Good Question

The accrediting team evaluating one of our extension sites for degree-granting status asked me, "How do you relate your development function to student learning outcomes?"

You mean other than finding people who love to give scholarships so students can get into the path of some learning outcomes to begin with? Paying professors and utility companies so there's a teacher and a context for learning outcomes?

In other words, I was adrift on the sea.

But it's a question I'll think about for a while. Maybe someone will ask again once I've got a cogent answer.

Fundraising with African-American Alumni Is Good Fundraising

I took away from this  seminar that African-American donors will hold us accountable to many of the same standards as other donors, but more stringently.

If African-American possible donors see themselves in our fundraising materials, and if they are given evidence that the racism they have experienced from the institution is being dealt with, the rest is just good fundraising. They care more about personal connection and evidence of results than white donors do, but we should be prepared to offer those to everyone.

Actively working with African-American constituents, which is the right thing to do, will, in addition, have the effect of making the institution better at everything we do.