Lockerby: There has been an increase in both the number of development officers and the professionalism of the field. Another thing I’ve noticed is an increase in the specialization of many development offices; everyone now tends to have a more specific role. And we also have been found by for-profit businesses that are interested in exploiting charitable incentives for their own gain. So, in some ways it’s a maturing profession.

Lockerby: The most successful activity in terms of completing gifts is one-on-one meetings. But in terms of getting to those meetings, our strategies are really all over the map. I believe in a direct mail program because it is effective in reaching one group of people. If possible, it’s also important to have ongoing advertising in an organization’s printed materials, be it an alumni magazine or a newsletter, because other people will get their information that way. Having a presence on the institutional Web site is also increasingly important. And there are organizations that successfully use broadcast media because their particular constituency gets information that way. It’s hard to point to one being better than the other. What really matters is that the nature of the message, however you get it out, should reflect the sorts of gifts you want. It is a mistake to try to “hook” someone with an incredibly provocative message, and then actually deliver them a very different follow-up and proposal.

Lockerby: Yes. The gift came about in the context of a pre-campaign discussion with a very close supporter of the institution who wanted not only to make a major philanthropic contribution but also make a significant leadership statement. He’s an alumnus who needed to consider his family and ultimately realized that he couldn’t do the kind of gift he wanted to do if he couldn’t somehow benefit his family as well as Dartmouth. Through a charitable lead trust he was able to use a portion of his assets to accomplish his charitable objectives while also providing well for his family. There was also a significant outright portion of his total commitment, so it’s really a sort of best-of-all-worlds gift story. It shows the real benefits of planning—that you can do more when you combine a variety of methods toward an ultimate goal.

Lockerby: I think for us it is tied to the fact that we are in a pre-campaign phase. We are dealing with people who are close to Dartmouth and want to support it, but who may see the numbers we are presenting as a stretch. We think we’re actually spurring a lot of the consideration ourselves as opposed to its coming from external factors. In this environment, the lead trust makes a lot of sense as the first step back from an outright gift commitment—from both the institution’s and the donor’s perspective.

Lockerby: I have seen a change in the assets donors use to fund their gifts. We are seeing less stock and more cash. I think economic uncertainty and the continued anemic markets cause people to choose assets that are different from those they were choosing 25-30 months ago when more donors still had huge capital gains.

Lockerby: Colleges and universities are blessed with a natural, lifelong constituency in the form of their alumni base. If you believe there’s a soft philanthropic economy coming, colleges, universities, and private secondary schools should be a little bit more resistant to the effects of that. On the other hand, events like September 11 show that it’s possible for people to immediately reorient their philanthropy, probably in the short term, toward acute perceived needs apart from higher education, and in that respect, educational institutions and other “traditional” charities are more behind the 8-ball. I think you can make an argument either way as far as how the current environment may affect fund development in higher education.

What any gift planner in any institution needs to remember is that what we do is really about people. It’s not about techniques and acronyms and fancy instruments. It’s really just about people.