he wants not just the university, but our board to be a part of that.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yes, that timing point matters more than people think. I've watched institutions try to build a campaign case ahead of a presidential alignment. It rarely goes well. You end up retrofitting the case to the president's priority later, which costs you momentum and, frankly, credibility. The institution that get this right treat a presidential transition as an opportunity to reset the culture, reawaken the culture, not just fundraising numbers.
00:12:31
Speaker
Yeah, i completely agree. I think the second thing we're aligned with is with the CSU Forward, which is the Chancellor's Office Strategic Plan. And the system-wide initiative you know asks us to engage 100,000 alumni ah through employment opportunities across the CSU system.
00:12:49
Speaker
So the culture we build here isn't to just isolate it to our campus. It's part of something larger. And I think that's that's that's impactful. It's a real asset for you. It means because the story you tell donors and partners isn't just help, CSULB. It's not desperate. It's a part of a system-level transformation. Social change in CSULD is where you can see it happen concretely. Donors, and especially corporate partners, respond to scale. They want to know their investment connects to something bigger than a single campus, even while it's producing something tangible in one place.
00:13:29
Speaker
You know, Jim, I think the third thing, and this is one I think gets underused. We have the numbers to back up the ambition. Over 415,000 alumni living and working in the greater l LA and Long Beach. We are ranked number one in the nation for social mobility. And 90% of our community views CSULB as a vital regional asset. I think this is huge for us. And and as we mentioned, that's 71% of our alumni within our region.
00:13:59
Speaker
That's scale, that's
Framework for Stakeholder Relationships
00:14:00
Speaker
impact. Those aren't vanity statistics, Dan. Those are proof points. Social mobility ranking tells a donor, your investment doesn't help just one student. It changes economic trajectories generally. And generationally, a community trust tells a donor, this institution has already earned credibility.
00:14:19
Speaker
I'm not taking a risk by investing here. That's what it tells the donor. That's a fundamentally different conversation than an institution that has to build trust from zero and hope that the donor responds.
00:14:31
Speaker
I think this is exactly why I've started saying CSULB is uniquely positioned to become the connective institution of this region. We sit in an intersection of industry, alumni, students, and community in a way very few universities do.
00:14:49
Speaker
You do, and you think in larger terms, in responsible terms, in contributory terms. That's very admirable. The connective tissue is the right language because it reframes the university's role.
00:15:01
Speaker
You're not a place that receives support. You're a hub that makes that an entire regional ecosystem work better. I'd go further. In a region like Long Beach, with the port, with the industry base that you have, a university that positions itself as connective tissue rather than the recipient or entitled recipient of charity has a much stronger long-term position than one that that does it. Much stronger.
00:15:26
Speaker
You know, I think that distinction, that connective tissue versus recipient of charity is exactly the reframe we're trying to get from our board and our campus partners to initialize. um You know, I'm excited.
00:15:39
Speaker
You should be, which brings us then to the how, because it's the thing to say we want a culture of philanthropy. It's another to actually build one. So Dan, walk me through how you're actually building this at CSULB, because build a culture is a kind of phrase that sounds great in a retreat, and it means nothing without a framework behind it.
00:16:01
Speaker
You know, I thought a lot about this and, you know, you know i I think the framework we use is what I call relationship pathway. um You know, I've had an opportunity to speak with my staff and when I mentioned pipeline, a lot of them would would would tell me, I'm not a fundraiser. What does that mean?
00:16:19
Speaker
But I think really what it is, the relationship pathway is how we take people on a journey to build a relationship. And I think it's built of five stages. So I would say awareness, pride, connection, participation, and trust. And that's really that's really the journey.
00:16:36
Speaker
I like that vision, Dan. So walk me through each one of those. Okay, great. Well, awareness is the foundation. People cannot support what they do not see exist. So I think communication, is I've always said, is the beginning of the pipeline.
00:16:52
Speaker
So communications, marketing, brand visibility, public relations, d digital engagement. Before anyone can care, they have to know what you're doing. And we heard it at the board meeting today.
00:17:06
Speaker
they want to They want to know more about how we position ourselves differently. here at the university. Exactly. And the mistake I see institutions make here is treating awareness as a marketing department problem instead of an advancement problem.
00:17:21
Speaker
But if your alumni don't know what's happening on campus, you will never move them further down that pathway. Right. No matter how good your gift officers are. I'd also add awareness has a shelf life.
00:17:32
Speaker
It's not there in perpetuity. It's not something you build once. It has to be continuously refreshed because people's attention resets constantly. Right. And I think the next stage, stage two is pride. You know, the emotional connection.
00:17:48
Speaker
Student success stories, academic excellence, athletics and school spirit. Alumni achievements. You know, pride is what turns awareness into caring. This is where people start to say, I'm proud to be a Beach alum. i'm I'm proud of having spent time on this campus.
00:18:07
Speaker
So important. And pride, in my experience, is usually a stage institutions already have some of, whether they realize it or not. The work is often less about creating pride and more about surfacing it, reviving it, giving people places to express it.
00:18:23
Speaker
I've sat in rooms with alumni who've been back to campus, who haven't been back to campus in 20 years. And the moment you give them a chance to talk about what the institution meant to them, The pride is right there, fully intact. right It never left. It just had nowhere to go, nowhere to be expressed.
00:18:41
Speaker
You know, that's a great point. And it leads to stage three, which is connection. You know, mentorship, networking, events, faculty engagement. This is where someone stops being a name on a mailing list and becomes part of the community, and which is which is critical.
00:18:58
Speaker
It's also, frankly, where most and institutions underinvest. It's expensive in time and staff to build real connection. at scale, but it's the hinge point of the whole pathway. Skip it and you're asking people to jump straight from I feel good about my alma mater so i make up tell till I will make a major gift with nothing in between.
00:19:20
Speaker
That's the gap that kills a lot of solicitations before they start. The donor feels like a stranger being asked for a favor instead of a friend being asked to help with something they already care about.
00:19:35
Speaker
Right. and And again, we want this to be natural, right? So it it shouldn't shouldn't be forced. And I think the next phase is the participation. This is where they start to feel comfortable with you when they move from being observers to being contributors, volunteering, advisory boards, hosting interns, career panels.
00:19:55
Speaker
This is where belief turns into action. And I think it it allows donors to turn the corner. And I'd add that participation doesn't have to mean money. We're wrong to conflate the two.
00:20:08
Speaker
That's a critical distinction. participation Participation can be time, experience. It can be a whole host of things. And so the gift, when it comes, is often the last thing that happens, not the first. In fact, some of the strongest major gifts the and major gift donors I've worked with over the years have gave time and expertise for years before making that very significant financial commitment.
00:20:33
Speaker
The commitment of time built the conviction that eventually the commitment that eventually became that commitment of capital. You know, and and then we get to the magic moment, trust, right?
00:20:47
Speaker
This is the destination, right? this is the This is the place that people say, how can I help? And it's built through consistency, transparency, accountability, and measured outcomes.
00:20:59
Speaker
you know And then ah and what what leads with it is stewardship, delivering on the promises we make, showing people that the outcome of their investment is impactful and that we are going to be good stewards of it.
00:21:15
Speaker
stages the Trust is the stage. It makes everything durable without it. Participation stalls out. People give once, which we're seeing a lot of, and don't come back.
00:21:25
Speaker
where they get involved and quietly drift away because they never saw evidence that their time or gift actually mattered. And that's heartbreaking. And trust is fragile. takes a long time to build and it can break very easily in a specific way. It takes you years to build and one broken promise to damage it all.
00:21:44
Speaker
That asymmetry is why stewardship can never be treated as optional or secondary. right and And again, this pathway is is ah a really simple journey that people can can adapt to to really build those relationships. So we've distilled this into five lessons for our own team and for our board. and And you saw the reception that they received from it. So pride is strong. People already care. The biggest gap is between caring and acting. And we have to move people, not just hope they move themselves, but
00:22:20
Speaker
Different people want different things and participation has to be personalized. our Our job is really to help people take the next right step, whatever that step looks like for them.
00:22:33
Speaker
And trust is earned together and sustained through consistency and care. It's it's it's a simple formula, but it has to be a delicate dance.
00:22:44
Speaker
For sure, that last lesson is the one I'd tattoo on the wall of every advancement office in the country if I could. Trust, earn, together. Not by the institution alone and not by the donor alone. Together.
00:22:57
Speaker
I'd only add this pathway isn't linear in practice the way it is on a slide. People move back and forth. Someone can be in deep participation on one project. and still be building basic awareness on another part of the institution they don't know well yet.
Integrating Philanthropy into Strategy
00:23:13
Speaker
The framework is a map, not a straight line. Yeah, and I appreciate that because you're you're absolutely right. You know you can bounce from any one of those at any given time. And usually in the development world, it's it's cyclical, right? Because you go from... You know, the discovery, the qualification, to cultivation, solicitation, stewardship, and it it repeats. So that's an important point that you point out and exactly why we train our team to think about where an individual donor sits on the pathway of each relationship they have with us. Not just assign one label to the whole person, but really look at the individual and what they want to do.
00:23:56
Speaker
Right, which is the perfect bridge to the next piece, because once you understand the pathway, the question becomes, what kind of relationship are you actually building at the end of it?
00:24:07
Speaker
Right. And before we move to a shared partnership, which is complementary of the relationship pathway, I want to pause on something practical because I think there are a few myths about the culture of philanthropy that trip us up in advancement and good advancement teams.
00:24:25
Speaker
So, Jim, what's the biggest one that people run into in terms of of tripping over? The biggest one by far and away is the assumption you need a lot of money already in the room before you can start this work.
00:24:39
Speaker
Boards sometimes think we'll build a culture once we have a few lead gifts secured. Once we look more like a campaign-ready institution, it's backwards. You build the culture first precisely because you don't yet have the lead gifts. Waiting for proof before you invest in culture is how institutions stay stuck. And I think you're right because even today we talked about like a future campaign and you can have all the tactical stuff you want and the strategies. But if that culture doesn't exist and people don't understand where it's driving to and how to do it, it's it's a lost, i don't want to say it's a lost cost, but it's a lot of lost energy.
00:25:20
Speaker
The second myth I ran into constantly is that the culture of philanthropy is only about major donors, right? The assumption is that if you're not wealthy, you're not really part of this conversation. And that's not the case.
00:25:34
Speaker
Now, the more ubiquitous the participation, the more ubiquitous the feeling of being in that culture is exactly what you're striving for. And to think that it's just about wealthy people and the participation of a few at a very high level is actually corrosive because it teaches your own community to opt out. A $25 annual gift from a young alumnus who just started their career, given consistently for 10 years, is doing exactly the same cultural work.
00:26:03
Speaker
Cultural work is a lead gift from a principal donor. It's an act of belief. Treat it that way publicly, and you'll be stunned by how many of those small, consistent donors become your next generation of major donors, Dan. But that's where so much of higher education in the nonprofit world is faltering. You know, we just talked about that too, about those donors who have given 20, 30, 40 years. that's a That's a huge opportunity for many shops.
00:26:31
Speaker
And a third one, you know, third point that we want to talk to is the one about close to home for us. It's treating governance and administrative work like board composition or committee charters as separate from fundraisings. We touched on this earlier, but it's worth naming directly as a myth.
00:26:49
Speaker
Governance is not fundraising, but it is. Completely agree, Dan. And a fourth myth, maybe the most dangerous one, believing that a strong communications and marketing function can substitute for real relationship building. I've seen institutions with beautiful brand campaigns and no substantive culture underneath them.
00:27:10
Speaker
Awareness without the other four stages of the pathway is just
Collaborative Ecosystem at CSULB
00:27:15
Speaker
noise. It might make people notice you. It won't make them trust you. Yeah, any other flags before we move on? Sure, one more. and It's a subtle one. The myth that culture is the president's job or the VP's job or the board chair's job, that it lives at the top and trickles down. In practice, culture is built and sustained at every level simultaneously, or it doesn't take hold at all. Leadership can model it and demand it, but it can't manufacture it alone. That's a good list to have named out loud because I think every one of those myths has cost some institutions some real time and real money.
00:27:56
Speaker
So let's get back to the model itself, the shift from transactional giving to shared partnership. This is where I think the biggest mindset shift has to happen. And it's something we've been very direct about with our board and our team.
00:28:10
Speaker
There's a traditional model of institutional advancement, and it's transactional. The university asks and the community gives. And it doesn't work. And to be fair, Dan, to that model, it's not wrong exactly. It's worked for decades, but it has the ceiling.
00:28:28
Speaker
Right. And the model we're moving toward is what we're calling shared partnership. You know, really thinking about calling our donors as partners or investors. Yes. And the university its partners create value together.
00:28:44
Speaker
It's not give to us. It's let's build together, something together. And here's what each of us brings to the table. And more importantly, we see this in like industries, right? And and around Long Beach and what we're trying to build is, you know, we've sat down with some Space Beach companies and said, you know, what are you looking for?
00:29:03
Speaker
in our graduates and what's missing? How can we add value to that? And the fact that they respond and they say, here's what we need, that's the kind of partnership we're we're really talking about.
00:29:14
Speaker
and it's so wise, Dan. want to underline how significant that distinction is because it's not just rhetorical. In a transactional model, the donor's role ends up when the check clears. In a shared partnership model, the donor's role continues. They're connected to outcomes. They see themselves in the ongoing story, not just the originating gift.
00:29:36
Speaker
Yes, we think about this through what we call the shared partnership ecosystem, right? Students bring opportunity and experience and success. you know Faculty and staff bring research, teaching, innovation, education.
00:29:50
Speaker
Our alumni bring connection, mentorship, investment. You know, an industry brings talent, innovation, and growth. and And again, we can't forget community that brings impact, solutions, and advocacy.
00:30:01
Speaker
And careers and workforce brings employment, mobility, and prosperity. And all these things are opportunities. Six groups, and what I like about that framing is that none of them are purely givers or purely receivers. Everyone in that ecosystem both contributes and benefits. That's the way it should be. That's what makes a sustainable rather than an extractive.
00:30:30
Speaker
culture institution. I've worked with institutions that describe their donors purely as a resource to be tapped over and over again, and you can feel that language leak into every interaction even when no one intends it to.
00:30:47
Speaker
The ecosystem language forces a different posture, a different attitude. And practically, for someone wondering how they actually plug into that ecosystem, we've defined five ways in collaborative strategic building partnerships that advance shared goals, you know invest, support student programs, research and innovation to engage with us, connect with students, faculty and initiatives to be the champion for the university and amplify the institution's impact in your own networks.
00:31:22
Speaker
And most of all, sustain ah long-term commitments that ensure lasting progress. Yes, and notice only one of those five is really about money.
00:31:34
Speaker
That's intentional and it's smart. It's the only door you offer people. If the only door you offer people is to write a check, you'll only reach people who are already wealthy and already convinced.
00:31:47
Speaker
Offer five doors and you build a much larger base of people moving through them. Your pathway, some of whom become major donors five or ten years down the road because they started as a mentor,
00:32:00
Speaker
or an advisory board member. And we talked about this today that even with our board is like the actual ask is the smallest part of the overall cultivation and relationship.
00:32:12
Speaker
which is really the whole argument for shared partnership over transactional asking. It's not just a nicer way to talk about the same relationship. It's a wide funnel and a deeper one, don't you think?
00:32:25
Speaker
It's so overrated, that ask. What you're talking about is one that's much more incorporative. It offers a different kind of model, a different kind of thinking that's long-range and full. In my experience, that's what will sustain a culture, that attitude and commitment to it. Transactional relationship fatigue.
00:32:45
Speaker
But donors who are feel like they're making an impact never complain about fatigue. Who feel they're a part of a community never complain about fatigue, right? So that's the distinction. The difference between ask, ask, ask and bringing people in as ongoing partners creates a very different dynamic, one that people want to stay a part of because it so benefits them and gives them so many psychic rewards.
00:33:09
Speaker
And I think that you know as as these things evolve and as relationships evolve and the strategies evolve, you know the a development shop gets better. And I think that's a piece of our industry and community partners respond to the most honestly. When we talk to a corporate partner about workforce development, we're not asking them to make a donation.
00:33:32
Speaker
We're asking them to help us build a talent pipeline that benefits their business directly while also transforming students' lives. You know, that's shared value. That's not charity. And I think when, you know, a lot of these C-level folks are are alumni, right? And they get it. They understand the pathway from graduation to industry, and they want to help the next generation of leaders.
Governance and Board Participation
00:33:58
Speaker
And that reframing so changes who shows up to the table. Charity attracts people who feel obligated. Shared value attracts people who see opportunity. Those are very different rooms to be fundraising in.
00:34:12
Speaker
Which brings me to the group I probably think about most in the conversation, and that's our board. We were very deliberate at this retreat about not letting culture of philanthropy be an abstract for our board. We gave them four specific things, give, 100% board participation, and giving at a level that personally is meaningful. you know We asked them to connect, identify two or three prospects to make a warm introduction or connect us to.
00:34:42
Speaker
Most importantly, to be our champion, to tell our story, to show up, to be visible. And then we ask them to help us to grow the board, to help us recruit new board members and complete our governance work. And, you know, I'll tell you, Jim, I'm so excited about the direction of our board and we have the right players on board, which I think is critical to most shops because...
00:35:03
Speaker
A lot of times the intentionality in recruiting is so critical to how fast that culture is built and how fast those partnerships get built. And more importantly, how fast they understand the importance of what a campaign could be.
00:35:19
Speaker
Absolutely. And I'd push it further for listeners who serve on boards themselves. A board that doesn't give 100% sends an unmistakable signal to every major donor prospect and prospect. Even the people closest to the institution aren't fully brought in. Deep-pocketed prospective donors do the math, whether they say so or not, out loud.
00:35:43
Speaker
It's not about the size of the gift. It's about the statement, right? And and and and obviously that varies it for for different types of gift and different type of donors. But, you know, it's so important to, you know, not take anything for granted because you never know. Sometimes the biggest donors give you a test gift to see what you're going to do with it.
00:36:02
Speaker
and Correct. And I've seen boards get hung up on that distinction. They think 100% participation means everyone has to give a transformational gift. It doesn't. It means everyone has to give something that's meaningful to them because the message to the outside world is about unity, not about size.
00:36:22
Speaker
And I'd extend the everyone owns culture idea beyond the board. you know Back to what you know we talked about earlier. It's the front desk staff member who greets our alumnus warmly. It's the faculty member who takes 10 minutes to write a real thank you note.
00:36:40
Speaker
a handwritten note. It's the student ambassador who tells their story at an event without being asked to make a pitch. And I think involving everybody is critical.
00:36:53
Speaker
That's where a lot of institutions get the sequencing wrong. They try to build a campaign readiness first, and a culture is an afterthought, a nice-to-have if there's time.
00:37:05
Speaker
It should be the other way around, as you know, Dan. Culture is the infrastructure. The campaign is what you build once that infrastructure can hold the weight. You know, which is why exactly the language I've been using internally, that the systems relationship and culture we build this year are the infrastructure that makes a transformational campaign possible. And, you know, what's what's beautiful about this, Jim, is that you've been on this journey from the beginning.
00:37:33
Speaker
And so you've seen how we've grown and I'm excited about where we're going. I've seen a lot, and I've been fortunate to see as much as I have. I've watched institutions launch feasibility studies, Dan, before that infrastructure existed, and I've watched what happens. The study comes back soft. The case doesn't land the way it should. And worse, you've spent the goodwill of your best prospects on a conversation that wasn't ready to happen yet.
00:38:00
Speaker
You don't get a second first impression with your top 50 prospects. You're absolutely right. And then, which is why we've been very disciplined about the language internally. We are preparing for a future feasibility study and we are not initiating one.
Mature Philanthropy Culture
00:38:15
Speaker
And that's a deliberative sequencing choice. This year, that means preparing our foundation board and our academic affairs leadership Growing the board itself, strengthening governance, making sure the case and the campus priorities are actually aligned before we ask anyone to test them externally.
00:38:37
Speaker
It's the right one. Patience at this stage isn't slowness, it's precision, it's preparation, I'd add for any board member listening. Governance work, like comeding ah sorry like completing committee charters or growing board membership, often feels like it's disconnected from fundraising. It isn't. A feasibility study consultant, like I am, will look at a board structure and governance as one of the first indicators of whether an institution is actually ready to make a campaign scale ask. It's part of the case, whether it's written into the case document or not.
00:39:15
Speaker
And that's a point I don't think gets made enough. you know Governance, even though it's boring, governance is fundraising infrastructure, not a separate administrative ask.
00:39:26
Speaker
And the more that you fine-tune it, the smoother it's going to go. Right. So let's talk about the other side of patience. What does this actually look like when you've done it? When a culture of philanthropy is genuinely teave, what does that look like? This is a question I get asked by most boards and cabinets.
00:39:44
Speaker
How will we know when we've arrived? I think the honest answer is you never fully arrive, and you never want to because culture has to be sustained continuously, and you want to be constantly committed to it.
00:39:56
Speaker
But there are signals. You know, and I'd point to a few concrete instances for us and where where this is actually starting to shape up. You know, this year, our goal is $42 million in major and principal and planned gifts, up from 36 last year. You know, that number matters.
00:40:17
Speaker
But what matters most to me is that it's the strongest fundraising year this past year, 63 million in our division's history, and it's being built on things that didn't exist a year ago.
00:40:29
Speaker
A real donor retention baseline, an earned medium measurement model, a CRM that at is actually giving us usable data. And we are building a culture of philanthropy within our division first. Yes.
00:40:47
Speaker
And that's the yield. You're talking about the yield of a culture you've already built, Dan, and that we're still working on and needs to be further built out. But those infrastructure pieces are exactly the kind of thing that doesn't show up in a press release or giving totals, but actually shows up where campaigns succeed over time, usually five years later.
00:41:08
Speaker
And culturally, I point to our boards growing from 14 to 20 members, moving towards 100% participation, completing every committee charter. That's glamorous work. That's not glamorous work, but it's exactly what kind of unglamorous work you referenced early that makes everything possible. I always say that success is created in the mundane because if you show up every day and you and you put in the work, the right work, success will eventually come.
00:41:37
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And what I'd add from having watched dozens of institutions go through this is, you know a culture of philanthropy is achieved when giving stops being something the Advancement Office has to explain and starts being something the community explains to each other.
00:41:54
Speaker
When a faculty member tells a colleague why they give, when an alumnus brings a friend to a donor event without being asked, when a student who received a scholarship becomes, 10 years later, that person funding one.
00:42:07
Speaker
Right. And that's the compounding effect we talked about earlier that is very tangible in its form. Exactly. And when you reach that point, Dan, the campaign itself becomes almost a formality, not because the work is easy, but because the belief already exists. You're not creating demand, you're channeling it.
00:42:28
Speaker
Right. And I'd also point out to something quieter, but just as telling when a culture of philanthropy is really working, the requests start coming to us instead of only us originating them.
00:42:42
Speaker
You know, a department asking us how they can get more involved with donor stewardship. a dean asking to be part of the solicitation, not because we recruited them, but because they want to be in the room.
00:42:54
Speaker
you that's That reversal, where the pull comes from within the institution rather than from the development office, is one of the clearest signs I look for. And, you know, I'm starting to see that.
00:43:08
Speaker
As well you should. it And it connects to something I've come to believe in over 20-plus years of doing this kind of work, the healthiest advancement shops, eventually make themselves less indispensable in the day-to-day sense because the behaviors they've spent years teaching become instinctive across the institution.
00:43:27
Speaker
That's not a loss of relevance. It's a whole point of what we're trying to achieve. And I think this is why the way I started framing this to our team and our board, in this single sentence, the relationship pathway is how we engage.
00:43:46
Speaker
Shared partnership is how we begin. And a culture of philanthropy is really how we endure. I'd add one thing to that, Dan, if you let a consultant editorialize for just a second.
00:43:59
Speaker
Everything we've talked about today, the pathway, the shared partnership model, the board's role, all of it in service of one outcome, that's bigger than any single campaign number. It's an institution where support for the mission is durable enough to survive a change in leadership, a change in economic conditions, and even a change in advancement staff.
00:44:22
Speaker
That's what achieved actually means. Not a dollar figure, durability. I think that's exactly right, Jim. And it's a good place to bring us home.
00:44:33
Speaker
Before we close, I want to do something quick for anyone listening who's early in their journey than we are. you know And I want to add some rapid fire short questions you know to you, Jim, and and so you can answer and and give some further insights. So The first one would be, what's the very first move for an institution that has no culture of philanthropy to speak of yet?
00:45:01
Speaker
Get your president and your board in a room and agree out loud on the five conditions Dan described at the top of this conversation. You can't build toward alignment because no one has actually agreed to it.
00:45:13
Speaker
That's a great point. And the second question, what's the fastest way to kill early momentum on this kind of work? Ask for a major gift before you've built connection. It's the single most common unforced error I see.
Advice and Future Prospects
00:45:27
Speaker
Right.
00:45:27
Speaker
And third, how do you get s skeptical s skepticptical faculty on board? Easy. Don't ask them to fundraise. Ask them to say thank you. That's it. That's the whole on-ramp for most faculties.
00:45:41
Speaker
Great. The fourth one, what metric should every institution be tracking that it usually isn't? Donor retention rate broken out by gift size. Most shops obsess over dollars raised and ignore whether the same donor comes back the following year. Retention is the truest matter measure of whether trust is actually being built.
00:46:02
Speaker
All right, Jim. One last one. If a board member listening to this only does one thing after hearing this episode, what should it be? make their own gift at whatever level is meaningful to them and tell one other board member what they did, why they did it.
00:46:19
Speaker
That single action alone does more cultural work than almost everything else on the list. Those are the five things anyone can act on this week. And so let's bring it home. So if you're listening to this and you're at another institution or or ah ah you're a donor, a board member, a faculty member wondering where you fit into all this, here's what I'd leave you with.
00:46:43
Speaker
Cultural philanthropy isn't built by an advancement office. It's built by the entire community that believes together that supporting the mission is worth doing. Continuously, not because they were asked once, but because they were part of it from the beginning and they helped to build it.
00:47:02
Speaker
And if you're an advancement leader listening to this, my advice is simple. Don't skip the pathway to get to the ask or the campaign. Awareness, pride, connection, participation, trust in that order every time.
00:47:17
Speaker
The institutions that try to shortcut it always end up circling back to do the work they skipped, usually at a much higher cost. For us at CSULB, this year is about proving that discipline out loud and hitting our $42 million dollars goal, growing this board and building the systems that make all of it repeatable, not just a one-time push.
00:47:40
Speaker
That's what gets us to a comprehensive campaign that's actually ready when the time comes instead of one where improvising things Instead of one that we're improvising our way through, i think one of the things that I always talk about is that we are building a culture of philanthropy that will raise ah increasing amount of money year after year after year. And it doesn't matter what whether we're in campaign or not in campaign, we'll know what our trajectory is every year. Yep.
00:48:16
Speaker
And I'll be honest, in all my years of doing this work, the institutions I'm most optimistic about aren't the ones with the biggest endowments. They're the ones having exactly this conversation out loud with their board before the campaign starts, rather than during it.
00:48:32
Speaker
That's rarer than it should be. You know, Jim, this has been a great conversation and always thank you. Thank you for being here and traveling to visit with us. Thank you for all your listening. i want to appreciate your wife and your family for allowing you to to come and spend time with us.
00:48:49
Speaker
More importantly, Jim, I appreciate the the times that we get to to brainstorm and, you know, ideate about different things and and really just, you know, talk about what Cal State Long Beach can be in the future. And, you know, we we continue to move along this journey and our planning and we continue to get to know you better. You can you get to know us better. And, you know, I truly appreciate your partnership and thank you for being here. Me too, Dan. It's a joy and a pleasure working with you and the good people.
00:49:20
Speaker
Go beach. Go beach.